The social housing reforms are just the latest in a series of sweeping changes to the way accommodation support is managed, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

Social housing overhaul – and a Lotto slip

A sweeping overhaul of social housing criteria is on its way, with housing minister Chris Bishop announcing that the minimum income-related rent contribution for social housing tenants will rise from 25% to 30% of income from April 2027 – adding an average $31 a week to 84,000 households’ costs. As the Herald’s Jamie Ensor reports, the reform also introduces a new needs assessment prioritising those with “severe and persistent barriers” to private housing, and explores duration limits for tenancies. Bishop says the current system is “unfair, costly and not targeted enough to those with the greatest need”.

Finance minister Nicola Willis tried to illustrate the fairness argument before quickly retreating. “At the moment people in social housing effectively have won the Lotto,” she told parliament. In a statement a few hours later, she said she regretted using the phrase.

The Greens’ Tamatha Paul said the government “has built on their despicable pattern of finding ‘savings’ in their Budget from the empty pockets of the poorest people in New Zealand.” Labour leader Chris Hipkins called the changes “cruel” and predicted an “absolute body blow to people who already can’t keep their head above water”, Anneke Smith reports for The Post.

Accommodation supplement also set for reform

The week before, the Social Security Amendment Bill was introduced in parliament, confirming changes to the accommodation supplement flagged in last year’s Budget. As RNZ’s Susan Edmunds reports, the bill raises the income threshold homeowners must contribute to housing costs before they become eligible for the supplement from 30% to 40% of income. For families with children, the estimated average reduction in entitlement would be $42 a week.

Social development minister Louise Upston says the calculation has not changed in 33 years and the bill “rebalances” support toward those with the greatest need. Child Poverty Action Group warned that even households meeting the new threshold would experience “deeper after-housing-cost poverty”.

The minister’s own housing arrangements have attracted scrutiny. Stuff’s Emma Ricketts and Jenna Lynch reported yesterday that Upston claims $1,000 a week in parliamentary accommodation allowance – $52,000 a year on top of her $320,600 salary – while jointly owning a Wellington apartment with no recorded mortgage debt. She declined to answer whether she would meet the 40% threshold she is seeking to enforce for other New Zealanders.

Emergency housing rule changes add to pressures

The housing pressures on New Zealand’s lowest income earners have been building for a while. Tighter restrictions on emergency housing, introduced in August 2024, have driven the number of households in emergency accommodation from a peak of 3,100 to 441 by September 2025. Eight months earlier, it announced its target of reducing the number of households in emergency housing by 75% by 2030 had been met five years early.

But as Derek Cheng reports for the Herald, the narrowing of the gateway has coincided with rising homelessness. Of 15 homelessness services surveyed for a ministerial briefing, 13 reported further increases in homelessness. “The Government has challenged whether its emergency housing policies have contributed to rising homelessness,” Cheng reports. “But it concedes it has no information on the living arrangements for about 20% of those who have moved out of emergency housing.”

A different kind of housing cost

Meanwhile, the move-on orders legislation received its first reading on Thursday. The bill would allow police to order anyone aged 14 or over – including rough sleepers and passive beggars – to leave a public space for 24 hours, with refusal carrying a fine of up to $2,000 or 90 days in prison. The Ministry of Justice advised limiting move-on orders to aggressive behaviour only; the government proceeded with a scope that includes rough sleeping and non-aggressive begging.

Christchurch city missioner Corinne Haines, speaking to The Press’s Sinead Gill, called potential imprisonment “the most expensive form of emergency housing” in the country – a description the figures bear out. Writing in The Kākā, Bernard Hickey calculated, using Corrections’ own data, that 90 days in prison costs $49,680 per person at $552 a night – more than twice the $233 per-person per-night cost of motel accommodation the government closed down to save $156 million. “We’ve got all these wraparound services that we could help them with,” said Haines. “Penalising them is not going to bring them into our services to help sort things out.”