How will giving away Housing NZ create more houses?

Community housing providers do a great job, and would like to offer their services to more families in need. The only thing holding back the expansion of community housing providers under the current model is lack of equity (capital). With the Housing NZ stock in their possession they would have land and the equity they need to develop it further. They would be able to do this far quicker than Housing NZ. Instead of selling houses as Housing NZ are doing we would expect the community housing sector to develop a mixed portfolio of rentals – including affordable market priced rentals. The unfortunate reality of government owned social housing is that various governments have used them as cash cows, taking income from them without investing in expanding social housing. Community housing providers would not face this problem, and would be better stewards of the government housing asset. Appropriate contracts and constitutions could be used to provide reassurance to all stakeholders.

For more information on how community housing providers do a better job than government at housing low income people, have a read of this article: http://www.top.org.nz/top_s_social_housing_policy