Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill

I move, That the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill be now read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: It gives me great pride to rise for the third reading of this bill. It is a small but important change for our region in Canterbury, indeed the wider South Island, and means that we have more people that are bringing their hands to the very important mahi of addressing the housing crisis that we have in New Zealand.

I do want to thank the members of the Social Services and Community Committee, who gave this bill a very good consideration when it went to committee and came back with some suggested changes, particularly around the winding up clause, that made the bill stronger. I also want to acknowledge my Cantabrian colleagues from across the House who have supported, and got their caucuses on board with supporting, what is a very sensible change, which has been driven by an organisation which I think we all know does some fantastic work in our city. I want to acknowledge the board and I want to acknowledge the staff at Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (OCHT), who do fantastic work housing some of the most vulnerable in our city with great empathy, and doing it in a way that does meaningfully change lives and makes lives better.

When we look through the explanatory note of this bill and we see the history of this, the deed was settled by its original trustees and we read through the names that are there: Vicki Buck, Andrew Turner, Paul Lonsdale, Alexander Michael George Skinner, Lloyd Matthew Mander, Pamela Joy Sharpe, and Stephen Leslie Phillips. These are some of the names of people in Christchurch who, for decades, have worked on the provision of public housing in our city.

To that, I want to use the opportunity of this speech to pay particular acknowledgment to three Christchurch city councillors who, over time, absolutely championed the cause of public housing in our city. David Close is a city councillor in Christchurch who fought every day of his life to make sure that Christchurch could continue to provide affordable rental housing to its citizens. I also want to acknowledge the work of Carole Anderton as a Christchurch city councillor and the work that she did around the provision of affordable rental properties. And the work of Phil Clearwater, who even in retirement continues to work in the field of community and social housing and ensuring that our citizens in Christchurch do have access to something that can be so transformative in their life. In fact, he sometimes misses our campaign meetings in Wigram to go off to board meetings on social housing providers, but Phil’s work continues.

I also would like to acknowledge the work that can be done now because of the passage of this bill. The impetus was simple. There were a group of mayors who were frustrated because while Canterbury was starting to operate a bit differently, particularly post-earthquake, in terms of seeing itself in Greater Christchurch, an area that transcended the local government boundaries and saw itself in Greater Christchurch that included bits of Selwyn and bits of Waimakariri. It was not within the ability of this trust to go and build housing outside of the city limits of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula. So they came to me as the Minister of Housing frustrated and asked me why we were stopping the trust building in their areas, to which I did tell them it was completely within their purview to change it, and the change needed to come from them.

I congratulate the mayors, Phil Mauger the Mayor of Christchurch, Sam Broughton the then Mayor of Selwyn, and Dan Gordon, the Mayor of Waimakariri, who came together to put together this proposal, and the trust that worked so closely with them. Because it is that provision of social housing that is so critical. It is the work that the trust has established itself as a property developer, its ability to build at scale, its ability to cut down costs while building incredibly attractive and warm, dry, and secure homes for its tenants because of the scale its building at, but also its innovation, that it is looking to operate outside of the limits of the income-related rent subsidy. What could it do to be a provider; could it provide affordable housing that wasn’t only for people who qualified for the income-related rent subsidy, but people more broadly who might be struggling with the cost of housing?

Also the OCHT was one of the first community housing providers to jump on board when our Government brought in shared equity funding for community housing providers in order to start thinking about ways in which we could bring people who otherwise would be excluded from homeownership into homeownership. These are all the kinds of innovative ways that the trust is looking at in terms of housing and what it can do.

It has been my absolute pleasure to bring this bill to the House. It has been my absolute pleasure to work with colleagues and I thank the House for the work it has done on it. I commend the bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I rise on behalf of the National Party. We’re very, very pleased to support the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill at the third reading. And my congratulations again to the member responsible, Megan Woods, for shepherding it through Parliament. It’s absolutely fantastic to see it pass its final stages this afternoon. I want to acknowledge the significant contribution that the trust has made to Canterbury over the years, and indeed look forward to the further significant contribution it’s going to make to wider districts across the region, but most importantly, the difference it will make to those people who will avail of its properties. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just before I take another call, just for the purposes of the people in the gallery, there have been a few questions this afternoon around cameras. The advice that I’ve been given is that there is permission for people to take photos during the valedictory only, but without a flash. So for those of you that want to take photos, that’s fine without a flash, but only when we get to the valedictory.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise at the third reading on behalf of the Green Party to support fully the member’s bill of the Hon Megan Woods, the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill.

I want to begin by acknowledging the people struggling out there, those who are living rough. The single mums with kids seeking safety and sleeping on their friend’s couch or in garages or in their cars. To the working families struggling to pay the rent or mortgage and to put food on the table.

To all the people who are overrepresented in homelessness: our disabled whānau; tangata whaikaha Māori; survivors of abuse in care; our rainbow community; trans people; people coming out of the justice system; kids who have been through State care, and, the fastest-growing cohort of homeless people in New Zealand, our seniors—those over 65 years old; incredibly worrying—women over 65, I promise the Green Party will keep fighting until you have a safe and stable home where you are warm and healthy and can wake up knowing where you are going to rest your head. To all the people out there who are holding on to hope and know that we have enough in our country for everyone to have the things they need, like housing: thank you. Thank you to the community advocates and housing organisations who are out there tirelessly with our communities, people who ask: what kind of country are we, where our elderly people are the fastest-growing cohort of homeless people?

It does not have to be this way. It is a political choice. We all need somewhere to call home, a place to rest, to share with our loved ones, to make a life, and to watch our kids grow up. In my hometown of Christchurch, we have incredible organisations and people caring for families and people in need of stable, long-term, healthy homes. It’s a basic human right.

The Green Party promises to fix renting to make healthy homes affordable for all of us and put the interests of people over profits. We will build tens of thousands more warm, sustainable, accessible, and affordable homes in places people want to live.

It’s organisations like the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust, Christchurch Collective for the Homeless—who I met with earlier this week at the Christchurch Community House; and kia ora, Whaea Brenda—the Christchurch City Mission, the Methodist Mission, Housing First, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahi, and campaigns like Doors to Dignity, that was launched in Christchurch to ensure all seniors are housed. These organisations and the people working at them are holding on to hope in times of political uncertainty. It’s people like local Christchurch nurse Pam Sharpe, the former deputy chair of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust, who are out there in the rain and the cold, checking in on our homeless communities day in, day out, building trust with people and giving people hope.

Stable, safe, and healthy homes are harder and harder for people to access. Far too many families are forced to pay through the roof to rent homes that make them sick, and a generation have been locked out of owning their own home. To quote the wonderful Pam Sharpe from the recent Frank Film called Housing the Homeless, on homelessness in Christchurch, “As a decent society, we need to let [people] know … we care”. “Homelessness”, she says, “is insidious. We’re a population of 5 million and we can’t get … housing right. There’s something very wrong.”

In Christchurch, the real issue is there are not enough homes, and we have a huge issue with Airbnbs being bought up even before the houses are complete and sitting empty, all while homelessness and housing insecurity increases. We have a massive issue of the proliferation of Airbnbs, and we need to change the rules and change the laws so we aren’t unintentionally putting profits over people having access to housing. We need to build more houses so we don’t have suburbs that are ghost towns.

I commend the the Hon Megan Woods for bringing this really important issue to the halls of power. Supporting community housing organisations like the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust is one of the ways we can meet gaps that leave people living in cars, tents, under bridges in Christchurch and around Aotearoa. Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust provide good quality houses at good value under budget, time and time again. They are warm and dry. They are so good at building houses—the Crown could learn a thing or two. This bill, to expand the regions that they can work in in Canterbury, just makes sense.

Often, we politicians, we stand here pontificating about what we think, so I want to read into the Hansard the real lived experience of someone who experienced homelessness in Christchurch and now, with the support of community housing organisations and wraparound support, is now a social worker who advocates and educates to make our communities safer for everyone. Her name is Rach Taane, aka DJ Axis, and these are her words. “Ōtautahi, and Aotearoa as a whole, urgently needs more housing. I think most of us can agree that. Safe, stable, affordable housing has to be the starting point, because people cannot heal, rebuild, parent, study, work, or feel safe when they have nowhere to live, because housing cannot stop at handing someone a key and hoping for the best. If someone has spent years surviving on the street, in unsafe homes, in State care, or moving through the systems that have harmed them, they need wraparound support, connection, life skills, trauma support, advocacy, community, and time to learn how to feel safe in a home again. Homelessness is intersectional. It is deeply connected to sexual violence, family violence, poverty, racism, State care, uplifts, addiction, disability, mental health, and intergenerational trauma. So many rangatahi on the street are not choosing homelessness. They have been taken from their whānau, placed in unsafe or abusive care settings, and have run because the streets feel safer than the system meant to protect them. That should all stop us in our tracks. These are human beings, not problems to move along—out of sight, not out of mind. Well, not for those with a heart and basic empathy for others, like those at Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust.”

In Rach Taane’s words: “I speak from lived experience. I ran from my pain after being raped at 14, and I was further harmed by authorities and my peers after I was blamed for it. I searched for comfort and escape through meth and codependent relationships. I couch surfed, lived in sheds, gang pads or anywhere I would end up. At 19, I was lucky to get a bed at St Marks rehab in Blenheim before I ended up dead on the street. Supported living taught me how to live again: how to cook, how to manage basic life skills, how to feel safe, and how to build a future. The therapists are who inspired me to give back and become the professional that I am today.” Thank you, Rach. Today, Rach is a social worker who has worked front line for 15 years alongside people of all ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, genders, and sexualities. She knows homelessness does not discriminate, that many of us are only one major health issue, accident, job loss, family breakdown, or crisis away from housing insecurity ourselves. The increasing rate of women over 60 finding themselves homeless is a brutal indicator of where we are heading. That is why we need more homes and we need the right support wrapped around people once they are in them. That is how housing becomes safety, not just shelter.

At a time when so many are needing community-focused housing, this bill is a welcome move. It means more housing across Canterbury being built with the wants and needs of our community in mind. Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust is a not-for-profit and Christchurch’s largest community and affordable housing provider. Thank you to the crew past and present at the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust for your care, for your manaaki and practical solutions that meet the needs of our communities.

The Green Party supports this bill, and we say thank you again to the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust. We look forward to hearing the success stories about our community members in warm, safe, dry homes.

Thank you. I rise on behalf of ACT to take a short call on the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill. I want to acknowledge the Hon Dr Megan Woods for bringing this private bill through the House. She’s obviously a Christchurch-based MP, and I think she’d be very pleased to have this done.

I just want to also acknowledge, actually, this has had the support of all the parties across the House—including today, which is quite unusual—special permission for the committee of the whole House, and then a third reading immediately to be done so we can get this done in this term of Parliament. ACT does support community housing trusts like this one. What we’re doing here today, which I’m sure has already been well canvassed, is altering the trust deed so that it actually can provide its important housing services to a larger geographic area in the Canterbury region. Actually, using community housing trusts such as this to deliver really important housing projects and community housing for New Zealanders is something that this Government has invested in, and it’s actually a really great way of doing it.

Again, I just want to acknowledge that this has had the support of all of the parties across the House. My colleague Laura McClure was on the select committee. I want to, again, say that we are supporting this, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, thank you. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of this bill—it’s common sense. I was going to make quite a long speech here, but I’m advised that we want to get through to speeches later on to get some other bills through, so I’m going to cut it a long way short. I just want to say congratulations to the Hon Dr Megan Woods for the work that’s been done there. Congratulations to Christchurch City Council for overseeing and establishing Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust in the first place and also for overseeing it and still having three trustees on the board. Congratulations to the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust for the work that they do. It’s not just about providing houses—they’ve build 401 to date as of June, I think it was—but also for the work that they do in looking after all of the tenants that they have there.

Look, I was going to make a lot of comments there, but I just wanted to say I know that there is a demand for their services outside of the Christchurch area. I’ve seen that demand. I had the pleasure of supporting the community of Upper Selwyn Huts when they were threatened with eviction by their own council. That council knew that many of those people in that community were on low incomes and would likely end up needing social housing. They also knew that they didn’t have any social housing. So they said, “Look, Government, you should be providing social housing in the Selwyn district area because it’s an area of high growth.” I did say to them, “Well, you’re not looking very clever if you’re wanting social housing provided in your area and you’re actually going to contribute more to the demand of it by removing these people.” Anyway, we saved that community, and that’s a fantastic thing.

Look, I think this bill is common sense, and in the interests of time, I am going to cut my speech a long, long way short and keep my National colleagues happy for once. I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The next call is a split call—Mike Davidson.

Kia ora e te Pīka. I rise on behalf of the Green Party also in support of this bill. I’ll take just a quick short call. Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Dr Megan Woods for her work on this bill and, of course, the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust, who have done an absolutely fantastic job over the years. It’s great to see that they’re going to expand beyond the boundaries of Christchurch City and Banks Peninsula.

I think we all know that Christchurch City Council has a proud tradition of being a provider of public housing. I think we just need to remember it was a then National-led Government that actually excluded councils’ ability to receive income-related rent subsidy that created this. I think, back in the day, that was an example of a National Government that did not value local government and councils—pretty much exactly what we’re seeing from this term of a National Government, where local government is once again treated poorly, which is such a shame from all the great things that local government can do and provide for their communities. In this instance, it was social housing. But, look, I think what Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust has done has been absolutely fantastic, and I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Joseph?

Joseph Mooney: Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The only reason I let this continue is because it’s a private bill; otherwise, I would have actually taken a vote just then.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise to make a very short call as the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee, which heard submissions on this bill. We made some recommendations on it, which have been accepted. I congratulate the Hon Dr Megan Woods for being the member who sponsored this private bill. I particularly want to give a shout-out to the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust for all of the very hard work they do and success that they’re doing. We worked very hard as a committee to get this through as quickly as possible and get it into the House. Obviously, this evening, we wanted to get through it as quickly as possible so this can be changed so that the community housing trust can get on with it. I was a little bit surprised by the length of time it took for the Labour Party to get through the committee of the whole House stage, but we’re here now. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, it’s a real privilege to be able to stand and take a call on this third and final stage of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill. As a Christchurch MP with the privilege of being the member of Parliament in Christchurch East, which is home to a large number of Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust homes and communities, it’s really great to be able to speak in support of this bill and be able to help to shepherd the bill through the House in this final stage to ensure that the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust can continue to do the amazing work that they do for our communities in Christchurch and in Ōtautahi, but be able to do that beyond Christchurch and Ōtautahi, which is ultimately the purpose of the bill.

I did want to start by commending my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods, who has done an extraordinary amount of work to bring this bill to the House and then to move it through and to ensure that, alongside our colleagues this afternoon, we could actually give it the proper stress testing that bills like this need in the House at the committee of the whole House stage. Whilst we could just rush this through, we have just in the last few weeks seen, potentially, the unintended consequences of what happens when we rush the lawmaking process in this House. In fact, some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders are left high and dry, often literally, at critical cold points of winter when their benefits are not received adequately and they are left without the funds that they need and without the means they need to be able to lead good lives, which is ultimately what we should be passing laws in this House to be able to achieve.

It is important that we give this bill, at every stage through the House this afternoon, the proper and adequate examination and scrutiny that it needs so that we know that, when we put it into place, what we have done is empower the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust to be able to continue to do their good work, not just in Canterbury but beyond Canterbury as well.

Ultimately, what this will do is allow them to build on their success to make even more communities stronger. That’s ultimately, since 2016, what the community housing trust has done once it was established. It was established by the city council to manage the community housing portfolio of the Christchurch City Council and to address the housing supply and affordability issues in Christchurch and in Banks Peninsula as well, which was to also include the remit of being through the development of new social housing. Recently, I was able to attend the opening of two new housing projects that the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust have completed in Christchurch, one being in Bromley, beside the Tane Norton Park, and the other being very close to the central city, just off Fitzgerald Avenue there in Linwood. These are fantastic new community housing facilities that will provide warm, dry homes for so many members of Christchurch. It will be very great to be able to see their work continue outside of Christchurch as well.

Now, we are faced with some very real challenges in the housing space in New Zealand at the moment. That’s no more real than in Christchurch East in the Bexley Wetlands, if you head up Wetlands Grove and meet Fire and her community, who are living in temporary housing structures—some living in cars, some in buses, some living under tarpaulins and under pallets. These are people who, despite what some people claim, are not camping in the red zone. These are people who are trying to survive because they cannot find, and there is not available, a warm, dry home for those people.

Now, this is crisis level in our communities now. We must all be seeing it, wherever we go. We see it in the Bexley Wetlands, with Fire and the community there, where there are estimated to be up to 80 people some nights calling that abandoned subdivision, with not a single house left, but just some sealed roads and some streetlights—they are now calling that space home. It makes it even more relevant why we need to be, in this House, empowering the likes of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust to build the communities and the homes that they have beyond the boundary of Ōtautahi Christchurch, because it is an issue and a problem that we are now seeing right across New Zealand. We need to do and should be doing everything we possibly can in this House to empower organisations like the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust to be able to build new homes for the people who so desperately need them.

Now, we’re supporting this bill; I don’t think we’ve made any secret of that, considering the fact that we brought it to the House—just in case you were under any illusions, I say to the Hon Dr Megan Woods, as to whether we would supporting the bill or not. I’m very pleased to confirm that we are supporting the bill.

I also wanted to acknowledge a community who have recently moved out of an Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust development in Christchurch East, and that’s the community that have called Mabel Howard Place home for close to 50 years now. That’s a development of single studio units, 40 of them, which were built a long time ago. They are no longer fantastic places to live, but nevertheless they have been really good homes for the people who have lived there, and in recent years, the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust has been managing a number of those residents to move out as those dwellings have no longer really been suitable for habitation. Any week now, that housing complex will be completely empty, and that will be the end of a really significant chapter for the community that have called it home over the last decades.

The really good news is that the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust will now see the redevelopment of that space, and that space has changed in the decades that it’s been there. That space is now adjacent to our City to Sea Pathway in Christchurch East. It’s adjacent to the Avon Park, and Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust have really exciting plans to build a mix of one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom homes that actually face out on to the new spaces and on to the park, and to create a really vibrant, diverse base for communities in that part of our electorate. It’s great to see that that is another example of the excellent work that the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust do. It’s another reason that we will be empowering this trust to operate beyond the geographic confines of just Christchurch.

Now, I did want to make special mention here—and, Madam Speaker, please bear with me. You will be aware that despite the amazing bill that we are passing, people are not necessarily crowding into the galleries for this bill this afternoon; they are, in fact, crowding into the gallery for a valedictory statement by one of our colleagues. This colleague often gives me a really hard time about how much funding goes to Christchurch and Canterbury, and so I think that it’s only appropriate not only that I stop talking but also that I acknowledge that I’ve been talking about a fantastic initiative outside of Canterbury that will actually take what they do out to the rest of New Zealand. I think Greg O’Connor would very much approve of that. Thank you.

This is a very common-sense bill which extends the geographic boundaries for Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust. Therefore, I commend the bill to the House.

Dan Rosewarne: Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh, there you are. I was looking for Dan Rosewarne, and you’re over there. I call Dan Rosewarne, but I’ll also just make the member aware that we’ve probably got about five minutes before the valedictory speech is due, and so you might not get a full 10-minute call.

No worries, Madam Speaker. As mentioned before, Labour is pleased to support our own bill in the third reading of the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust (Trust Variation) Bill. Now, this is a sensible bill that removes a legal restriction and allows a trusted housing provider to respond to housing need in more communities across the South Island.

The Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust was established 10 years ago by the Christchurch City Council and it has built a strong reputation for delivering community and affordable housing. It has grown to become the largest provider of community housing in the South Island. The track record is there, the capability is there, and the demand is there. The bill simply allows the trust to put that experience to work in places beyond Christchurch and Banks Peninsula.

We often talk about housing in terms of numbers—how many houses have been built, how many families are waiting, and how many homes are needed—but behind every number is a person. It might be an older New Zealander wanting to stay in the community that they’ve lived in for decades, it might be a young family trying to get ahead while juggling rent, groceries, and childcare, or it might be somebody who has had a rough run of things and just needs a stable place to rebuild their life. Having somewhere secure to live makes a huge difference, and when people know that they’ve got a roof over their head, they can focus on the things that matter. They can stay connected to work, keep their kids in the same school, and participate in their community, and that’s why organisations like Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust are so important.

I also want to acknowledge the wider community housing sector across Canterbury. There are a lot of good people doing some great work in this space: housing providers, support workers, volunteers, trustees, councils, churches, charities, and community organisations. Most of them don’t seek recognition and they certainly don’t want to make any headlines, but every day they make a real difference in people’s lives. Whether it’s in Christchurch, Kaiapoi, Rangiora, Ashburton, Timaru, or elsewhere across the region, community housing providers are helping people who might otherwise struggle to find a place that they can afford, and they deserve our thanks. I acknowledge Christchurch City Council for having the foresight to establish the trust in the first place and for recognising that housing challenges are best tackled through partnership and long-term thinking.

The Social Services and Community Committee has also done some good work on the bill. The amendments recommended by the committee strengthen the provisions around the treatment of assets if the trust were ever to be wound up.

On that note, I just want to acknowledge my good mate Greg O’Connor and the people who are assembled in the gallery today. You’re a good mate, and I look forward to hearing your valedictory statement. Thank you.

SPEAKER: I call on the always-succinct Carl Bates.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. National loves Christchurch. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.