March 19, 2024
Bishop orders Kāinga Ora to evict unruly tenants
The Government has issued a warning to antisocial Kāinga Ora tenants – play up and you will be evicted.
Housing Minister Chris Bishop has instructed the government’s public housing landlord Kāinga Ora, to stop using its sustaining tenancies framework the homelessness prevention measure put in by National when it was previously in Government.
He says an increase in antisocial behaviour in the past five months warrants a crackdown, with serious incidents up from about 200 a month from August to October last year to over 300 a month from November to January.
“Serious incidents include alleged illegal activity, harrassment, intimidation, threatening behaviour and verbal abuse. That is unacceptable. That is not the way people should live their lives. We don’t want to kick people out of Kāinga Ora properties. If you are a Kainga Ora tenant you shuld be behaving in the same way everybody else behaves in society,” Minister Bishop says.
He says sustaining tenancies hadn’t worked because there was no incentive for tenants to change their behaviour.
Neither Mr Bishop nor Prime Minister Christopher Luxon would say how many people they expect be evicted into homelessness, nor whether children would also be evicted with their parents.