A review of Kāinga Ora’s financial position

In early 2024 CPAG, along with Public Housing Futures, created A People’s Review of Kāinga Ora to tell a different story about public housing and the important role it plays in providing stable and truly affordable homes to people, and thriving communities. The groups have also analysed Kāinga Ora’s finances, to help understand the reason the agency was in debt.

Kāinga Ora was forced to borrow and sell off land in state housing neighbourhoods in order to pay for years of neglect. 

Kāinga Ora, under the previous government, began to build houses again and it is important to maintain this in order to achieve a greater presence of public rental housing in the housing landscape.

“If we put things into perspective, the debt that Kāinga Ora has is essentially an accounting convention. The government could have funded it as equity. This debt is Government-backed so its current level is unlikely to concern financial markets, and its so-called sustainability depends entirely on a political choice by the Government to support Kāinga Ora and its operations”, says Alan Johnson, housing spokesperson for CPAG.

The Government has already announced plans which skew demand through increasing evictions, forcing people in emergency housing into private rentals, and suggesting even more landlord subsidies. At the same time, all over the country, Kāinga Ora developments have been put on hold, postponed, shrunk, reconsidered or cancelled.