Social housing

About social housing

Social housing is a vital part of our social support system, providing families, individuals and whānau with a stable, affordable place to live. Social housing is owned or leased by Kāinga Ora – Homes and Community (Kāinga Ora) or community housing providers (CHPs). It is targeted at households that are most in need of housing, who can’t access or sustain a tenancy in the private rental market for a range of reasons.

Increasing the supply of social housing 

Social housing is a vital part of Aotearoa New Zealand's social support system. The Government is committed to supporting the social housing system, and growing the CHP, while investing in a fiscally sustainable way.

See data about social and transitional housing on the Housing Dashboard

New social housing places for community housing providers

Budget 2024 allocated $140 million of new funding from the 2025/26 financial year for a total of 1500 new social housing places, over two financial years (2025/26 and 2026/27), to be operated by Community Housing Providers (CHPs).

Of the 1,500 social homes, 500 are being delivered through projects previously identified by CHPs as potential social homes. This is the “maintaining momentum” pathway and we expect to have finished allocating these places shortly

Strategic approach to delivering social homes

To make contracting more efficient, the Government is taking a new approach to delivering social housing through strategic partnerships. These partnerships will be used to allocate the majority of the remaining 1,000 places.

This will allow the selected providers to develop homes with more autonomy, provided they continue to meet our criteria for value for money and address local housing needs.

The five selected community housing providers include:

• Accessible Properties New Zealand Limited
• Community of Refuge Trust (CORT)
• Emerge Aotearoa Housing Trust
• Te Āhuru Mōwai Limited Partnership
• The Salvation Army.

The five community housing providers were chosen based on their capacity to manage and deliver quality housing projects across the nation.

This new approach marks a shift in the way we build long-lasting relationships with community housing providers. We aim to develop this new approach over time, including establishing new strategic partnerships with CHPs to deliver homes as needed.

Priority locations

The priority locations for strategic partner delivery are:

• Auckland
• Tauranga
• Hamilton
• Porirua
• Nelson and Tasman
• Rotorua.

They’ve been identified based on social housing need and emergency housing use in each area, along with housing market performance and CHP capacity and capability to deliver.

In addition, we’re supporting two community led approaches to deliver social housing in the Hawke’s Bay and Rotorua. We’ll be delivering around 150 new social homes in Rotorua under a new community-led approach with Rotorua Lakes Council (RLC) and  CHPs.

The Hawke’s Bay has been chosen as the other priority location due to the high level of need, with disproportionate numbers of people in emergency and temporary housing and on the social housing waitlist. The response to deliver a further 150 new social homes here will be led by the Hawke’s Bay Matariki Housing Leadership Group

Social housing design guidance for community housing providers and developers

In 2022, following work with the CHP sector and wider stakeholders, we published public housing design guidance for community housing providers and developers. While this Guidance was intended to be seen as ‘guidance’, rather than imposed standards, we would like to provide greater flexibility for CHPs and remove any barriers to faster delivery.

Download the Public Housing Design Guidance (PDF, 7.5 MB)

Partner with us

We’re committed to working in partnership with CHPs on new housing opportunities.

Read more about partnering with us

Access social housing

People can access social housing when they’re assessed by Ministry of Social Development as being in severe need of housing support and are placed on the Housing Register.

The Housing Register shows applicants who are eligible for, but not currently in, social housing who are ready to be matched to a suitable property. The register helps us understand who needs social housing, where the housing is needed and what kind of housing is needed. 

See the Housing Register (Ministry of Social Development)(external link)

How social housing is funded

Income-related rent subsidy

Most social housing tenants pay an income-related rent determined by the Ministry of Social Development, with the amount generally set at 25 per cent of their net income. 
 
We pay an income-related rent subsidy to Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities and registered community housing providers to cover the balance between the tenant’s rental payment and the market rent for the property. 

Read more about income-related rent subsidy

Operating supplement

The operating supplement is one of the ways we provide funding to Kāinga Ora and community housing providers to build more social housing..  

The operating supplement is a funding subsidy paid in addition to the income-related rent subsidy for eligible net new social houses to help enable new build supply. The operating supplement is calculated as a percentage of market rent up to a percentage cap. 

Read more about operating supplement