Five-year bar on State housing dropped

Press, 15 July 1987, Page 36

Five-year bar on State housing dropped

PA Wellington The Housing Corporation will drop a rule which bars people from State rental housing if they have owned a home within five years, says the Minister of Housing, Mr Goff.

The policy is one of several to be reviewed in response to a survey on women’s views on housing. Mr Goff said the fiveyear rule had already been softened and he expected it would be dropped soon. The rule was designed to give priority to those who had not owned homes, but strict application rules cut across the policy that assistance should be based on need, he said.

The main concerns which emerged in the survey, made last year, were access to housing after marriage breakdowns, access to home ownership for single women, the

special needs of Maori women and other groups, and the design of houses and communities.

Mr Goff said the Housing Corporation and the Ministry of Women's Affairs would now lead a group to look at broadening corporation assistance. The corporation had already extended mortgage help to single people older than 35 under its homestart and equity-sharing policies, he said.

But limited money meant it could not help single people under its general policies, or all those seeking secondchance finance.

The corporation would also continue to require immigrants to live in the country for a year before getting help with housing finance. Mr Goff said it was up to the corporation to lead the way with ideas which the private sector would hopefully. follow. The corporation is also considering:

• Extending the criteria for “granny flats” to include extra members or extended families, which could be particularly relevant to Maori and Pacific Island families.

• Helping Maori people to home ownership with a no-deposit scheme with whanau (extended family) responsibility for repayments.

• Reinstating programmes where the corporation lets houses to community groups, hospitals boards and local authorities for use as community or half-way houses.

• Looking at a scheme where assets from a previously owned property are held in a special home ownership account and where interest earned would not affect a Social Welfare benefit.

• Increasing publicity on the corporation’s policies.

Mr Goff said the survey was aimed at women because they had little impact on housing policy, design and finance. Submissions were received from 173 individuals arid 171 groups which included women’s organisations and community, church and welfare groups.