19345 (2025). Hon Kieran McAnulty to the Associate Minister of Housing

19345 (2025). Hon Kieran McAnulty to the Associate Minister of Housing: What were the primary reasons for the Ministry of Social Development's inability to continue with phase one of the early interventions programme?

Hon Tama Potaka: The Ministry of Social Development (the Ministry) has implemented a range of changes in the housing system in the last year to support achievement of the EH target, and highlighted that these changes need time to bed in. The Ministry will be better placed to fully understand potential need, and whether any new processes or changes are required, if more time is given to understand how the changes are interacting with each other, and once planned evaluations of those measures have taken place. The Ministry has acknowledged that limitations on its frontline capacity was a consideration when recommending not to progress phase one. However, it is important to note that the Ministry is continuing to support some phase one work, including work to explore housing insecurity. This work is looking to identify a population group experiencing housing insecurity – i.e. people who are either actively, or at high risk of, experiencing homelessness. The Ministry is also working on monitoring and evaluating all EH support services.