30308 (2026). Hon Kieran McAnulty to the Associate Minister of Housing

30308 (2026). Hon Kieran McAnulty to the Associate Minister of Housing: How many children, if any, who left emergency housing motels since the Minister took office were exits other than "priority one", and what is known about their subsequent housing?

Hon Tama Potaka: I am advised that the Ministry of Social Development (the Ministry) cannot track outcomes for specific children after leaving emergency housing except those in the Priority One Fast Track. This is because at the point of an Emergency Housing Grant application, the client provides Ministry staff with the total number of adults and children who are expected to stay in the emergency accommodation. Applicants for emergency housing are not, however, required to share the names of dependent children included in the grant. The Ministry can identify households and children who have been tagged in the Priority One Fast Track and housed in social housing. The Priority One category was introduced to the Social Housing register to ensure that whānau with children who had been living in emergency housing for 12 weeks are prioritised into available social housing. Obtaining the number of client exits from the Priority One category into non-social housing would require substantial manual collation and would require the Ministry to divert personnel from their core duties. In accordance with Speaker’s Ruling 210/6, I consider that the time, and hence the expense, of answering these questions within this timeframe is not in the public interest. As at 31 March 2026, there have been 471 children in the Hamilton Territorial Local Authority tagged Priority One Fast Track and exited emergency housing into social housing.