To: MP for Auckland Central Chlöe Swarbrick, and Minister for Housing Chris Bishop
Support state housing in Waitematā Auckland Central
We call on you to:
- advocate for state housing in our community so that everyone has a decent, stable and suitable place to call home
- support the Vincent Street Kāinga Ora development to go ahead
Why is this important?
Having a stable home is the foundation for a good life – it supports us to build connections with people and places. It creates the conditions for us to be able to connect and contribute to our communities.
But successive governments have not done enough to make sure everyone in our community has suitable housing. Now, the National-led Government plans to sell off state housing, has cancelled developments already underway and will make it less available to our communities. This will lead to more people living in unaffordable and unsuitable private rentals, in their cars and on the streets.
In the Waitematā Local Board (Auckland Central) area:
- Auckland Council counted 809 “unsheltered homeless” living in the city in May 2025, a 90 percent increase since September 2024[1]
- The number of households on the Housing Register for Waitematā is 195 (as of June 25)[2]
- There are many more people living in housing stress, who are not on the Housing Register or visibly homeless. At the time of Census 2023 there were 2,517 people living in Severe Housing Deprivation in the Waitematā area[3]
- A diverse range of people live and work here, not just the well off
- Vincent Street is a Kāinga Ora development for 53 homes which has been cancelled. This development would have provided decent and stable housing, close to amenities
We know from our own history and from overseas, that when governments play a bigger role in building and providing decent and suitable housing, we lay the foundation for thriving communities. We have built state housing at scale as a solution before, and we can do it again.
We are calling on decision makers to ensure that everyone in Auckland Central has a decent and stable home. Restarting the planning and construction of cancelled developments like Vincent Street as soon as possible is what we need to be doing to ensure this happens.
References:
References:
- Auckland’s homelessness has almost doubled, says council report. The Post, 28 July 2025
- MSD Housing Register. MSD, June 2025
- Severe Housing Deprivation. Aotearoa Data Explorer. StatsNZ
How it will be delivered
This petition will be delivered to our local MP in mid-2026, and then to Parliament as part of the national state housing campaign.
