Our emergency housing situation seems to be at breaking point - and the Government is being told to do more to solve the crisis.Â
Green Party co-leader and associate housing minister Marama Davidson has come out saying some of our emergency housing is inhumane.
She also says the way money is handed out to hotels, with no strings attached, is unacceptable
Monte Cecilia housing trust boss Bernie Smith agrees it's inhumane, and told Andrew Dickens he's known it's been a problem for years.
"Many of us would have taken a family on a holiday in a motel for three or four days for a week, and after that we've had enough of the motels because of the confined spaces."
Smith says on top of that you have mental health situations, cold and damp rooms and rodent infestations.
However, he says that Davidson has been very silent on emergency housing until now, despite her ministerial portfolio.
"We have a real crisis on our hands. We have children who are going to suffer for generations to come because we're just not getting it right."
He says one way of fixing the crisis is to buy the motels they are using as emergency housing and demolish them to build new houses, or make them fit for purpose.
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