State house decliners facing tougher rules

State house decliners facing tougher rules

Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett has ordered a crackdown on tenants turning down houses because they are too fussy.

Ms Bennett says if your reasons for turning down a house aren't good enough, you won't get offered another one.

"We don't think it's good enough that people that do not need to be in social housing are taking up properties when there are literally thousands desperate for homes," says Ms Bennett.

Around 3500 state houses are turned down each year, most for legitimate reasons like being too close to abusive ex-partners. But in the last year 414 were turned down for reasons the minister didn't think were good enough.

One tenant turned down a house because birds were chirping in the trees next door, someone else wanted a bigger backyard to fit a trampoline and another didn't like the colour of a door.

Another said she saw children playing on the street and was worried those children would be asking her for money, while someone else declined a house as it wasn't made of brick.

But Labour says those anecdotes are cherry-picked.

"The real reason that people are turning down state houses is that they're worried that cold, damp, mouldy houses are killing their children," Labour's housing spokesperson Phil Twyford.

Currently a Housing New Zealand tenant can reject three different houses without good reason before they are moved off the waitlist.

But they can go back to the same spot on the waitlist the next day.

Ms Bennett wants that to change and for people to lose their place in the line for a few weeks.

"There should be a stand-down period where they're not eligible for social housing," she says.

It's also likely the three rejections policy will be off the table too.

"It may just be one," says Ms Bennett.

3 News asked the minister to provide the full list of the 414 complaints to justify the crackdown, but her office wouldn't give more than the five already provided.

Ms Bennett aims to get the sign-off for her plan by the end of the year.

3 News