Salvation Army warns we don't know extent of country's 'hidden homelessness'

The Salvation Army is warning we do not know the full extent of the country's "hidden homelessness".

The comments come as the National Party and Labour have been fighting over who has the worse record on homelessness.

New Zealand has one of the highest levels of homelessness in the OECD with over 25,000 households needing a place to live.

Speaking to Melissa Chan-Green on AM, Salvation Army policy analyst Ronji Tanielu said they are seeing regular reports of people still in housing hardships and other organisations are facing the same struggles. 

He said Government and community organisations need to come together to try and understand the extent of the country's "hidden homelessness".

"Our challenge is to really understand that [homelessness] picture we don't fully understand because Government has some of the picture, but we need to bring forward our results, our picture as well," Tanielu said.

Tanielu said when it comes to transitional housing, homelessness and emergency housing there are Government numbers but he doesn't think we always understand the complexity and struggles around it.

For example, he said homelessness among Pacifica People is often around overcrowding in houses rather than visible homelessness. 

National and Labour this week have been going back and forth over who has the worse housing record.

National leader Christopher Luxon criticised Labour's response to homelessness at the Party's annual conference in Christchurch on Sunday.

"Since Labour came into office, there are four times as many people living in cars, four times as many on the state house waiting list, and 4000 kids in motels  - at a cost of a million dollars a day," Luxon said.

National Housing Spokesperson Chris Bishop also hit out at the Government last week over the number of children living in cars.  

However, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern defended herself, claiming her Government had " "created 10,000 public housing spaces". 

"Previously what was the incentive for someone to come forward when there was a cap on the house you could get? I don't think we truly understood the scale of the housing crisis that we had," Ardern told Ryan Bridge on AM on Monday. "Do we now? Yes, I think we have a better grip on it now. Is it fixed yet? No."

Tanielu said they are seeing more complex and challenging cases of people coming through in terms of emergency housing and homelessness, which makes it harder for non-governmental organisations to support these whanau.

He said the top priorities that Government can do to help make a difference in Kiwi's lives is to  

build more houses, support families that want to progress and move into different areas, and have good wrap-around support for these families.

"They really do need extra support during these tough times."