Housing is one of the most acute community needs in New Zealand, and one of the most complex areas for grant funding. New Zealand's housing crisis — characterised by severe unaffordability, insufficient supply of social housing, high rates of overcrowding, and a substantial rough sleeping population — has driven significant funding interest from community trusts, philanthropic foundations, and government. But housing is also an area where grant funding has real limitations, and where the mismatch between grant timescales and housing development timescales creates particular challenges.
Kāinga Ora: The primary government agency for social housing, managing the largest social housing portfolio and funding emergency housing. Community trusts and foundations do not typically fund Kāinga Ora directly, but work alongside it.
Ministry of Social Development: Funds emergency housing motel placements and housing support services for people in crisis.
Community trusts: Several major community trusts have made housing a priority — particularly homelessness, housing support services, and transitional housing. Foundation North, Community Trust South, and Trust Waikato have all made significant housing investments.
Māori housing programmes: Funding for Māori housing through Te Puni Kōkiri and dedicated Māori housing funds reflects the Treaty obligation to support Māori housing outcomes. Māori organisations (iwi housing trusts, Māori community housing providers) access these funds.
Community Housing Providers (CHPs): Registered community housing providers can access government funding through HUD and develop social housing alongside their grant income. CHPs are a distinctive type of organisation that combines housing development, property management, and social support services.
Gaming trusts: Some gaming trusts fund housing support services — not housing infrastructure, but the support services that help people maintain stable tenancies.
Philanthropic foundations: Individual philanthropic foundations have made significant housing grants — the Tindall Foundation, in particular, has funded housing innovation and advocacy work.
This is a critical distinction that many funders don't fully reckon with:
Grant funding is well-suited to:
- Housing support services (tenancy support, housing navigation, rapid rehousing coordination)
- Emergency and crisis accommodation operating costs
- Homelessness prevention services (before someone loses their housing)
- Research, advocacy, and systems change work
- Capacity building for community housing organisations
- Community education about tenants' rights
- Wrap-around support for people in transitional housing
- Pilot and demonstration projects that test new housing models
Grant funding is poorly suited to:
- Capital construction of social housing (requires much larger, longer-term investment)
- Long-term property acquisition (grants are typically short-term; property holds value over decades)
- Ongoing operational subsidies for housing that requires perpetual subsidy without a path to sustainability
- Market interventions requiring policy change (advocacy can be funded; the policy change cannot)
Funders who try to use small grants to fund capital housing often either fund too little to make a difference, or fund in ways that create unsustainable financial models for the receiving organisations. Understanding the appropriate use of grant capital in housing is essential for effective housing grantmaking.
Transitional housing support: Funding the staffing and operating costs of transitional housing programmes — where people experiencing homelessness are housed temporarily with intensive support, with the goal of moving into stable long-term housing. Transitional housing requires both property (usually funded separately) and support services (which grants can fund).
Housing first services: Housing First is an evidence-based approach that provides immediate stable housing to people experiencing chronic homelessness, with intensive support services delivered in the home. Service funding for Housing First programmes is an appropriate grant investment.
Tenancy support services: Services that help people who have housing to maintain stable tenancies — addressing rent arrears, neighbour disputes, property condition concerns, and the range of challenges that can lead to tenancy loss. These services prevent homelessness before it happens.
Emergency accommodation: Operating costs for emergency accommodation (beyond what government funding covers), drop-in services, and overnight shelters.
Legal assistance for tenants: Community legal services that help tenants understand and enforce their rights — in a context where New Zealand's tenancy laws have been significantly reformed and many tenants don't understand their protections.
Whānau and family housing support: Services that address the household-level causes of housing instability — including family violence, addiction, financial crisis, mental health — in ways that support stable housing outcomes.
Māori housing support: Culturally appropriate housing support for Māori whānau — including support accessing papakāinga housing, navigating Māori Land Court processes, and connecting with iwi housing programmes.
Housing and homelessness are different problems that often get conflated:
Homelessness ranges from rough sleeping (the most visible form) to living in cars, couch-surfing with extended family or friends, and living in severely overcrowded housing (all of which are counted in official homelessness statistics). New Zealand's homelessness is disproportionately Māori and Pacific.
Unaffordable housing is a different problem — people who have housing but spend a disproportionate share of income on rent, leaving insufficient for food, healthcare, and other necessities.
Insufficient social housing — the waiting list for Kāinga Ora housing is very long — means that many people who need affordable, stable housing can't access it. This contributes to both homelessness and housing stress.
Grant funders can address homelessness through service funding. They can partially address the social housing gap through supporting community housing providers. They cannot meaningfully address unaffordable housing at scale through grants — that requires policy change and significant capital investment.
Evidence-based models. Housing First, rapid rehousing, Housing First for Youth, and similar evidence-based models should be preferred over untested approaches. Funders should understand the evidence base for housing interventions.
Government complementarity. Housing services that duplicate what government already funds, or that undermine the government system by creating parallel pathways, are poor investments. Services that genuinely address gaps in the government system, or that extend government investment, produce more impact.
Accommodation access. Service funding without an accommodation pathway is of limited value. Funders assessing housing support service applications should ask: where do people go when they leave this service? Is there adequate affordable housing in this area for people to move into?
Tenancy track record. For organisations managing housing properties alongside services, what is their tenancy management track record? High eviction rates, poor property maintenance, and tenant complaints all indicate management problems that affect service outcomes.
Anti-discrimination practices. Homelessness services should have explicit anti-discrimination policies and practices — covering criminal history, drug use, mental health, and other characteristics that can lead to exclusion from services.
Housing outcome metrics:
- Number of people housed from rough sleeping
- Tenancy sustainability (proportion of people still housed at 3, 6, 12 months)
- Housing type at exit from transitional housing (social housing, private rental, other)
- Average length of homelessness episode before housing
- Number of tenancy breaches prevented by support services
Financial metrics for housing providers:
- Rental income and occupancy rates for managed properties
- Arrears rates and management
- Property maintenance expenditure
Equity metrics:
- Ethnicity of people served — are Māori and Pacific peoples being served proportionally to their representation in homelessness?
- Gender demographics
- Whether whānau (families) and rangatahi (youth) are being served
Tahua supports funders working in housing and homelessness with grant programme design, assessment tools, and outcome reporting frameworks appropriate for the complexity of housing work.