About

What we do

The Social Housing Unit, Te Wāhanga Kāinga Pāpori, aims to increase the supply of social and affordable housing for New Zealanders. 

We work with organisations that provide social and affordable housing, including not-for-profit, iwi, and private sector providers.

We are particularly interested in working with organisations that will be able to deliver significant growth in social and affordable housing.

The Unit allocates funding and facilitates partnerships, including land transfers and sale or lease of surplus state housing stock.

The Unit is a government agency set up as a semi-autonomous body within the Building and Housing Group of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Award winning, simple house by Stephen Smith of S3 Architects Limited

Why the Unit was set up

The Social Housing Unit, Te Wāhanga Kāinga Pāpori, was established in July 2011, as part of a broader programme of social housing reforms.

A Ministerial Advisory Panel was established at the same time, to advise Ministers on the progress of the social housing reforms.

The social housing reform programme was announced by the Government in December 2010. These decisions followed the publication of the Housing Shareholders Advisory Group report, Home and Housed: a Vision for Social Housing in New Zealand in August 2010.

This report is available from the Building and Housing Group's website at http://dbh.govt.nz/social-housing-nz .