MSD emergency housing metrics raise concern over denied motel grants

Newly reported Ministry of Social Development performance measures have raised concern that emergency housing targets could create pressure to reduce motel grants even when people still need somewhere safe to stay. Internal documentation shows multiple tiers of MSD staff are subject to annual performance agreements that include regular grading on 11 measures. One measure includes the number of people in a region receiving emergency housing grants. Managers are rated as exceeding, achieving or needing improvement, and targeted improvement plans may be required where performance does not meet expectations.

The issue is not whether government should monitor emergency housing. It should. The motel system became expensive, unstable and deeply unpopular for good reasons. At its peak, nearly 5000 people were living in emergency housing motels in November 2021, and National campaigned in 2023 on ending the use of motels as emergency accommodation. The coalition later set a target to lower emergency housing numbers by 75 percent by 2030.

The concern is what happens when a reduction target becomes a staff-performance metric. Auckland City Mission chief executive Helen Robinson said the arrangement was difficult to accept because decision-makers could be incentivised to say no. Jill Hawkey of the Christchurch Methodist Mission said KPIs around moving people into more appropriate housing would be positive, but targets focused on keeping numbers down could create a perverse incentive.

MSD group general manager Graham Allpress rejected the idea that any staff member would face discipline solely because of the housing reduction target. He said performance would be considered across the full suite of measures, and that the number of emergency housing grants in a region did not trigger performance management. That response is important, but it does not remove the wider policy question. If staff know a measure is visible, graded and linked to improvement plans, it can still shape behaviour.

Emergency Housing Minister Tama Potaka said he had not been aware of the agreements and would ask MSD's chief executive about them. He acknowledged that one reasonable interpretation was that the letters could create incentives for staff to deny legitimate requests. There is also a gap between initial inquiries and formal applications, with more than 1000 additional initial inquiries a month than submitted applications for 16 months in a row. For housing policy, the key measure should not be how quickly motel numbers fall, but whether people move into safer, more stable housing and do not return to homelessness.