Auckland Needs a Boarding House Register
There are rising numbers of people experiencing homelessness in the city centre, council staff have found. Fewer and fewer people are eligible for housing support, and are living in doorways, cars and minivans rather than live in boarding houses that they view as expensive, unsanitary, and unsafe .
Central government is turning a blind eye to appalling mismanagement by some boarding house owners, saying they can do nothing, but this is not true. Cities across Australia, Canada and Europe have regulations to protect residents and reduce impacts on neighbourhoods.
https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/housing-shelter/multi-tenant-rooming-houses/new-framework-for-multi-tenant-rooming-houses/#:~:text=The%20new%20regulatory%20framework%20for,rented%20out%20to%20separate%20people.
City Vision supports a boarding house register with a modest annual fee to cover costs of inspection and administration, and a range of penalities for non-compliance that councils could use. Government agencies could refuse to send people to non-compliant hostels, and so incentivise higher standards.
Currently, fines cost the ratepayer thousands of dollars to collect and are so low they are treated by landlords as just another cost of business. It costs many more thousands to go through the courts to demand change, and without a register, councils are reliant on tip-offs to know there is even a problem.
But pretending an issue doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it goes away. A report in 2024 showed that of 44 places reported, 40 were running without a consent, and many were non-compliant with regard sanitation and fire risk. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-boarding-houses-gang-affiliations-challenging-owners-and-more-than-40-operating-illegally/RM7STICLDBAAPBRRV7YFW327FI/
If a pub needs a license, why shouldn’t a boarding house? No one should have to live in a place where the building work is shoddy, rooms are overcrowded or not fit for purpose, or if they have to deal with criminal behaviour.
Regular police call outs should be a red flag.
The government amended the Residential Tenancies Act last year without addressing the issues saying they are low priority. Nor do they do any follow up with regard people who seek emergency housing and do not get it. If this government wanted to improve the lives of people in their communities with greatest need, they could make a register possible right now. You measure what you value.