4. Question No. 4—HousingANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister of HousingQuestion No. 4—Housing4. ANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister of Housing: What recent announcements has she made about support for Community Housing Providers?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Yesterday along with Minister Henare I announced that the Government will bring forward funding for community housing providers (CHiPS") to deliver housing faster. By front-loading payments we're bringing forward some of the money we already provide to "CHiPS" over the course of a 25-year contract. We have responded to a simple request from the sector that will make a difference to the number of new-build houses that "CHiPS" can bring on and it builds on our trusted progressive partnership relationship that we have with them. Early-stage payments will help ensure a pathway for newer or smaller community housing providers including many Māori and iwi providers to enable capacity growth in their organisations and improve housing outcomes.Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki: Will this change lead to more new build developments coming from the community housing sector?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Yes. This greater funding flexibility builds on our progressive partnership approach with the "CHiPS" that is focused on increasing the supply of new warm and dry housing. I've made my expectations clear to the sector that we need to increase the pipeline of new affordable housing by demonstrating additionality limiting redirects or buy-ins and having a preference for houses that the "CHiPS" themselves will own. Since we came into office we have seen the number of new builds by community housing providers increase from 37 new builds in 2017-18 to 656 in the most recent financial year. We've also increased financial support to the sector with funding provided to "CHiPS" transitional housing providers and other housing support service providers increasing from $95 million in the 2016-17 financial year to over $400 million in the 2020-21 financial year alone.Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki: How will this enable the bringing on of new housing supplies sooner?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Community housing providers will be able to bring on new housing supply quicker by front-loading payments while still receiving the same level of support that they would over the lifetime of a project. Initial assessment of current opportunities by Housing and Urban Development officials have identified six individual projects with approximately 200 places in priority locations where early-stage funding will be the thing that makes them viable. We will have greater certainty around the number of additional projects as we discuss early-stage funding with the sector.Nicola Willis: Why has she allowed Government housing agencies to hire more officials—a grand total of 1205 additional housing officials—than they have funded newly built houses from community housing providers?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I know that when you have to rebuild the ability of a Government to actually (a) realise there is a housing crisis and (b) do something about it—in answer to the member's question: why have I allowed them to hire staff? It's because we needed to build some houses.Hon Peeni Henare: What was the response of the community housing providers when asked what the number one barrier is in allowing them to get on with the job to support our families?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Particularly our smaller and newer community housing providers particularly Māori and iwi community housing providers and Pasifika providers—instead having access to that money earlier and upfront will make projects that would not be viable viable."