3. Question No. 3—Housing and Urban DevelopmentMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Housing and Urban DevelopmentQuestion No. 3—Housing and Urban Development3. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: What standards if any are there for motels that are providing Government-funded temporary and emergency accommodation for people who need it?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): I thank the member for the question. Since 2016 Government has been reliant on motels for emergency housing. Where motels are contracted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development as transitional housing officials review the property to ensure that the accommodation is of an appropriate standard and ensure that the right consents are in place. I'm advised however that there are no standards currently tied to emergency housing special needs grants that are given to people who then use that money to book motels. The motel quality is therefore regulated only by the local council. I do not consider this to be acceptable. Officials are going to advise me on how we can make sure that motels receiving Government money through emergency housing special needs grants meet appropriate standards. This Government is committed to phasing out the last Government's reliance on motels.Marama Davidson: Will there be urgent checks on all other motels providing temporary and emergency housing to ensure they meet higher standards than what we've seen with the Astro Motel in Ōtāhuhu?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: So my advice is that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) is undertaking a stocktake of all motels that are being used for emergency housing to ensure that they are of an appropriate standard and that the clients receive the same level of service as other guests. It's unacceptable that the special needs grants for motels were established without accountability for the standards. That will change. There are things that we can do and currently MSD staff meet with clients who are staying in emergency housing every seven days. Minister Sepuloni has instructed MSD to explore options for how complaints can get raised in those meetings and dealt with and where council deems a motel unsafe MSD will not use that accommodation until those things are remedied. All those things can be done immediately.Marama Davidson: Is it his expectation that this will include regular and ongoing checks and monitoring to make sure that everyone regardless of circumstances has a decent place to sleep at night?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes. It's my expectation that that will be one of the options considered. I want the member to know and for the House to know that the use of motels for temporary and emergency housing is the lesser of two evils. No one likes it but we have delivered a massive increase in transitional and emergency housing. In fact 3000 extra families have been put into transitional housing since we have been in Government—3000 families. We are committed to expanding transitional and emergency housing until motels are no longer needed to provide that purpose.Marama Davidson: Is the Minister aware that $74 million over two years has been spent on motels and hotels and is this the best use of Government money?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It is not the best use of Government money and I would much rather that we spent that money on building high-quality warm dry State housing and housing provided by community housing providers. That is the single best thing we can do to alleviate the hardship caused by the national housing crisis.