She was considering leaving the Dunedin for the north, but a mother was given a new home just in time.
Yesterday, Housing New Zealand officially opened the first state houses built in the city in nine years.
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The four-bedroom Concord home was built as part of the Government’s regional housing scheme which will build nine more in Dunedin this year and two in Invercargill.The scheme is expected to create 155 houses in the regions.
Housing Minister Phil Twyford will announce more building across the country through the scheme, later this year.
The tenant of the new property, Ngaone Parata-Taiapa, received the keys for the new home yesterday. She will live there with her six children.
Ms Parata-Taiapa has been in an emergency housing home in Andersons Bay since November, and before that was in a "cold, draughty, damp house" in St Clair.
A few weeks ago the difficulty of finding a new place in addition to raising her children really hit her, she said.
"I thought, ‘oh, gosh, do I move city? Do I head to the North Island?’"
She was told about her new home earlier in the week.
"It seems really nice and warm.
"I actually grew up here. This is the area where we lived. Our family home is just down the road."
Housing New Zealand programme director Jonathan Scholes said the scheme was part of the Government "ramping up" its building programme.
"We are starting a new phase of building modest and good, strong homes for families around all of New Zealand and the regions."
While 14 were planned initially for Dunedin under the scheme, four units were on "steep or inaccessible land" where building was difficult. The ministry would have liked to have them built sooner, but there were "a couple of delays", he said.
