Southland needs 2800 houses in the next 12 months to address the region’s growing housing crisis.
A report released today by the Southland Housing Action Forum showed housing demand "significantly exceeds existing housing stock".
The report showed a number of factors contributed to the crisis.
A "lack of social and emergency housing investment by previous governments" meant there was an "immediate" need for at least 140 social and emergency houses.
The report showed the national average for Housing New Zealand houses per city was 12.86 per 1000 people, while Invercargill had 6.44 per 1000 people, and the Southland District was slightly above zero.
Social and emergency housing was identified as an "acute issue" due to waiting lists which were "growing rapidly" every year.
The growth of Airbnb was identified as "significantly impacting" the availability of rental properties after 553 properties converted to the service.
Figures taken from the Southland Business Survey for the report show 50% of the region’s business owners planned to increase their staff over the next year, opening an estimated 7010 jobs in the region.
Based on the assumption of 33% of those staff coming from outside of the region, 2313 houses would be needed.
77 more houses were needed for refugees relocating to Southland in the future, based on the national quota.
The forum, made up of a number of businesses, local government agencies, and community groups, presented the report to Housing Minister Phil Twyford last week, and were expecting Government action to begin before Christmas.
Forum representative and Chamber of Commerce chief executive Sheree Carey said the situation was "much worse" than she had perceived, but was feeling optimistic about the progress being made.
