Housing Minister Chris Bishop blamed the bungle on the previous government and said civil servants had assured him that "proper monitoring" of the transitional housing scheme would happen later this year.
The scheme was set up eight years ago to house homeless people in temporary accommodation such as motels while also receiving professional help to get a home within 12 weeks.
Mr Bishop said the lack of monitoring of transitional housing outcomes is "one we have inherited from the previous government".
"I’m advised officials are working to have proper monitoring in place by mid-year."
The government this week also set a target to reduce numbers of households in temporary accommodation by 75%.
Nearly $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money has been spent on the scheme since 2018, of which $262 million was spent in the year April 2023 to March 2024.
The money is paid to charities contracted to run the scheme on behalf of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.
The ministry said Dunedin had 103 temporary beds in the scheme, most provided through charities Emerge Aotearoa and The Salvation Army.
Emerge is the largest provider with access to 45 beds and The Salvation Army has access to 33 beds.
Ministry guidelines require charities running the scheme to assign beds to homeless people and make "transition plans" with them to achieve "longer-term housing".
However, their success is unknown.
A ministry spokesman said "historical transitional housing data reporting has data quality issues, centred largely on under-reporting of information".
"Recent improvements to monitoring and evaluation which are taking effect are expected to provide better visibility of housing outcomes but at present any calculations we would make would be impacted by limited data."
The ministry said it knew some homeless people were in the scheme longer than 12 weeks.
"Wraparound support services" were being provided to help them address "complex and multi-faceted barriers they face in obtaining long-term housing".
An Otago Daily Times investigation into the scheme’s delivery in Dunedin, published today, talked to three homeless households in Emerge-run transitional housing who all said they had not been helped enough to get a home - and two had been given eviction notices by the charity when they had nowhere to go.
The ODT requested information from Emerge about outcomes achieved for homeless people in its Dunedin transitional housing scheme, but it did not provide it.
Emerge chief executive John Cook said his team was "focused on supporting people to find homes" but stressed the housing crisis and the requirement of homeless people in transitional housing to "make reasonable efforts to find permanent housing".
The Salvation Army said it would respond to questions about its transitional housing service in Dunedin, but was unable to do so by deadline.
University of Otago statistician Prof Nevil Pierce, who is co-leading a housing and health research programme in the university’s department of public health, said the transitional housing scheme had been "badly thought through".
It only funded "minimal support" which did not enable homes to be found easily in the face of the housing crisis.
Transitional housing should be "a stop gap" during which it must be possible to give homeless people housing options that were permanent, healthy and sustainable.
Failure to provide information about the scheme’s impact was "pretty typical" of government and "very frustrating", Prof Pierce said.
Evaluation should include tracking outcomes including health and employment, as well as feedback from homeless people in the scheme.
