At least two of the city’s motels are still being used by the government to house homeless people in about 20 rooms and Dunedin social service leaders have indicated the minister’s announcement is "smoke and mirrors" and the homelessness crisis continues in the South.
Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka said last Friday that an emergency housing scheme funded by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) that put homeless people in motels was "one of the biggest public policy failures in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand" and his government had campaigned on "ending this disaster".
Thousands of New Zealanders, including children, had been "dumped" by the previous government in "dank" motel rooms for months or even years, but now the numbers had plummeted nationally by more than 80% from 3141 in December, 2023, to 591 in December, 2024, he said.
Places including Hamilton and Rotorua had become particularly notorious for putting homeless people in motels under the emergency housing scheme but motels in Dunedin were also known to have been used.
The ODT has, over the past year, spoken to homeless people who had a range of vulnerabilities including disability, were on the scheme and sleeping in Dunedin motels.
Three of the motels contacted all said they had no homeless people in them.
However, Mr Potaka said 80% of those leaving emergency housing had been moved to social, private or "transitional" housing — and in Dunedin transitional housing could still mean living in a motel room.
The emergency housing scheme is meant to be for short stays of about a week and the transitional housing scheme — run by the Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — is meant to be for stays of about 12 weeks.
In Dunedin, the charities Emerge and the Salvation Army are paid by HUD to help people move out of the transitional housing scheme and into a private rental or a state home, but it is known some people in Dunedin have got stuck in their transitional housing, including in motels, for many months and in some cases more than a year.
There are signs the continued use of motels in Dunedin for the transitional housing scheme may also end soon.
One motel manager, who wished to remain anonymous, said they "were still getting [homeless] people through" but they had been contacted by HUD and not been told their HUD contract — normally renewed annually in winter — would be renewed again.
"We are not holding our breaths ... they [HUD] are thinking about exit strategies."
It would be "fair" if the government gave the motels warning so a changed use of their motel could be planned, the manager said. They queried where the homeless people would be placed instead.
An HUD spokesman said decisions had "not yet been made about contract renewals" but added that the "real solution" was more social housing which would also deliver better value for money.
Criteria had been set by the government for approving a "new supply" of transitional accommodation that included "supporting the exit from motels".
When pressed, Mr Potaka said motels were one of the diverse accommodations being used under the transitional housing scheme, which also included some people getting houses.
Emerge and the Salvation Army did not respond by deadline to questions about use of motels in Dunedin, but other social leaders, who do not provide services for people in motels, did comment on Mr Potaka’s announcement.
Methodist Mission director Laura Black said "national statistics don’t mean the good news is evenly distributed" and the mission was still seeing very steady demand for youth transition support in Dunedin and Invercargill.
She also pointed to the continued growth in the number of households in Otago waiting for a home on the housing register.
"There’s still work to do locally," she said.
A Dunedin social service leader who wished to remain anonymous said the government announcement about the decline of motel use was a "nice headline from the government, but really just smoke and mirrors".
Homelessness continued in Dunedin, they said.
A government supplementary analysis report about changes to the emergency housing scheme last year flagged that tightening of entry criteria to the scheme carried a "risk of increased homelessness".
