Auckland needs a boarding house register

Waitematā local board member Alex Bonham explains how a boarding house register would make a difference to Auckland.

The number of people experiencing homelessness in the city centre has almost doubled in nine months. Fewer and fewer people are eligible for housing support, and are living in doorways, cars and minivans rather than live in boarding houses that they view as expensive, unsanitary, and unsafe.

The coalition government says they can do nothing, but this is not true. Cities across Australia, Canada and the UK have regulations to protect residents and reduce impacts on neighbourhoods. There is little evidence that this leads to widespread closures. These are profitable businesses. In choosing not to act, central government is turning a blind eye to appalling mismanagement by some boarding house owners.

City Vision supports a boarding house register with a modest annual fee to cover costs of inspection and administration, and a range of penalties for non-compliance that councils could use. Government agencies could refuse to send people to non-compliant hostels, and so incentivise higher standards.

Currently, fines cost the ratepayer many thousands of dollars to collect and are set at a level so low that they are treated by landlords as just another cost of business. There are limited powers to enter a building and enforce compliance, and without a register, councils are reliant on tip-offs to know there is even a problem.

But pretending an issue doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it goes away. A report in 2024 showed that of 44 buildings reported to council, 40 were non-compliant with regard to sanitation, fire risk and/or Healthy Homes standards.  At the most severe end of non-compliance, the consequences can be tragic, as was seen at Loafer’s Lodge in 2023 in which five people were killed and 20 injured. 

If a pub needs a license, why shouldn’t a boarding house? No one should have to live in a place where the building work is shoddy, rooms are overcrowded or not fit for purpose, or if they have to deal with ongoing threatening or criminal behaviour. Putting people and property at risk in this way is reckless, shortsighted and wrong. 

The government has avoided addressing the issues, saying they are low-priority. Nor do they do any follow-up with people who seek emergency housing and do not get it. If this government wanted to improve the lives of people at risk in their communities, they could take the first steps to make a register mandatory right now.  

MP Jenny Salesa’s bill to amend the Residential Tenancies Act to require a register was drawn from the ballot on 17 July. City Vision is advocating to council to endorse the bill through the first reading to progress towards a solution. This is an approach supported in the past by New Zealand First, and advocated for by Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour while in opposition. 

Whether one’s interest is in reducing crime, managing taxpayers’ money better, or alleviating suffering, this bill should be supported. Write to your MP today.