Falling homeownership and rising rents are leaving older New Zealanders with nowhere to go
Increasing numbers of New Zealanders aged 65 and over are ending up on the streets as homeownership rates fall and living costs rise.
In Whangārei alone, nearly one in three of the 237 people counted sleeping rough are aged 65 or older — and a long-time housing advocate says that figure barely scratches the surface, RNZ reported.
Carol Peters, founder of the Te Tai Tokerau Emergency Housing Trust, said the official count understated the true scale of the problem.
"At the moment in Whangārei, there are 75 over 65 years old. These are older people living in cars or sleeping rough, but there are a whole lot more that could actually be also at risk of becoming homeless," Peters said.
Peters pointed to a structural shift: as property prices have pushed homeownership out of reach for more New Zealanders over the past two decades, a growing cohort is reaching retirement age as renters — and finding that superannuation does not stretch far enough when rents keep rising.
The retirement renter trap
Age Concern chief executive Karen Billings-Jensen said Northland's numbers almost certainly reflected a nationwide pattern, with 2,955 people aged 65-plus on the social housing waiting list across New Zealand. The causes ran deeper than income alone — inadequate savings, the death of a partner, or a relationship breakdown could each rapidly destabilise what had seemed like secure arrangements.
"Forty percent of older people only have New Zealand superannuation. As fixed costs, like rent, rates, insurance, electricity, continue to go up, they can't be absorbed within a fixed income. So, some people have had to leave tenancies because they just can't manage the additional costs," Billings-Jensen said.
Billings-Jensen called for long-term structural commitment and cross-party agreement on housing policy to prevent further deterioration.
"It's a long-term structural challenge. We're not saying it's easy to deal with the housing challenges we've got, but we need to have that long-term commitment and the ability to gather the right data and make the right plans so that we're not still talking about this in five years' time," she said.
Every client a mortgage adviser helps into homeownership today is one fewer person facing that precariousness in retirement.
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