CMM Celebrates New Housing Complex Opening

The 14 new units designed for older people - a mix of social housing and affordable rental homes - feature solar panels to help reduce household running costs and have been designed to be accessible for people with functional limitations.

“We’ve ensured that it is easier and safer to move around by including wider accessways and thresholds, and level transition zones. And we’ve installed grab rails and non-slip flooring in the bathrooms to reduce the risk of falls,” says Hawkey. “Generous funding support from the previous Government’s Affordable Housing Fund and Rātā Foundation has made this extension possible.”

 Amidst a decline in home ownership and a rapidly aging population, and at a time when most new retirement villages have a business model that is too expensive for those without a home to sell, accommodation options for older people without assets are few.

“This trend is deeply worrying and means that affordable, accessible and secure units like those at Wesley Village are in great demand,” she says.

Ruawhitu Pokaia, a close friend of the late kaumatua and Ngai Tahu leader Dr Terry Ryan, performed karakia and welcomed the minister,  local MP Hamish Campbell, residents, neighbours and other guests, acknowledging recipients of the new units ‘who will soon be blessed by moving into the new whare’.

CMM has been engaged in providing safe, affordable and accessible housing for older people for more than 40 years and is increasingly concerned by the dire shortage of housing suitable for those aged 65+ who are overrepresented on the housing register.

In acknowledging the government’s support for community housing, Hawkey expressed an ongoing need for providers to partner with government agencies to meet the growing need for social housing. Currently 40,000 people are on the housing register.

Hon Chris Bishop said, “The government is up for the challenge, but the government does not have all the answers. Communities have the answers.”

In his former role as National party spokesperson for housing, Chris Bishop had assured Jill Hawkey  that if he was Housing Minister, he would come to open the new complex.  Now that he has fulfilled that promise, he closed his address by affirming, “This is just the start.”