A property investor says a new Government report on housing is nothing more than an ideological witch-hunt.
The report reveals homelessness is more widespread than previously thought, and many are missing out on emergency housing.
Property Institute chief executive Ashley Church says the Government was right to investigate the housing market.
But he told Mike Hosking rather than look at the issues facing renters, movers and first-home buyers, the report is just a political argument.
"The focus has diverted away from all of that good stuff into one particular area - the area of homelessness - in a way which is unreasonable and amplifies those figures."
The report was written by economist Shamubeel Eaqub, Otago University Professor of Public Health Philippa Howden-Chapman and the Salvation Army’s Alan Johnson and will be released this morning by Housing Minister Phil Twyford.
It identifies a hidden homeless population that is not officially monitored by government agencies.
More than 80 per cent of all homeless people turning up to community emergency housing providers in the last year were turned away because the system is bursting at the seams, according to an independent housing stocktake to be released today.
And the number of recorded homeless people without a safe and secure place to live is expected to rise significantly, as more struggling people are told that help is available and come out of the shadows.
The Government describes it as an independent stocktake of the housing crisis to help focus its work. But National's housing spokesman Michael Woodhouse has call it a "smoke and mirrors" exercise to find the numbers to fit the Government's narrative, when the housing market is "flat to falling".
The report is understood to bring together figures across a number of areas including homelessness, the rental market, housing affordability - including the rising costs relative to wage increases - and housing supply nationwide, with a specific focus on Auckland.
One of the report's main focuses will be to highlight a hidden homeless population that is not officially monitored or recorded.
However, community emergency housing providers report they are at full capacity, and their data from last year indicate that for every 10 homeless people that approach them, eight to nine are turned away.
The report will refer to a burgeoning "floating population" - people without safe and secure housing, including in temporary housing, sharing with another household, or living in uninhabitable places.
The report is understood to say that greater awareness of the issue, along with more information campaigns about where to get help, is expected to lead to reported homelessness getting worse.
The report is intended as analysis of the housing issue, and is not expected to make any recommendations for action.
One indication of the extent of the crisis in the report is an extra 2000 pensioners receiving the accommodation supplement last year.
Love Soup Rotorua help feed Rotorua. (Photo / Ben Fraser)
Auckland Action Against Poverty spokesman Alastair Russell said the magnitude of the homelessness problem was "huge".
"We are continually assisting people into motels and encountering people living in cars, or 10 to 12 people in grossly overcrowded situations. It is absolutely appalling.
"And it's is gradually getting worse, and as there is no coherent approach to addressing the issue at all. There is a chronic housing shortage and housing prices are out of reach.
"The [Government's KiwiBuild] focus on so-called affordable housing in the $500,000 to $600,000 range is aimed at Labour/National swing voters, but it doesn't address the social needs of the people at the bottom."
Russell said the Government's intention to build at least an extra 1000 state homes a year was "a drop in the bucket" that goes nowhere near far enough.
The closest official record of homelessness is the census, which monitors severe housing deprivation. In the 2013, ab...
