$200k grant for new Habitat homes

Nelson City Council’s community housing acceleration taskforce has approved a Housing Reserve Grant of $200,000 to Habitat for Humanity Nelson Ltd for the development of four homes in Nelson South.

The three-bedroom progressive home ownership dwellings will be built at 135 Tipahi St.

The taskforce’s role is to advise on how council can help grow social and affordable housing using the Housing Reserve fund with the goal to double the number of social and affordable houses from 50 to 100 by 2026.

To date, the Housing Reserve has allocated $6 million in co-funding to enable the construction of 45 social and affordable rentals and 16 progressive home ownership houses across Nelson.

Taskforce chair Rachel Sanson says there are currently around 1150 families in Nelson facing housing insecurity and in urgent need of affordable housing - 41 per cent higher than two years ago.

Habitat for Humanity Nelson general manager, Katrina Bach says they are are “very appreciative” of the grants they have received from the Housing Reserve Fund to support their building projects.

“The families chosen for these homes on Tipahi St will have the stability and security of living in a home that they will one day own.”

Habitat for Humanity Nelson is part of an affiliated Habitat network that works across New Zealand as well as internationally, towards a vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live. They also provide a range of programmes aimed at building strength, stability, and self-reliance through shelter in the Nelson Tasman region.

Habitat’s Progressive Home Ownership (PHO) Programme helps families to achieve home ownership through a rent to buy model.

Families occupy a new home built by Habitat and their rent payments go towards building a deposit over the next 5-10 years. When they have a sufficient deposit, they can purchase their home from Habitat by taking out a mortgage from a bank and become homeowners.

Habitat invests the money from the sale of the property back into the PHO programme to help more people into homeownership