Is the Government fudging emergency housing numbers?

We're going to go there with emergency accommodation.

Apparently, fewer than a thousand families are living in emergency accommodation now. This sounds like a significant drop in the number of households in emergency housing, but let's examine it more in-depth.

It may not actually reflect a decrease in need, and it may even be artificial to suggest that.

While the Government claims to have made progress with its priority one policy and stricter eligibility rules, many people, and this is particularly Labour's argument, are simply being turned away.

The tightened criteria and the requirement to prove eligibility mean fewer people are even applying for help, knowing they won't qualify under the rules.

Now, the spike in declined applications - 10 per cent in August - I reckon shows that the number is much more a result of exclusion than improvement in housing availability.

So you have to ask, is the Government, or more particularly the minister responsible for this, Tama Pōtaka, fudging the numbers? Or are we masking the truth?

Watch Will's Word below.

If people are not applying for emergency accommodation, then the numbers will inevitably look good, right?

And that's a point that the housing spokesperson under Labour, Kieran McAnulty, has made yesterday.

It's all well and good to say, 'Look, it's on the decline,' but you have to look deeper into the situation to understand why it's on the decline.

At least from my perspective, it's because people simply aren't applying for it in the first place. That is a real shame, and it seems pretty artificial to me.

That's Will's word.