Housing instability is not readily visible across the child welfare system

Oranga Tamariki cannot currently answer basic questions about housing circumstances

Oranga Tamariki was unable to provide information on the housing situations of children, young people or parents and caregivers when they are engaged with Oranga Tamariki or after they have been discharged. This is because housing data is buried in individual case notes and cannot be extracted without the manual review of thousands of files. Oranga Tamariki shared information on the various forms of support provided to whānau to support with housing including the Transition Support Service for young people transitioning out of care, Supported Accommodation service (including a recent review), the new Fast Track initiative and connecting whanau with community organisations to assist with housing.   

Of concern, from October 2025 to March 2026 financial assistance was provided to fewer than 6 young people who called the Oranga Tamariki transition assistance helpline seeking support for emergency accommodation. Assistance was provided to 13 young people in the same period the year before (MHUD, 2026). 

The inability to track the level of housing instability experienced by children and whānau reflects a fundamental gap in the system’s capacity to understand its own clients’ housing circumstances and the impacts on children’s wellbeing. 

A system-level response would require standardised fields at intake and discharge — not just case notes — so that housing status becomes a routine, extractable data point. 

If public bodies — including schools, health services, justice agencies and child welfare — have a statutory duty to ask about housing risk and record and act on the answer, the data invisibility problem dissolves without requiring a manual review of case notes. 

Data source: OIA Oranga Tamariki, February 2026