Transitional housing is nearly always full

91% average occupancy rate across transitional housing means that the system is nearly always full

Transitional housing has no buffer for emergency or crisis demand indicating that acute housing shortage is structural and that prevention strategies are required to reduce the number of people who require transitional housing.   

Around 20 to 23% of places are occupied by households who have been in transitional housing for over a year which reduces capacity for new people to enter the system and highlights the difficulty providers face in helping people find pathways out of transitional housing.  

Between April 2024 to November 2025 ,11% of exits (8,050 in total) from transitional housing were “Removed from Service by Provider”. It is unclear what has happened to this group. This is a significant data gap with serious system implications: unplanned exits without housing outcomes are likely to result in rough sleeping, couch surfing or over-crowding.  

Māori and Pacific people are over-represented in transitional housing. Māori represent around 45% of households in transitional housing against a population share of roughly 17%. Pacific People represent around 20% against 8% reflecting structural inequity in housing access, income, and the upstream conditions that drive homelessness. Systems-level responses must include Māori and Pacific-led housing pathways and upstream prevention investment in Māori and Pacific communities. 

The under-25 group is by far the largest age cohort— around 60% of all people in transitional housing. Many of these are children in households counted under their household head. The system’s primary client population is therefore families with children, yet the data is structured around household metrics, potentially obscuring child welfare needs and impacts on education. The data also obscures the level of youth homelessness as it is unclear how many rangatahi and young people are on their own.  

Data source: OIA Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Occupied Transitional Housing Places, Household Entries and Exits, Monthly Occupancy Rate, and Median Days in Service, April 2024 to November 2025 and Household Entries and Exits of Transitional Housing in the Last Six Months by Ethnicity of the Lead Tenant, October 2024 to September 2025