Hundreds of Kāinga Ora tenancies have been terminated over the past three years, affecting more than 600 children, new data reveals.
At the most recent peak, 18 tenancies were terminated in July 2025, impacting 46 children.
The data counts the total houses where the tenancy was terminated and then the number of children among these households between December 2023, soon after the coalition came into power, and June 2026.
In total, 271 tenancies with children were cancelled – among them, there were 607 children.
The number of children in terminated Kainga Ora households
Kāinga Ora general manager of national services for homes and communities, Nick Maling, said the decision to terminate a tenancy was not taken lightly, especially when children were involved.
“When issues such as disruptive behaviour or rent debt arise, our people work closely alongside tenants and their whānau to understand what’s driving the behaviour and address underlying issues if needed.”
This can include referring tenants to specialist social and health support services and budgeting programmes.
Tenancies can be cancelled for several reasons, including breaching tenancy rules for “serious and persistent behaviour” that often impacts neighbours and their children.
“If tenants continue to breach their obligations under the Residential Tenancies Act, we will take steps to end the tenancy.”
The data, which was released to Labour in response to written parliamentary questions, shows around 27% of tenancies with children were cancelled because the adult could not pay the rent.
Around half were cancelled because the tenant and the children had left or abandoned the home and 12% were terminated because of disruptive behaviour.
Labour’s housing spokesman Kieran McAnulty said the eviction figures were “yet another example of National pushing vulnerable families deeper into poverty”.
“The Government promised their focus would be on children, but in reality, they have been happy to punish innocent kids for their parents’ actions – and has bare minimum of methods to trace where the displaced children may end up.
“No child that is on the street can be expected to thrive. It doesn’t take a genius to see why homelessness is growing under National.”
Kāinga Ora said it managed more than 78,000 tenancies housing more than 200,000 people – with nearly half of them children. In the previous financial year, Kāinga Ora said it placed 6815 households from the Ministry of Social Development housing register into its homes, which among them included 8500 children.
Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka, whose office released the data to Labour, did not respond for requests for comment by deadline.
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.
