The Salvation Army says the Government's announcement it'll build 155 state house in the regions is a very small part of solving the housing shortage.
Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford today announced 155 new state houses will be built in 15 regional centres across the country by mid-2018.
Napier will get the most with 49 new state houses, Nelson 20 and South Canterbury 19.
The Salvation Army says people are moving out of Auckland because it's too expensive, and that's causing problems in the regions.
"One-hundred-and-fifty-five state homes is great, but it's really just a very small part of the solution. We've just got to have more housing," Lieutenant Colonel Lynette Hutson, Salvation Army National Director, told 1 NEWS.
Auckland is also in for a state housing top up, with work already beginning on one big development.
The development is on a site in New Lynn in west Auckland where building has begun for 82 new state homes, including town houses and apartments, to house 300 people.
"We've stopped the former National government's sell-off of state housing and we're going to set out to build thousands of extra high quality state houses," Mr Twyford said.
This New Lynn project on Housing New Zealand land was started by the National government, and National says it was already doing all of what Mr Twyford announced today.
"They've made a huge fuss about it. I can't imagine what sort of fuss he's going to make when he actually comes up with something that's his own work," said Michael Woodhouse, National's housing spokesperson.
Mr Twyford said: "What the Labour-led Government has done is given Housing New Zealand the green light to ramp up the building of new state houses."
The building of this new development in New Lynn is set to be complete by the middle of 2020.
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