One Wellington mum and her two boys are among many state housing applicants having to wait well over a year for a home.
Guests normally stay a few nights at this Lower Hutt motel, but one woman and her two near-teenage boys have been here since January last year.
“We ended up here after 23 years of being in the family home,” she told 1News.
For nearly two years, the family have been living together in a studio apartment and being crammed inside four small walls, it's easy to get on each others' nerves.
“It was hard really hard at first and even now because you've gone from a four-bedroom home to a studio unit.
“My kids are great kids, but they don't see eye to eye more than half of the time and because they're in each others' face, it can get a bit much.”
They're waiting for a wheelchair-friendly state house and while some emergency motels get a bad rap, not this one.
In desperation she's asked her local MPs for help, including National's Chris Bishop.
“It's just a heart-breaking case and another example the housing crisis, I'm trying my very best to get her into a house,” he said.
New figures show the median wait time to find a home for our most at risk has ballooned to 421 days, up from 45 days five years ago.
“It's completely unacceptable,” Bishop said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern again defended her Government’s record on housing.
“It's all about having the ability to build more houses. We've built more than any government since the 1970s but we need to build more."
There are nearly 9000 New Zealanders now living in motels, including more than 4000 children.
“Ultimately we don't want young people and children growing up in motels but we equally don't want them to be without shelter,” Ardern said.
The wish of the mother in emergency housing is to be in her own home by Christmas.
“I think it's horrible. Before, I had the security of living in my own home, it was fine, I can see how easy it to be lost in the system,” she said.
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