Kane Roper, who asked not to be identified in a photo, has multiple sclerosis, which is now limiting his ability to get housing through the Ministry of Social Development. Without anywhere to turn, the 38-year-old will soon be back living with his parents and is at breaking point.

More than 9000 eligible families are on the waiting list for public housing, up a third on the figure at the end of last year.

Figures released under the Official Information Act to Stuff show that as of the end of August, 9344 eligible families, or households, were on the waiting list for public housing - a state or social home.

The number continued to climb from 8704 in June and 6182 at the end of last year. It is over double the figure reached in September of 2016.

Of those 9344, more than 7000 were given the "A" priority, meaning the Ministry of Social Development had classified them as being in the most severe need of housing.

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Almost 2000 current public housing tenants were waiting for a transfer to a more suitable home.

AARON WOOD/STUFF New figures from MSD show a quarter of eligible families are waiting over 150 days for public housing.

Housing Minister Phil Twyford said the rising number was a delayed response to "year after year of a worsening housing crisis right across the market."

"Low income households who are renting are among the most vulnerable. And when the housing market goes haywire it's these people who the sharp end of it. They need public housing," he said.

"The other thing is that our Government has been saying since the day we were elected that we are going to pull out all the stops to support people who need housing, so people know that, they are coming forward."

He said the Government had overshot its goal to build 1500 new emergency and public housing places for winter 2018, but it was still paying for more emergency motel stays than ever.

"We're doing more in this area than ever before...And yet we've been using more Special Needs Grants than ever before."

Twyford said while house price inflation in Auckland had stabilised, rents did not necessarily stop growing the moment prices did.

The Government has budgeted for an extra 1600 housing places a year for the next four years.

National social housing spokesman Simon O'Connor pointed to Twyford's pause on tenancy review as a factor in the waitlist increasing.

Tenancy review is a process whereby Housing New Zealand checks if families still need public housing. Twyford paused it for several months while working out new criteria, which are now in place.

O'Connor and fellow MP Judith Collins have said the pause on tenancy reviews meant tenants who don't deserve a public house are staying in them longer, leaving the truly needy to wait longer and longer.

"Fundamentally having regular reviews makes the system efficient. And when you've got such a high number of people all efficiencies are important," O'Connor said.

Twyford rejected this argument, saying only a handful of tenancy review evictions were ever happening, even under National.

"The eviction numbers and terminations are negligibly small, and were negligibly small under them, compared to the number of people who move out of public housing into the private rental market of their own accord."

But O'Connor said the wider message that tenancy reviews sent was important as it sent a signal to tenants to make sure they actually needed a public home.

He acknowledged that the huge upsurge in demand for social housing had also taken place throughout National's time in Government.

"There's no doubt that we had a high lift under the previous Government. But this is going higher and higher and accelerating," O'Connor said.

He believed Twyford's planned changes to tenancy laws had also seen some landlords selling out and getting out of the market.

This could drive rents up if the homes were sold to owner-occupiers, because owner-occupied homes generally have a lower occupancy rate than rented houses.

Average weekly rents for new tenancies in Auckland peaked at $569 in May, according to bond data held by the Government.