Housing New Zealand says it is continuing to get tougher on tenants: since March, it has issued 28 eviction notices like those being challenged by three Lower Hutt families.
The state agency is awaiting the outcome of a court hearing this week to find out whether it can evict the tenants - six months after giving them three months' notice amid complaints of gang intimidation.
Housing New Zealand began issuing 90-day notices in March.
Labour Party housing spokesperson Moana Mackey wants assurances the notices are not being used as an easy way to kick people out.
But Housing New Zealand's chief executive, Lesley McTurk, says that only 28 of 69,000 tenancies have been terminated - 13 for anti-social behaviour and the rest because the tenants did not have a genuine housing need.
Housing Minister Phil Heatley says he supports the agency's use of the notices as a way of taking a stand against problem tenants.
Decision reserved on Mob evictions
At the hearing in the Lower Hutt District Court on Wednesday, the judge reserved his decision on whether the families of Mongrel Mob members should be evicted from state houses in the suburb of Pomare.
The tenants' lawyer, Elizabeth Hall, has asked the court to quash that decision, saying it was wrong in both fact and law, and is discrimination in its purest form.
But Housing New Zealand counsel Steve Haszard maintains there was no breach of the Bill of Rights Act, and Housing New Zealand acted legally.
