Hard News: Crowded houses
145 Responses
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Sacha, in reply to
I am sure that most in the public, most voters and potential voters, who would never be faced with such emergencies, would not have a clue this was going on.
Good journos even.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
How bad does it have to get before the wider electorate is disgusted enough to turf out the crazies in the government benches?
Possibly when the middle classes start sleeping in cars or otherwise losing jobs en masse. In any case, my idea of pitching tent cities in the leafy suburbs still stands, and 'Occupying" Generation Rentier is probably a better idea than going on rent strike.
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Email
If people want to make some noise on this issue, a start would be to sign these petitions on Action Station:
Petition to forgive WINZ motel accommodation debt
Petition demanding government policy to specifically address homelessness
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Some I noticed about homelessness when I visited Calafornia was all the cars and vans parked up on public streets. Some of them with trailers loaded up with useful scavenged gear where obviously permanent abodes. What's was different over there was that these verticals would never be road legal here in New Zealand and would incur large fines and would eventually be towed away and impounded.
I also talked to people who lived in boats and discovered that they are subjected to far less compliance costs for that than we do here. Last time I checked the viability of living on a boat in Auckland, I found the council has been doing a big clamp down on that.
I'd be interested to hear any anecdotal comparisons between homelessness in New Zealand ( Auckland ) and other places. I would rather be homeless in the United States than I would in New Zealand, but I don't know any ware else to compare that Australia and i't prepare to be homeless here than there.
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steven crawford, in reply to
If people want to make some noise on this issue, a start would be to sign these petitions on Action Station:
Last time I signed one of there partitions they started spamming me to sign every Tom, Dick and Harrys gig.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
I would rather be homeless in the United States than I would in New Zealand, but I don't know any ware else to compare that Australia and i't prepare to be homeless here than there.
While Sydney's warmer than Auckland it can be chilly in winter. When Robert Louis Stevenson visited there from Samoa he described it as a "sub-Antarctic hell-hole". The 1960s block where I spent the decade prior to 2003 had over 180 units and its own coin-op laundry. Sometimes during the winter months I noticed that someone had been dossing down in the cubby hole around the laundry's large hot water cylinder. No-one seemed fussed about it, though the 'tenant' would have had to hike for around five minutes to the nearest public toilet and cold running water.
While walking to someone's place for dinner one evening I was surprised by the number of men, and a probable older woman, sleeping on grilles right out on the footpath, where hot air was escaping from below. This was in the vicinity of St Vincents Hospital, on the Darlinghurst-Paddington border. Dinner was delayed while we waited for a missing guest, a trainee psychiatrist. When he finally showed up he explained that he'd spent the past couple of hours with an emergency team trying to raise a response from a woman who'd been deemed 'at risk' and hadn't been answering calls.
When she eventually got around to opening her door she casually explained that yes, she'd heard their attempts to contact her, but as she'd assumed they were 'probably just the mormons' she'd carried on watching TV. I couldn't help but wonder why resources seemed to be available for some, while others were at that very moment sleeping rough only a block or two away.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Email
Darlinghurst-Paddington border
I remember an old woman who I regularly saw (on the way back from gigs late at night, back in 1980) sleeping in a bus shelter outside the Victoria Barracks on Oxford street - she was always well swaddled and was apparently a local 'institution'.
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Email
Press Release from KOA - re Social housing changes in Chchch
Christchurch Council Housing Changes Not All We Were Led To Believe.
Did Government Change Terms Or Was Council Wilfully Blind?The Christchurch City Council (CCC) is the second biggest landlord in NZ (after the State). So, any changes with the city’s publicly-owned housing portfolio are a big deal.
Just such a major change is about to take effect from July. And it is not as benevolent as we have been led to believe.
The decision to become a Community Housing Provider (i.e. transfer the City Council’s social housing to a Trust of which CCC is a 49% shareholder) was sold to the public as a method to increase income and assist tenants in attracting higher subsidies.
“Under this new structure, the Council would lease its social housing to the new entity. For each social housing tenant who qualifies for the IRRS, the new company would receive from the Government the difference between the actual market rent and the rent paid by the tenant.
This would be substantial revenue and would be enough to enable us to continue, rebuild and repair our social housing without any charge on rates. It also provides a great base to keep building on the provision of housing for those in need. And at the moment that's a lot.”
Deputy Mayor Vicki Buck, May 30, 2014
The actuality is somewhat different: only new tenants will attract the IRRS (Income Related Rent Subsidy) and only if they have been referred by the Ministry of Social Development to the new trust.
“The Government confirmed to Council that only new tenants referred to the proposed Community Housing Provider by the Ministry of Social Development will be eligible for an Income Related Rent Subsidy (IRRS).”
Christchurch Housing Accord Monitoring Report, December 2014
In political terms, such a major unpalatable change is called “swallowing a dead rat”.
But this particular dead rat was sold to the people of Christchurch (the owners of this extensive public housing portfolio, built up over generations) as if the Government subsidy would apply to all Council tenants, not just new ones.
As it stands, this is going to bring in a lot less by way of Government subsidies than what the public (and media) have been led to believe.
And, in the process, the City Council is losing 51% ownership of its own housing.
How’s that for a “win win” deal!So, did the Government – ideologically committed to privatisation, including of State housing – change the terms of the deal or was the Council wilfully blind?
Probably a combination of both. But the Council can’t pretend it didn’t know.
That same December 2014 Christchurch Housing Accord Monitoring Report says, under “Priority Actions”:
“Council to consider how best to proceed with establishing the CHP given current Council tenants will not be eligible for IRRS”
http://www.ccc.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Services/Social-Housing/Christchurch-Housing-Accord-Monitoring-Report-Dec-2014.pdf
So the Council, willingly or otherwise, has swallowed a dead rat. And the people of Christchurch have been sold a pig in a poke.
This does not augur well for any other pending privatisations, such as City Care.Murray Horton
Convenor
--------------Another case of the Government's use of Tom Waits maxim:
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away"...much like Key's ability to offer debt repayment and tax cuts using the same money - Vernon Small has a good piece on this in today's Press titled 'Key's silky skills; cake today and tomorrow' - can't find it on line yet.
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Hebe, in reply to
I haven’t been following this – at all. Sounds not good. CCC has been second-largest social housing provider in NZ, after HNZ.
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Vernon Small has a good piece on this in today’s Press titled ‘Key’s silky skills; cake today and tomorrow’ – can’t find it on line yet.
Here it is.
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Howard Edwards, in reply to
Stopped at the traffic lights last week I noticed that the van next to me was owned by a plumbing company called "Continuous Spouting".
I wonder if Messrs Hosking, Williams, Henry and Smith have invested in a new business venture?
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william blake, in reply to
Gutter journalism?
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Email
I wonder if Messrs Hosking, Williams, Henry and Smith have invested in a new business venture?
Plumbing new depths?
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Alfie, in reply to
I wonder if Messrs Hosking, Williams, Henry and Smith have invested in a new business venture?
Messers Cesspool, Sewer and Associates
Excremental blockages eliminated, manure spread liberally...That's a very good piece from Vernon Small.
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Raybon Kan on Key's attitude to people living in cars and WINZ making Serco look good.
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Because someone has to act like responsible grown-ups - Generation Zero responds to Labour's nincompoopery.
“Housing in Auckland is a complicated issue, but one things clear - urban sprawl is not the solution. We would encourage the Party to take a sensible approach to housing in Auckland by supporting the passing of the Unitary Plan not pushing for this new policy of urban sprawl.”
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bob daktari, in reply to
When can we vote for the likes of Gen Zero... they'd actually make a positive difference, the endless rearranging of chairs by our two major political parties isn't working
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While the discussion goes on, it is my impression that nobody seems to have a sensible set of answers to address the housing situation. Labour’s Phil Twyford is basically joining Bill English now in putting pressure not just on Auckland Council, but also at least indirectly on the so-called Independent Hearings Panel that is now considering all submissions on the notified Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan.
That was supposed to be an INDEPENDENT hearing process, where independent panel members (I note they were appointed by the Minister!?) are tasked with making recommendations to Auckland Council, upon which the Council’s Governing Body will then decide and vote, what to accept or not.
I fear all these new signals from Phil Twyford and Labour, and an emboldened government with English and Nick Smith at the forefront, is an inadmissible interference in a Plan hearing process, which is also a LEGAL process!
These politicians should for two months keep their mouths shut and use their brain instead to work out more sensible solutions, and to also address what they, that is first and foremost central government, can do to solve the issues.
Looking at Nick Smith and his under-performing SHAs, where we also have ample examples of land banking, and Bill English and his apprentice Paula Bennett, there is more talk and window dressing than real action and progress on the housing front. Simply selling Housing NZ homes to developers, and forcing NGOs to collaborate with developers to create more “affordable” housing is a pipe dream, as the Tamaki Redevelopment also shows.
We need a firm commitment to state construction programs, under also the Housing NZ umbrella, to build truly affordable homes, without making it all dependent on the market now dominated by land bankers, speculators and investors raking in high returns from sellers and also tenants.
And again, most do simply take it for a given, that Auckland should grow to 2.5 million population, never mind the limited natural resources like water, and become a “global metropolitan city”, being placed on a narrow land bridge, along a long harbour and fronted in the west by a natural environmentally protected park on the Waitakere Ranges.
Some satellite cities may make sense, along a rail track, but that in itself will only lead to more sprawl, unless firm rules are set, and unless population growth in this region is contained. Look at Los Angeles and the whole of California where unlimited population growth can lead, and let us not forget the water rationing that happened there, due to increased, prolonged drought, partly as a consequence of climate change, which will bring similar consequences to central and northern parts of the North Island here, if anybody may bother checking the data on the IPCC reports.
Besides of all this, where are the billions of dollars for improved, extended train networks, for new schools, hospitals, water pipes, broadband fibre cables, footpaths, cycleways, and so forth going to come from? How are people going to be moved out of their cars to switch to and fund public transport?
At present we have headless politicians, a looming planning disaster and panic, it seems.
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Email
may I say the thought of headless politicians is at times extremely appealing
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Marc C, in reply to
Oh, careful, Angela, you could have gotten away with such a comment in the past, where only the French Revolution involved such scenarios, and that was accepted in a historic context. Nowadays we have our government, the GCSB and SIS scan comments on social media, as they fear you may be supporting some groups that are active in the Middle East, doing just that kind of stuff, I will not link, as it may upset.
Be mindful, we are being watched, and read, 24/7.
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There is a Vice survey going around social media at the moment, stating New Zealand's perception is that the top 1% own 50% of the wealth, where in fact it is between 16-18%; QED kiwis are idiots. I think that general perception is accurate (not the idiot bit). The bottom 50% in NZ own 5% of the wealth, and the top 50% own 95% of it. A great deal of this wealth is tied up in land and real estate.
This level of inequity is the major determinant of poor health and wellbeing.
The fact that the government can spend $40,000,000 just to keep emergency housing at the present level is a clue to the gradual shift away from a welfare state in this country, that has been going on for the past eight years.
Just where do the wealthy, land owning 50% think their tax cuts are coming from?
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Labour's new FRIEND, it seems:
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/05/a_great_policy_from_labour.html
Good grief, what is left of our "opposition"?
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Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
Email
may I say the thought of headless politicians is at times extremely appealing
I'll bring my knitting.
We can sit there, like a couple of old crones.....cackling away...
http://www.ferdyonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/tspimpernel011-e1354496778337.jpg
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Sacha, in reply to
When can we vote for the likes of Gen Zero
Seems a better payoff for any support you can offer them to do their work. No wonder donations and volunteering are declining for some political parties.
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Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
Email
While the discussion goes on, it is my impression that nobody seems to have a sensible set of answers to address the housing situation.
Marc C...did you catch this on Natrad this am?
Around about 4.35 onwards....fella starts speaking about Wellington having to step up and deal to the speculators and the 'duopoly on building supplies'...then ....dead silence. The wee minion in the bowels of the Beehive who pushes the kill button for Natrad was at it again.
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