Given our current homeless problem (43+K) & shortage of housing I’m seeing state homes boarded up, selling, sold etc. Penny Bright exposed the thousands of homes sold off in Tamaki & elsewhere to property developers. I’ve also heard of private folk buying them for a virtual song. Some folk who were evicted from these who are still homeless. Then there’s the P scam with many sales, the tale spun by the Nats that justified sell offs. Also the folk being placed in emergency motel accommodation. I’ve heard of folk leaving those with $85K debt because WINZ loaned the money for that accommodation. The only real beneficiaries of that scheme of course are the moteliers. How is it rocket science to simply have lent that $85 to the homeless person towards a new house? Even a tiny home, a container home or similar? If you have stories to tell about any of these scenarios, and would like to write them down (doesn’t have to be flash writing, just as you would speak) & send them to me with any relevant images even. Comment in comments below with your email, I won’t publish that but will contact you & delete the comment. Alternatively contact me via the contact page. One scenario that’s been told me since posting this is that of bulldozed state homes, very recently too. We are in the middle of a housing crisis & they are bulldozing perfectly good looking houses… a formerly state owned asset down the gurgler of course courtesy of Roger Douglas. So if you can report any thing like this, let me know how long ago they were bulldozed & the addresses where they were. We are told these sections will have new community houses built on them. Have you seen any being built? If you’ve noticed any houses/units etc also that have sat empty or boarded up for a while can you send me a pic with the following info if you have it:
1) current date & about how long it’s been empty
2) if you happen to know anything about the last tenants as in why they left (just left, were evicted, muscled out?)
3) is it for sale?
4) what town/area/city is it?
5) do you have any other info about it
5) if you’ve been housed in a motel, did you leave with debt to repay to WINZ?
I’d like to compile these & get a general picture of the extent of former HNZ homes being land banked. Needless to say your personal details would be kept confidential & unpublished. (People have already indicated they know of homes that have been empty for up to 18 months & more for no apparent reason).
Below are images of just a few of the Tamaki homes exposed by Penny Bright as land banked. Search ‘state housing’ in categories on these stories (left of page).
Remember how the National party sold off literally thousands of our State Homes? Homes built so that no NZers would be without a roof over their heads.
Thousands of properties land banked for greedy property developers, now laughing all the way to the banks. Those homes once helped house the now 43K plus homeless we have in NZ.
Over the recent years as these houses disappeared, I’ve read many comments from bloggers who have also watched this. Many folk were evicted from our State Homes with what appears to be little good justification. One I read the other day, folk in the Wellington region were evicted for property development, and the evicted are still homeless. Following is the tale of another unfortunate Tamaki family evicted just weeks after their mother died:
So, no surprizes that now folk are languishing in garages, sheds, cars even. Unable to put a roof over their heads due also to the obscenely large rentals being charged, all helped along by the fact there is little housing to be had. The good old supply & demand mentality on steroids that is now seeing the rich getting richer & the poor getting even poorer. Thanks to Roger Douglas & the Neo Liberal ‘experiment’.
Here is the article highlighting the rental shortage in Napier.
Napier families who are desperate for housing are applying for flatshares and one-bedroom units.
A Napier landlord who posted an advertisement for a one-bedroom unit on TradeMe got more than 900 inquiries within 24 hours.
“We pulled it because we got 946 replies… I honestly couldn’t believe there were that many people wanting a place.”
The one-bedroom unit in Tamatea was available for $285 a week.
Several applicants were families who simply could not find anywhere else to live, he said.
“We put in the ad that it was not suitable for families or children, but they were quite willing to say the kids can sleep in the bedroom and we’ll sleep in the lounge.”
Most of those who inquired were unwilling to fill in an application form asking for reference checks and a police check.
This helped the landlord whittle down the list to about 50 people, who were invited to view the property at an open day, he said.
“Even then you could tell some people were desperate, a couple of them had tears in their eyes when they were talking to us.”
Another Napier man searching for two flatmates to share his Ahuriri home said he was getting dozens of calls and texts each day – and many were from families.
On four different occasions he had families turning up to sign a tenancy, when he was expecting a single person to show up.
“They led me to believe that the room was only for one person,” he said.
Hawke’s Bay Properties director Dee Penno was not surprised.
“There is just absolute desperation out there,” she said.
“You get all these applicants and how do you pick? Which desperate person do you pick?”
More than 200 inquiries had already been made in response to a current TradeMe ad for a one-bedroom flat in the Napier suburb of Maraenui, available for $260 a week.
Prospective tenants would often offer more than the advertised price in order to secure a home, Ms Penno said.
“And I also have people that ring up literally two minutes after I’ve listed it wanting to see the house before anyone else, begging down the phone.”
Proposed new requirements for rental properties, such as insulation and heating, would make the situation worse, Ms Penno said.
A lot of landlords had sold up over the last 18 months, because of the buoyant market in Hawke’s Bay, she said.
And she predicted it would only get worse, if stricter requirements for rental properties came into force.
“It is scaring a lot of landlords off… and I think we will see a lot of Mum and Dad investors with one rental property saying ‘this is too hard, we’re out’,” she said.
Hawke’s Bay rents had risen the fastest in the country, jumping 14 percent in the last year to a record high of $480 in August, according to figures from TradeMe.
The number of emergency housing special needs grants given to pay for emergency motel accommodation had tripled in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne between the March and June quarters, Ministry for Social Development (MSD) figures showed.
More people were coming to MSD for help, just as it had asked them to, an MSD spokesperson said.
MSD usually saw an increase in those needing help over the winter months.
“A high proportion of the people on the Social Housing Register in the East Coast region are living in insecure housing – accommodation that is unsuitable on a long-term basis. Winter will be making things worse for those people,” MSD said.
Note; the image above is not of the man concerned.
Shame, shame on the Nats. I saw another headline today with Bill English saying it wasn’t their fault people are homeless. All they need to do is go to WINZ he reckons. Clearly he hasn’t had any need to go to WINZ himself (and wouldn’t when he only pays a pittance for tax like a tiny percentage of what the workers pay) & he doesn’t realize all they’ll get is into deep debt in emergency motel accommodation. What stress awaits these poor people. And I’ve also seen this week reference to the suicides happening with people driven by this same government (really corporate) department. Again shame on the Nats, under their watch child poverty is up, & so is homelessness. And under their watch an old gentleman dies on a park bench in the freezing cold. And 3K landbanked state homes sit empty in the same city. What have we come to? May this dear man rest in peace. EnvirowatchRangitikei
A well-known homeless man who had a cheeky smile and lovable nature died on a bench in an Auckland cemetery.
Keith Johnson, died aged 57 on the same bench he had sat on most days for the past four years in St Peter’s cemetery in Onehunga on July 1.
Johnson was not in the best of health, and his alcoholism may have contributed to his death, those close to him say.
The public has responded to Johnson’s death with an outpouring of grief. Mementos including a surfboard, table spreads, flowers and notes have been left at the bench he used to occupy.
So our corporation that parades as a government is handing out election lollipops… predictably, as we steam undeterred towards that ‘choose a different rider for the same (trojan) horse’ time again, and I’ll explain the ‘trojan’ further on in the article. Please excuse my cynicism but it is all just so predictable. As I’ve been going on about for quite some time now, we have 42K homeless. I’m wondering if any of those people will be housed? They pulled all the subsidizing of community housing so the councils would ‘have’ to sell their pensioner housing stock (at fire sale prices see Horowhenua who have all but gifted ours away and to a property developer who started a front company called ‘Compassion Horowhenua’, ‘compassion’, bring on the violins… one week before the sale). Not all that clever really.
The Horowhenua District Council all but gifted their community housing plus land to a property developer (Willis & Bond) with a front company Compassion Horowhenua
In Christchurch they are doing the same, selling to developers with front companies/partnerships. Our Horowhenua Council CE and majority of councillors (who excluded the Mayor from all planning and execution of the deal) have told what looks like porkie after porkie on this – their ‘long term’ agreement with ‘wrap around services’ for the elderly (more violins) is actually only 12 years which should see out the existing pensioners unless they live beyond 90 odd and haven’t been expunged yet by the Liverpool Care Pathway. This is how little they really care about people so don’t fall for the ‘we care about you’ line when just weeks before election time they start bringing out the bribes, having coldly ignored homelessness, child poverty & suicide stats for years now.
Hear former Aussie politician Anne Bressington speak about Agenda 21, the forerunner to Agenda 2030
This is all about Agenda 2030 again (aka Agenda 21). The ‘trojan’ horse I referred to earlier.
The United Nationsaction plan implemented worldwide to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all energy, all education, all information, and all human beings in the world. (Rosa Koire)
The ‘trojan’ horse of Agenda 2030 has been carefully & quietly working away in our midst in the form of transformed local government with the now well known terminology ‘sustainable development’. They are known also (those committed to the plan) as ICLEI councils (International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives).
ICLEI Councils are part of the Agenda 30’s method of installing their plan planet wide
Now incorporated and listed on Dun & Bradstreet as companies councils are a different animal to what we had previously. (See image below).
Rangitikei District Council listed on Dun & Bradstreet’s company register … search your own DC and find it there also
For starters their CEs (no longer humble Town Clerks) are on top salaries of one quarter of a million and more. The key method of the Agenda in stripping nations of their sovereignty is selling off their assets, done through the public private partnerships we are seeing now.
“We are at present working discreetly, with all our might, to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local nation states of the world. And all the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands.” Arnold Toynbee – International Affairs, p.809, November 1931
The partnership for instance between Willis & Bond and the Sisters of Compassion in Horowhenua. An excellent exposé of this is the late Joan Veon’s book, ‘Prince Charles the Sustainable Prince’, you will find that still on Amazon or Abebooks. Veon worked for the UN for many years. Also read Rosa Koire’s‘Behind the Green Mask’, watch her videos on Youtube, plus those of former Aussie politician Anne Bressington on the topic. It is very clandestine because they know you won’t like it. They are quietly and gradually whittling away your freedoms. Willis & Bond who were all but gifted Horowhenua’s community housing recently, and who have built apartments in Auckland and other places, refer to their retaining of car storage under the apartments because ‘they’ (that’s you) are not ready yet to go car less. We’ll be under “24 hour surveillance” says the CEO, for our safety of course. “Not that it isn’t already safe” he adds, in case the safety term puts you off. This is the plan for Agenda 2030. All living in the cities in ‘human settlement zones’ (their words), in high rise apartments, without cars, all riding bicycles, with our up market smart appliances connected to our smart meters, keeping track of everything we do. At this point in time it’s a choice. They don’t intend for it to remain that way however.
The new UN plan (well it’s fairly old actually, it’s just they haven’t fully told us about it yet) is about ‘sustainable development’. But have we seen anything that’s sustainable lately, or ever? The pollution’s getting increasingly worse with only 40% of rivers now swimmable, and while they sell our water offshore for profit (for themselves, & we were told Agenda 21 was about helping the poor) we have to buy it at a much higher price, as much as 500 times more. Then generally we have to filter it because it’s now full of chemicals … added to kill the bacteria from all the pollution.
Horowhenua, leading the way in ‘Sustainable development’
You may like to read the latest anyway on the loans. They are for the cities only pretty much. (Ask yourself, why are they not helping the rural areas?) And being interest free is quite the offer you can’t refuse, if you are fortunate enough to have a job & a reasonable income of course. Other things to watch for with Agenda 2030 are the rates hikes in rural areas (see what Mangawhai has gone through). A small town resident told me recently he pays more in rates in a town of 6K than he did in Christchurch and has less services. (Also read Naomi Jacobs’ ebook on the topic regarding Kaipara rates – she explains Fabian Socialism for you which is the basis of Agenda 2030 and the ‘religion’ if you like of those who are pushing it).
Mangaweka in the central North Island, one of the many small formerly thriving towns that our govt/corporation shut down by the withdrawal of essential facilities
Also watch for the deterioration of the roads. They are finishing off what they began a few decades back when they shut down all the services … health, hospitals, banks, post offices, pharmacies and so on. Due to financial constraints we were told at the time, but really just a matter of priorities and what our esteemed leaders told us we would be getting (or not getting as the case would be) and in keeping with this long term Agenda that’s been in the planning for a couple of hundred years or more. Global governance or the new world order as it’s also known by, and which was first announced publicly by Bush Snr after the Gulf War, is not the benign friendly governance they would have you believe. No wars, all in agreement, a healthy environment. No, it is about world dictatorship by one government that is very fascist. If you don’t believe me on fascist, see what happened in the links below to NZ folk who exposed corruption in recent years. Read all the links above also and you will see. I intend to write more on this disturbing plan for ‘global governance’, especially as it applies to us here in NZ, so watch this space.
The idiocy of this whole farce is breathtaking to say the least. Whilst ex PM Key (who has now slithered from view) has more than one mansion to live and holiday in, our govt/corp buys mansions for its reps abroad and 33K homes sit empty in Auckland owned by off shore speculators with that latter city now the most expensive to buy in planet wide … we have the same establishment lendingthousands of dollars to the homeless for emergency motel accommodation & leaving them deep in debt. And these homes (including others) sit empty. Um, who exactly is controlling the purse strings (the same folk who got us neck deep in debt) and why are they not sacked? (They could have loaned that money to the homeless as a deposit on a home). And soon we’ll doubtless have another equally as incompetent set of riders for the very same corporate horse that’s running the show. This is all a crime of obscene proportions … the homelessness I’m referring to. From a nation that once housed all, to folk living in cars, sheds and garages. Shame, shame New Zeeland. Shame on the Nats, shame on Labour too who helped us all down this road that’s looking frightening indeed for many. The steely, cold reality of the UN’s plan for so called ‘sustainable development’. With all their flowery rhetoric they never had any intention of helping the poor or equalizing wealth. People need to wake up to that. The Nats have been LAND BANKING OUR state homes since 2012. Corruption at its ugliest … somewhat thinly disguised gentrification. This was only ever about enriching the rich who plan eventually to own everything. Don’t believe me? Read Rosa Koire’s ‘Behind the Green Mask’. You’ll find it on Amazon. Or see her on our Agenda 21/30 pages. And read below about the Porirua houses that have sat empty for four years. Write to Nick Smith and tell him how disgusted you are. EnvirowatchRangitikei
First they were too big and now they’re too small but soon, according to Housing New Zealand, four empty houses in Porirua City will be just right.
The properties have been empty for four years, the last tenants relocated so the houses could be earthquake proofed – something HNZ now says they didn’t need.
Ten months after the agency tried to sell the three-bedroom houses because the demand was for smaller homes. It now has plans to remodel the properties into accommodation for larger families.
NOTE 29/10/17 : there is an important new update on this topic here by Penny Bright who is keeping us up to speed with what is happening in Tamaki… they are demolishing sound state homes to make way for palatial housing for the rich. Plus…
The “100% Crown-owned ‘Crown Entity Company’ – Tamaki Regeneration Ltd, with $1.6 billion worth of former Housing NZ properties is not listed under Sch 4A of the Public Finance Act, or Sch 2 of the Crown Entities Act, or listed as a company monitored by Treasury’s Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit.”
We’ve been seeing many images of folks sleeping in cars, tents, sheds and garages in the past few years, heart breaking for a country where a few decades ago virtually all were housed, employed, clothed and fed. Not so now with 42K homeless, and it’s not because we had a war or a natural disaster. It’s purely because of greed among those who purport to LEAD us. BLEED us would be more to the point given the tax rate these leaches are on. This has to stop. This information supplied by Penny Bright, highlights the land banking of properties in Tamaki, defined as gentrification.
The Greens had this to say about it:
Tamaki is a “…community of people who feel that they have been shunted around as if they are of little consequence. They have stayed defiant because they can see through the rhetoric that the redevelopment of their neighbourhood is about helping the locals and doing up old houses. In fact, the redevelopment is benefitting wealthy developers and property investors who get to dally around with a small bit of social housing on the side so they can justify their land grab.
The National government did not just let the housing crisis happen. Their policy settings have designed the shortage of affordable, state, and social housing. Through its tax policy, this government has encouraged the use of houses for business investment instead of for living in as homes. This has helped put both rents and mortgages out of reach for too many people, in a way this country has not seen before. This is the housing crisis.” (links below).
This is criminal. Homes have been sitting empty while HOMELESSNESS is on the increase. On top of that there are 33K ghost homes in Auckland owned by people off shore & uninhabited. Words escape me. Please read. EnvirowatchRangitikei
Thanks to Penny Bright for this information (2017 Independent candidate for Tamaki).
“Political Satire – Nick D Houses, Minister for Property Developer$”
The ‘Tamaki $CAM’
“MPs, Councillors, tenants and the public were told that the Tamaki Redevelopment Company Ltd (59% Crown / 41% Auckland Council) was going to have 2,800 Tamaki HNZ properties transferred on 31 March 2016.
They didn’t end up owning ONE house.
2,704 HNZ properties in Tamaki were transferred to a DIFFERENT company – Tamaki Regeneration Ltd (100% Crown).
Check both these companies with the NZ Companies Office.
All the fine words about ‘social good’ objectives in the (27 page) Constitution of Tamaki Redevelopment Company Ltd are nowhere to be found in the (7 page) Constitution of Tamaki Regeneration Ltd – who OWN the assets.
The ‘Regeneration’ of Tamaki and the poorer communities of Glen Innes, Pt England and Panmure, has been, in my opinion, a total RORT and FRAUD.
The real aim has been the GENTRIFICATION of Tamaki – forcing poor people – ‘State tenants’ off prime real estate to make way for private mansions for the wealthy, and profit$ for private property developer$.
In my view, as an anti-Corruption campaigner – the corrupt ‘conflicts of interest’ involved in property development and real estate in Auckland are OBSCENE!
Penny Bright 2017 Independent candidate for Tamaki.
Tamaki Redevelopment is reputed to be owned by Bill English, Nick Smith and the Auckland Council. 2,800 HNZ homes were transferred to them, they weren’t sold to them and they were also given 200 million dollars.
Pictured below are just some of the documented homes sitting empty
RELATED:
The Battle of Glen Innes
Attempts to build a “model community” in Glen Innes have gone catastrophically awry. How did that happen, and what’s been learned? (Metro)
“Niki represents a community of people who feel that they have been shunted around as if they are of little consequence. They have stayed defiant because they can see through the rhetoric that the redevelopment of their neighbourhood is about helping the locals and doing up old houses. In fact, the redevelopment is benefitting wealthy developers and property investors who get to dally around with a small bit of social housing on the side so they can justify their land grab.
The National government did not just let the housing crisis happen. Their policy settings have designed the shortage of affordable, state, and social housing. Through its tax policy, this government has encouraged the use of houses for business investment instead of for living in as homes. This has helped put both rents and mortgages out of reach for too many people, in a way this country has not seen before. This is the housing crisis.”
Key’s recent knighthood is a clear illustration and reminder of just how corrupt our govt/corp really is. To honour a man under whose watch we’ve descended to 41K homeless, and 3rd highest in child poverty in the world’s developed nations, who is very happy to tax himself & his ilk 2.8% while those in the poverty stats are taxed a whole 28% nearly a third of their income … all makes a hollow farce of the knighthoods in my opinion. Shame on John Key & shame on the pretend NZ govt (that is really a corporation) that honours such rogues. And if you don’t think Enzed’s corrupt as, read this:
You will find this barrister on facebook, consider connecting with him and finding out more truth on this corrupt nation.
And as for honouring former Mayor Duffy, under whose watch we in the Horowhenua heard whistleblowers telling us how he coerced councillors to vote as ‘expected’, and who displays total disrespect for tangata whenua (see our Local Gov Watch pages / Horowhenua for more info on those issues). Such is the rot now in our once democratic nation. Wake up folks & see what’s really happening.
We were reminded not so long ago by the Greens of Key’s real legacy.
“Your desperate, lumbering, grasping attempt at building a legacy with a flag won’t mask the realities.
Hungry kids up
Inequality up
Pollution up
Debt up
Housing costs up
Electricity costs up
Foreign ownership up
Corruption up
Once you may have been a national leader but now you look like just a National Party leader.” READ MORE of transcript or watch the video.
And not so long ago UNICEF declared we were third on the list for highest child poverty in the developed world. If you go to their website they’re actually pondering on how to solve this!! And the powers that be have just honoured the leader under whose watch this has developed! Join the dots people. This is not normal. It’s not right. And they are wanting you to honour Key right along with them, in the hope you won’t notice it’s not right.
See Bryan Bruce’s recent post featuring this news article:
“A car, a garage, a motel room or boarding house is not a home.
No child should grow up in one.
Please make housing a priority when you cast your vote this year.”
Watch Bruce’s award winning documentary to remind you how this state of affairs developed. No, not the result of lazy parents (those ones who are taxed 28% if they manage to find a job, and another 33% if they should manage to find a second job as many do – while corporations pay almost no tax) … it is a faulty neo lib economic set up that never intended for those aforementioned parents to win. Trickle down is a scam.
Finally (and there are actually more issues I haven’t touched on like NZ’s very high suicide rate) – with our 41K homeless, a reminder that in Auckland 33K homes sit empty, owned by people who don’t even live here, while the Nats have been hocking off all the State Homes our predecessors built with blood sweat and tears after the bankers wars they fought in. The rationale for selling has been to pay off debt, whilst, as Bryan Bruce points out in our article links above, the Housing Corporation was operating at a profit. These people lie to us without even blinking.
So Key has a knighthood that in my opinion means absolutely nothing, in fact it is a damning reflection on the state of our once democratic nation that is now wholly sold out to the banking fraternity that is slowly but surely entwining the entire planet into its plan of global governance aka new world order, aka Agenda 21/2030 that really aims to inventory and control all land and resources on the planet. And it’s right on track.
(Reference; Treasury data between 2008-2016 Statistics NZ data 2008-2016 Reserve Bank data 2008-2016 Auckland City pollution data 2008-2016 Wellington City pollution records 2008-2016 Queenstown City Council records 2008-2016 )
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Between 2008- 2016:
*The greatest increase in Population In NZ’s history. from 4.2 million in 2008 to 4.7 million today (500,000 people )
*Mortgage debt res $247.5 billion record high, 28 % increase in last 5 years
*Consumer debt $ 15.4 billion, 16 % increase in last 5 years
*Business debt, $91.34 billion
*Agriculture debt, $59.42 billion, record high
*Govt debt $ 112 billion Nov 2016
( all figures from Statistics NZ, Reserve Bank, Treasury)
—————
* 500 000 extra people over the last 8 years, not one new hospital and the longest elective surgery wait lists in years.
* Between2008-2015 no extra funding for Police. Fewer Police per capita pre-Key to post- Key
* 36 million dollars taken out of DOC’s budget ( 2015 ) to pay for the costs of Immigration.
* Massive blowout in Corrections budget to pay for Prisons, 40 million dollars.
* Massive growth costs in Roading, Schooling, Health, Pensions, and Government Bureaucracy.
* More competition for our Fisheries.
* More demand /competition for our fresh water resources.
*More vehicles registered than ever in our history, over an 8 year period.
* Record environmental damage ( air pollution, landfill waste )recorded by councils in a number of main centres. Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton Queenstown.
* Enormous congestion problems now encountered in some of the main centres.
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FROM THE NEW MAYOR, MICHAEL FEYEN who is in support of keeping our housing stock:“I support retaining community housing and obtaining the housing nz stock as well. HDC, iwi And Grey Power could form a trust or lease agreement:) HLC could conduct apprenticeships around building, plumbing, electrician, painters, etc to maintain and upgrade the increased housing stock. Great potential for HDC employment and community, with a business case:) I trust this petition gets support as it is vital for our districts future that we have affordable housing.”
NOTE: In spite of his support the remainder of the Council is not in agreement on this.
THE PETITION
The Horowhenua District Council is tendering our stock of community housing for sale to an alternative community housing provider. Grey Power however, believes that provision of affordable housing must remain a core activity for central and local government…”The proposal to sell pensioner housing, a key determinant of community wellbeing, is a direct antithesis to community wellbeing”.
We also see the withdrawal of affordable housing for the elderly and disabled as a backward step especially in light of growing homelessness in our country. We believe that in the longer term, an alternative provider will place economic factors above caring for the elderly and therefore request that they halt the tendering of these properties for sale.
Why is this important?
In April this year the Horowhenua District Council announced it was tendering their stock of community housing for sale to an alternative community housing provider.
The justification given by councils NZ wide, including, Horowhenua, to cease providing housing, has been that Government withdrew its responsibility in this respect (including funding) some time back.
HDC insist they’ve identified that “the ‘most sustainable’ way forward for delivering pensioner housing was to transfer the stock and the responsibility to a housing provider that had the focus and resources to respond to the housing needs of the district.” At the same time they say they “… want to ensure that community housing in Horowhenua remains accessible and affordable, and is also connected to services that enhance social connectedness and wellbeing.”
Horowhenua’s Grey Power however, disagrees saying it is their belief that provision of affordable housing must remain a core activity for central and local government. “The proposal to sell pensioner housing, a key determinant of community wellbeing, is a direct antithesis to community wellbeing” they say, and “a council is in a position to see issues across its district and should have concerns about its constituency … a social housing provider will not have the same view.”
We also see the withdrawal of affordable housing for the elderly and disabled as a backward step. HDC state on their Positive Ageing Action Plan that “Horowhenua is a district that embraces its older residents as a highly valued integral part of the community”. We would like to see that plan include the option of the ongoing provision of affordable housing for the elderly, especially in the light of growing homelessness in our country. Handing over this responsibility to private and corporate interests is not going to guarantee they remain housed. A business will always strive to maximize profits and not to ensure the housing of the more vulnerable. It is simply not in their mandate. We therefore do not believe that any clause of sale that stipulates the needs of the elderly be considered will be effective, and that any such provision would eventually be discarded in favour of economic interests.
In line with their pledge to partnership, HDC have said that iwi and current tenants were consulted. Public feedback however is not confirming this. We would like to see some transparency on this pre sale history.
If you agree that the provision of community housing should remain a part of Council’s responsibility please sign our petition.
NOTE:
There will be a protest against the selling of the community housing, and the rolling of the new Deputy Mayor Cr Ross Campbell … outside the HDC building at 126 Oxford Street in Levin on Wednesday 7th December! A peaceful protest … but one that will send a clear message that those who voted for our current Mayor are not happy with what is happening. Please come and bring a placard if you can.
You will find updates or changes at the Facebook page, at the Nua , on our own FB pages and our petition page here.
This is a repost of this article. Timely as in HNZ has just announced they’ll be shortly out of funds. No surprizes! Why if these people have degrees in accountancy are they running us into the ground peeps? Do check out the links recommended in the older article here (Agenda 21 and Banking), and read about the new debacle here. EnvirowatchRangitikei
The Prime Minister John Key announced earlier this year that he intended to sell off 1000 to 2000 of NZ’s state houses. Large numbers of these homes were built by the first Labour government in 1935 and as of 2013 the stock numbered 69,000. That era had marked the birth of our welfare state and the tenants of the first house that was finished and let in 1937, paid just one third of their income in rent. Fifty years later we had the Labour government promising to remain involved in NZ’s housing market, then with the event of Rogernomics and Roger Douglas’s neo liberal economic policies (the new economic ‘experiment’ that benefited those at the top of the capitalist pyramid and launched the ever increasing gap between rich and poor) rents were raised to market rates. Tenants could then apply for a government subsidy called an accommodation benefit, effectively subsidizing the landlords. By 1997, 60 years later, tenants were paying three quarters of their income in rent. The welfare state in NZ, having officially begun with the Social Security Act in 1938 and the state ensuring every New Zealand family had at least a minimum standard of living, was now descending rapidly into an abyss of debt and for many, poverty. We’ve effectively gone from free milk in schools to kids with no lunch at all.
In a recent article by Bryan Bruce, advocate for NZ’s children in poverty, and maker of the documentaries ‘Mind the Gap’ and ‘Inside Child Poverty‘, some interesting questions are raised, questions many New Zealanders have also been asking. Questions like why is the Key government selling off our state housing stock, especially when thousands of families have nowhere to live? NZ is in fact experiencing a housing crisis, described by the Salvation Army as an ‘unfolding social disaster’. On the one hand we have soaring house prices in Auckland that have so inflated the market few can afford them, and on the other, according to Auckland’s City Mission estimates, the numbers of people sleeping rough in Auckland for the year 2013-2014 virtually doubled.
The NZ Parliament website states that a “2013 University of Otago study using 2001 and 2006 Census figures and emergency housing data estimated that 12,900-21,100 dwellings would be needed to house the 2006 severely housing deprived population. These were in addition to housing required to address other forms of need, and underlying demand”.
“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi
Now it gets interesting. The usual rationale proffered for asset sales since they began with Rogernomics, have been ‘to get us out of debt’ or ‘save us money’, giving the impression they are no longer breaking even let alone making a profit. Bruce however reveals that the HNZ corporation has in fact been making a very healthy profit (links in his article). Clearly it would be more prudent to keep this asset.
Further facts Bruce highlights are:
the housing stock is worth $18 billion
the operating surplus for 2013 was $121 million
the same year it returned a $90 million profit
the previous two years’ profit were $76 and $68 million
profits have increased significantly under the National government
Bruce raises questions like, where did those profits go? Why have they not reinvested the profits into the housing stock? Why sell housing stock in the regions when they are presumably encouraging folks to move to the regions? (Agenda 21 maybe? … the real plan for UN’s Agenda 21 aka Sustainable Development is to have populations relocated out of rural and into urban areas).
You may not be aware of this, but NZ is a corporation. Our country is listed on the Securities and Exchange Commission website as a corporation under the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Most will be aware that corporations are required to turn a profit … to maximize profits is their legal mandate. They are not about, nor are they required to be about the welfare of people. (Watch two minute movie trailer for ‘The Corporation’ below).
So as our corporation steams along at full speed, rapidly selling off both our country and its assets, those who head it up are giving us the impression they govern as elected representatives of the people. In a sense they do but their real agenda, their corporate bottom line, is hidden from view. Corporations if you study them, and as the above trailer illustrates quite succinctly, are not required to consider the effects their economic activities have on people. I strongly urge you to watch the full documentary on ‘The Corporation’ page. You will then be joining some dots and making sense of what is really happening in our midst. As long as we remain a corporation, poverty will not disappear. The welfare state has always existed merely to give capitalism a human face. That capitalism is now shamelessly profit driven and the human face is disappearing fast.
NZ is registered as a corporation under the name of Her Majesty the Queen of England (Courtesy of wakeupkiwi.com) Click on image to enlarge
Check out the links and see for yourself where and how we are listed on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website here.
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With Banker Key in denial about the housing crisis (41,000 homeless isn’t a crisis?), a multitude of ‘pass the buck’ reasons for why we’re a bit short of roofs over heads (Labour’s fault, you know, that other rider of the same corporate horse) … and a midwife delivering babies in squalor by the light of her cell phone. It’s sounding more and more like Dickensian England.
Welcome to Paradise in the South Seas, GE free, nuclear free and clean and green to boot.
EnvirowatchRangitikei
Mr Key (who grew up in a state house like the ones he is now selling off en mass) owns tens of millions of dollars’ worth of property, including his family home in Parnell, two holiday homes, an office and an apartment in London.
A midwife is expected to tell how she’s had to deliver babies at night by the light of her cellphone at the cross-party inquiry into homelessness.
The inquiry, set up by Labour, the Greens and the Maori Pary, is in Tauranga on Monday. The Government blocked efforts to open an official investigation into the crisis, which is at record levels according to both research and social agencies like the Salvation Army.
“In her submission she talks about delivering babies by the light of her cellphone in squalid houses that don’t have any electricity,” Labour housing spokesperson Phil Twyford told Paul Henry.
Labour wants a state of emergency declared over the housing crisis, particularly in Auckland where prices are at record highs and still rising.
Prime Minister John Key says that won’t happen, and the housing crisis – if it is one – is not his fault.
“Under the nine years that Helen was Prime Minister, my friend, nationally house prices went up 102 percent. Under us in eight years, they’ve gone up 43. In Auckland they went up 87 percent I think – under us it’s about the same,” he said.
“If it was a state of emergency now, a crisis now, why wasn’t it a state of emergency and a crisis then?”
See our Agenda 21/30 pages for more info & links on where Key is taking us, &/or search categories for further housing articles (at left of any page).
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And not so long ago UNICEF declared we were
