Who Made Them Homeless.
September 8th 2017.
Over the last 25 years, New Zealand has gone from being one of the most egalitarian societies in the developed world to one of the least egalitarian,on the issue of the rental housing market.
The 1984 Labour Government had a number of
members Roger Douglas,Richard Prebble to name just two,who pushed to see the selling of state houses to the private sector they did not believe in central government provision of rental housing.Helen Clark was the Minister of Housing at the time and fought a long battle,for government provision of state housing for working class families.She won the battle for Labour's values and belief in supporting the wider community.
When the National Party won the election in 1990 it was a changing point in New Zealand' political history.John Luxton became the Minister of Housing and straight away introduced the Housing Reforms that was the catalyst for the housing crisis that we have today. Luxton was captured by the Business Round Table and implemented their report "Some Broader Perspectives"on housing policy.The bottom line was that Housing New Zealand should sell all its housing stock to private investors and retain around 10,000 state homes for emergency housing.Introduce market rents for all state houses,and introduce an accommodation supplement for renters who struggle to pay market rents,a landlords subsidy.Another area covered by the reforms was the disestablishment of State Advances,Housing New Zealand Loans and the Capitalization of Benefits.All these programmes to first home ownership were scraped with the stroke of the minister's pen,up till then New Zealand had one of the highest home ownership rates in the developed world.Local Authorities were also put under pressure to sell their housing stock many did so,the Minister John Luxton stated that the reform programme would deliver tenants choice in their housing along with cheaper rents,this never happened all that was delivered was poverty and homelessness.The National Government sold 13,500 plus state homes,92% were bought by private investors only 8%of tenants were in a position to purchase their homes. In some cases private investors paid up to $16,000 less than the sitting tenant.
The incoming Labour government started a building programme to replace the state homes that were sold off, made moves to improve the Residential Tenancies Act for tenants.
However the new National Government under John Key started a sell off of state housing and Housing New Zealand was downsized to become a property management company with the Ministry of Social Development providing tenants,it is a system that has not worked out for the increasing number of people looking for affordable housing.The fact that the government is having to use motels to put homeless families is a sign of a system in serious trouble,there is an election soon so lets hope that there is a change in housing policy.It is time for central government to stand up for the weak and put the power of government at the service of those seeking affordable accommodation.It is time to reflect on the good that government can do,make sure you vote and vote for change.
