Monday, July 18, 2016

Dereliction of duty

We have a homelessness crisis in New Zealand, with people forced to live in cars because they can't afford a roof over their heads. Meanwhile, Housing New Zealand has abandoned an entire suburb of state houses in New Plymouth:
In 2008, 28 state houses were demolished in Marfell and, in 2012, 20 more families were moved out to make way for a redevelopment that never happened

Housing New Zealand has just demolished four more units but it still has about 30 vacant properties in the neighbourhood.

Contractors today boarded up windows and started filling skips with rubbish following a spate of theft and vandalism attacks.


Housing New Zealand has no future plan to re-open these houses - instead, the only option they are considering is to sell them. Meanwhile, they have a waiting list for state housing in the area, and people are going homeless.

Letting state houses lie empty while people are in need is sheer dereliction of duty on Housing New Zealand's part. They should do their job, make these houses habitable, and let people use them. And if the government doesn't want to, we should get a government which does.