Donate to Auckland City Mission

6 comments on “Donate to Auckland City Mission ”

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1. Muttonbird 1

   20 December 2016 at 11:26 am

   A nice young man from Europe or South America turned up on my doorstep the other day collecting for Barnardos. He spoke of increasing hardship in the community affecting children disproportionately resulting in climbing rates of abuse and neglect. Barnardos helped neglected families and tried to alleviate some of the worst outcomes for disadvantaged children. He asked if I could contribute.

   After thanking him for the work he was doing, I said current government policy had resulted in increasing stress on low-income and disadvantaged households and this is what lead to increasingly poor outcomes for their children. I said I already contribute to tackling these issues through tax (supposedly) but the current government is not spending that tax appropriately and is making the problem worse. I said I first make sure my own family has enough, then I contribute what I can to changing the government so that disadvantaged children will get a fair go in the future.

   I feel the same about donating money to Auckland City Mission. I’d rather make the small donations I can afford to causes which can make a real difference in these people’s lives, namely changing this government, rather than subsidise charity organisations left underfunded and overstretched by current government policy.
   • James 1.1

     21 December 2016 at 9:06 am

     A worthy charity.

     Not everything needs to be political – and I’m happy to make a donation.
     • Muttonbird 1.1.1

       21 December 2016 at 10:28 am

       But this is political.

       It is my view the policies of the current government are making the problem worse for the disadvantaged and that is born out by New Zealand having higher housing un-affordablity and income to rent ratio stats, very high domestic abuse and child abuse rates, and high suicide rates. This government has been plagued with stories of homelessness, community stress, the suppression of wage growth through unchecked and poorly regulated immigration, and the rise of inadequate casual labour. Also well documented are their very clumsy, short-sighted, short-term, community-busting solutions to these problems.

       They talk of social investment but their overall ‘look after the rich and ignore the poor’ ideology makes the social investment idea far more expensive and much harder to achieve. It’s like trying to row upstream against a stronger current of your own making.

       I’d prefer to fix the causes of increasing hardship in and displacement of low-income communities by contributing to a change of government rather than pay twice and throw more money at a fire which just gets bigger and bigger.
   • trademark 1.2

     21 December 2016 at 10:13 pm

     I donated to the City Mission appeal, as I have done in previous years, because doing so can help reduce the suffering that people are experiencing right now as opposed to waiting until late next year for what will hopefully be a change in the government.

     That said, it’s pretty obvious that donating is an unsustainable solution – the queues are getting bigger year after year. Another RNZ article (http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/320820/'it's-a-diabolical-time,-eh,-christmas‘) has this gem of a quote:

     > Many lining up had to spend about 80 percent of their money on housing […] We don’t want this to become the permanent way every Christmas and I’d like to be in a position one day where we don’t have this outside. Then I know we’ve succeeded. Success is when we don’t have that.

     It feels pretty gross to think that by donating I would probably be subsidising some landlord’s rental yields in the midst of this shithole of a housing unaffordability crisis we’re in. And that’s on top of all the tax-dodging and misdirected spending our taxes subsidise that should be paying for this in the first place.

     So I also plan to donate to the political party I believe will be able to make the necessary to reduce and eventually (hopefully) eliminate those queues altogether. And when they get into power, I also hope we will hold them to the strictest account if we don’t see improvements – and fast.
2. michelle 2

   21 December 2016 at 12:58 pm

   Your right on the button Muttonbird
3. DavidC 3

   21 December 2016 at 7:35 pm

   A surf lifesaver club or rescue helicopter where the money will do real good

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