Right wing lines on poverty: The poor should try harder. They need to get off their arses and get a job. They should just give up drinking and smoking. Everyone has the same opportunities. They have chosen poverty as a lifestyle. And so on.
Sick as those lines are, they become even sicker with the realisation that those most affected by poverty are children.
In the news today:
Calls for increase in social housing as nearly half of the homeless are children
Startling new information has come to light on the homeless in Auckland revealing nearly half of those seeking assistance are children, according to a new survey.
Of the 1202 who sought help from the charity group from November 2014 through to May 2015, 47 per cent (568) of them were children.
The organisation said most were found living in cars, garages, camping grounds and emergency housing.
However, the Sallies says the study is limited to only those who had already sought help.They’re calling on the government to increase the supply of social housing by 1000 houses a year in Auckland over the next 10 years, or at least until the waiting list is less than a hundred.
And:
Salvation Army calls for law to ensure housing for children
Children have been sleeping in cars, garages and outside, the Salvation Army has found – and the charity is demanding a new law to ensure all children have adequate housing.
Its second of three reports into homelessness, published today, said a survey of shelters in Auckland during three months found 1202 people needed help, with 47 percent of them under 18.
New Zealand is falling short of providing one of the most basic necessities for children, it said.
The Salvation Army’s latest report, Invisible in the SuperCity, was triggered by staff seeing many working families left homeless because their wages couldn’t pay for a home.
The Nats’ plans to sell off state house will not increase the stock of “social housing” by a single bedroom. We need to be building more state houses, not rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. These figures are a national disgrace.
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