Housing crisis what housing crisis

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, February 27th, 2017 - 52 comments
Categories: class war, housing, national, paula bennett, Politics, same old national, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags:

What unfortunate timing.  It appears that the effects of the housing crisis have been seriously underestimated by the Government and the amount set aside for emergency housing grants for this year has been spent four times over, in three months.

From Newshub:

The Government has had a massive blowout in emergency housing grants, spending almost four times its annual budget in just three months.

As part of an overall $345m investment in emergency housing, the Government only budgeted $2m per year for an estimated 1400 emergency housing grants – which pay for urgent motel stays for families in need.

But in the December quarter alone, the Ministry of Social Development spent $7.7m on emergency housing grants.

There were 8860 grants in the final three months of 2016 – which is more than six times the Government’s expectations.

Bennett says that she was unaware of how big the problem is.

The grant was introduced in May by then-Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett, who admitted to Newshub she had “no idea” how big the problem was.

“To be honest, we just had no idea, and that’s part of it. I mean, they’re often hidden from us.”

Get that?  Homeless are hidden from the Government? Those people I see every day begging on the streets are invisible.  Is the Government even looking?

The details of the grant are somewhat difficult to understand.  The Newshub article said that the scheme was introduced in May 2016.  It looks like it was also announced in November 2016.  What great value for money.  Get twice the political advantage from the same spend.

And to increase the level of pathos to breaking point it appears that these families in crisis have bolstered tourism numbers.  Again from Newshub:

The Government has been counting homeless people living in motels in its tourism statistics.

Statistics Minister Mark Mitchell has confirmed official tourism numbers include people who are being put into hostels or motels through emergency housing special needs grants.

The Statistics New Zealand Accommodation Survey is used as a measure of tourism levels, with the definition used to define the domestic tourists “one New Zealander spending one night at an establishment”.

However when Newshub asked Tourism Minister Paula Bennett if homeless were included, she said no.

“No, because they’re not tourists. Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re asking.

“No they’re not included in the tourism stats for accommodation.”

It is difficult to gauge what is more startling, the Government’s complete indifference to poverty or its incompetence.

 

 

 

52 comments on “Housing crisis what housing crisis ”

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  1. Sacha 1
    27 February 2017 at 8:08 am

    Getting an estimate wrong by that large a margin shows that policy officials sitting in their Thorndon offices are also profoundly ignorant about the true scope of the problem, not just their blithe Ministers.

    • SpaceMonkey 1.1
      27 February 2017 at 11:00 am

      To be fair to the policy advisors, and analysts, they won’t be looking if they are not instructed to do so and the direction to do so comes from the Government.

    • Matthew Whitehead 1.2
      27 February 2017 at 8:29 pm

      I highly doubt the policy officials were allowed to actually do a reasonable estimate, Sacha. It was likely a political directive to fit within a certain budget.

      • Sacha 1.2.1
        27 February 2017 at 10:08 pm

        I’m drawing heavily on bbq anecdata about how hopelessly out-of-touch some officials are. Sack of salt included, alongside examination of real people who Welli policy analysts ever get to talk with.

        And according to the PM the budget is – wahey! – demand-driven and therefore uncapped (except WINZ staff have been told to cap it).

        • Matthew Whitehead 1.2.1.1
          28 February 2017 at 12:33 pm

          Yeah I’m pretty sure the PM will be lying in principal there, but in a way that’s true in technicality. There will likely have been some sort of directive not to high-ball the demand so that it fit into a certain range the government had been expecting. They’ll frame that as “we had good data that indicated the problem wouldn’t be this large” rather than “we interfered politically to ensure the program wasn’t sufficiently funded.”

  2. Sabine 2
    27 February 2017 at 8:30 am

    oh well, i guess all the Motel owners and operators will vote again for National. Cause whats not too like?

    fucking oath this women is deplorable.

    deplorable
    dɪˈplɔːrəb(ə)l/Submit
    adjective
    deserving strong condemnation; completely unacceptable.
    “children living in deplorable conditions”
    synonyms: disgraceful, shameful, dishonourable, disreputable, discreditable, unworthy, shabby, inexcusable, unpardonable, unforgivable; More
    shockingly bad in quality.
    “her spelling was deplorable”
    synonyms: lamentable, regrettable, grievous, unfortunate, wretched, dire, atrocious, abysmal, very bad, awful, terrible, dreadful, diabolical; More

    https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=deplorabel&oq=deplorabel&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3056j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    • Sam C 2.1
      27 February 2017 at 3:06 pm

      “fucking oath this women is deplorable”.

      “Shockingly bad in quality” according to one of your definitions. Sort your grammar out, Sabine, then you can bang on about deplorable.

  3. Carolyn_nth 3
    27 February 2017 at 8:38 am

    micky: Homeless are hidden from the Government? Those people I see every day begging on the streets are invisible. Is the Government even looking?

    Probably just holed up in their Beehive office, hiding:

    See image here.

    And laughing about it.

  4. Cinny 4
    27 February 2017 at 9:02 am

    Housing Crisis, yes it sure is, happened again this weekend to another family. Many families here are being pushed out of accommodation to house islanders for seasonal work. It’s horrid for them and am sure if the islanders knew it was happening they would be upset too.

    Here’s how it works, a man works at the orchard, he lives in the orchard accommodation with his family (small cabin type set up) Apples growing in the background, and he’s been working hard all year, pruning, thinning etc for the owner and living on site, so ready at a moments notice should anything need doing on the orchard.

    Harvest season comes along, this man is given notice, he has to move and move his family. The orchard owner would rather charge the islanders per head to live in accommodation, than charging a family a set weekly rent. This enables him to over charge islanders for accommodation and off set the wages he pays to them.

    And another family is homeless living in a tent somewhere, dad is working on the orchard still, he just can’t live there, because the grower is so greedy for money. Oh it’s OK they are now on the list for housing NZ, along with how many other families who this has happened to.

    This is getting all to common in Motueka, and we are still heaving with tourists, so accommodation is near on impossible to find.

    Who are the motel owners that the government are funding with our money? How many state houses are empty.

    Sick of the mismanagement of the outgoing government.

    • tc 4.1
      27 February 2017 at 9:21 am

      Theyre not mismanaging the economy they are managing it on behalf the hollowmen just fine.

      Steady as she goes, plunder ahoy.

      • mickysavage 4.1.1
        27 February 2017 at 9:25 am

        +1

      • Sabine 4.1.2
        27 February 2017 at 9:31 am

        yep, been saying it now for a long time, this is not incompetence, nor stupidity or mismanagement. This is done by default.
        Its going to be interesting to see just how much these guys plundered, inflated numbers to suit their purposes and the likes.

        I think that the numbers of National MPs resigning is telling, can’t get away from the fraud of the last few years fast enough.

        And for what its worth, its time the we stop saying that they are stupid, incompetent of out of touch. They simply don’t care about the country, they care about their bottom lines, their lobby groups and the money man.

  5. Draco T Bastard 5
    27 February 2017 at 9:42 am

    Is the Government even looking?

    I’m pretty sure that Pullya Benefit said that they weren’t and then laughed about it.

    • The decrypter 5.1
      27 February 2017 at 1:21 pm

      True. “Benefits motel group holdings” declare full year occupation rate of units at 100%.

  6. mauī 6
    27 February 2017 at 10:04 am

    I hear South Auckland is great this time of year and even our lowest income earners can afford the 5 night getaways at 1 star accommodations.

    • michelle 7.1
      27 February 2017 at 2:58 pm

      always knew that line was spin just like everything else that comes out of the mouths of the tories they have been bringing in cheap labour so that stops the trickle down while increasing the trickle up

  8. Greg 8
    27 February 2017 at 12:57 pm

    The government never wAnted to know its been in denial for years and if ever question they don’t beleave there are any problems

    • Draco T Bastard 8.1
      27 February 2017 at 2:30 pm

      Oh, National was quite happy to know about the housing crisis when Labour were in power. Now that they’re in power it no longer exists as far as they’re concerned despite the fact that it’s actually gotten much worse.

      • garibaldi 8.1.1
        27 February 2017 at 3:43 pm

        No such word as ” gotten”.

        • greywarshark 8.1.1.2
          27 February 2017 at 5:59 pm

          Gotten (usually USA) rhymes with rotten.

        • Mrs Brillo 8.1.1.3
          27 February 2017 at 11:16 pm

          There was certainly no such word as “gotten” when I was growing up here. We would have considered it a painful Americanism, only to be heard from the lips of Yankee sailors that had their R&R leave here when on Pacific duties. Those days disappeared in the 1960s, and I did not hear the word again till the 1980s. After the explosion in cheap international air travel.

          I think journalists started using it then because they thought sounding American was groovy and hip. As they also would have said!

          I still won’t use the word. It is not New Zealand usage.

      • stigie 8.1.2
        27 February 2017 at 4:20 pm

        There was not a housing crisis when Labour were in power because so many people were leaving the country.

        • Draco T Bastard 8.1.2.1
          27 February 2017 at 4:48 pm

          According to John Key and National there was.

          So, you’re saying that they’re lying?

        • NewsFlash 8.1.2.2
          27 February 2017 at 7:34 pm

          stigie

          Let the record show that in 2011 more Kiwi’s left NZ than any time recorded in history, for those who can remember that far back, they will also recall that the fewest number of houses were built in NZ in that year since 1965, hence the housing shortage, JK is an absolute BS artist when he said it was worse under Clark.

          In that same year (2011) the unemployment rate increased from 4% to well over 11% in around 4 months

          The idiotic JK increased GST at the same time the country fell into a recession, just another glaring example of the fiscal and economic incompetence of the National Govt.

  9. saveNZ 9
    27 February 2017 at 1:48 pm

    The housing crisis is planned by National. They want social cleansing of the poor out of their voter areas.

    And the poor can just ‘disappear’ out of statistics by being written out of them all.

  10. Treetop 10
    27 February 2017 at 3:02 pm

    I would be interested to know region by region the number of emergency housing grants issued. Suburb by suburb would be telling in Auckland.

  11. Adrian 11
    27 February 2017 at 3:31 pm

    They are lying arseholes, blaming ” returning NZers ” , but there was a net loss in NZers in the last stats.

    • greg 11.1
      27 February 2017 at 7:03 pm

      They are lying arseholes,
      thats one thing we can all agree on .

    • Muttonbird 11.2
      28 February 2017 at 12:35 am

      When that doesn’t work they blame imaginary Kiwis who aren’t leaving! That’s right we ourselves are causing the housing crisis by not moving to Australia to make way for Chinese immigrants and Indian students.

  12. Smilin 12
    27 February 2017 at 3:37 pm

    WCS
    They failed to follow the obvious situation on the pretext that the 2008 crash didnt allow them the money to carry on what Labour had done
    Next we have immigration explosion housing market price hike but no money for social housing because of the tax breaks for the corporates and no obligation to even rent out properties
    the market rules is like saying
    immigrate to nz its a real wild west money for nothing
    Key is a ripoff bastard and he has made a mockery of everything that nz is, to the point it is a crime to allow this govt to continue
    Their words are bullshit

  13. greywarshark 13
    27 February 2017 at 3:57 pm

    Homeless housed, tourist stats up! It’s an ill wind etc. Actually it’s more like a careless fart than a statistic. These Gnats have no decency. The Chinese have air that can be cut with a knife, we have politicians that kick up a stink about anything except what they should be most concerned about.

  14. AsleepWhileWalking 14
    27 February 2017 at 4:09 pm

    Not everyone applies for emergency housing grants.

    It’s less stressful to live in a car or trade sex for housing.

    • Sabine 14.1
      27 February 2017 at 4:16 pm

      yes, cause trading sex for housing is such a nice and healthy thing to do.

      how much do you think a bed would cost? joyfully submit once a day, every other day? All services or just a few?
      Does that include internet and power or does one have to bang the landlords mate for that privilege?

  15. AsleepWhileWalking 15
    27 February 2017 at 4:41 pm

    Share your renting story here:
    http://www.rentersunited.org.nz/stories/

  17. marty mars 17
    27 February 2017 at 4:56 pm

    disgusting gnats and especially dumbarse bennett

    I bet they try to get a major sporting event lined up – then get rid of the homeless by putting them in jail, or at least out of sight – and then WHAM – there is no evidence of a housing crisis because where are the homeless?

  18. AsleepWhileWalking 18
    27 February 2017 at 5:26 pm

    Merivale children hospitalised due to substandard housing. Landlords walking away with capital gains and probably laughing.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11755156

    “You have to see my sick bay during the winter to appreciate how bad that actually is.” – Merivale School principal Jan Tinetti

  19. greywarshark 19
    27 February 2017 at 6:00 pm

    Key in that pic reminds me of Mr Punch from the cover of the mag same name.

  20. Thinkerr 20
    27 February 2017 at 9:45 pm

    Not always visible doesnt cut it. The government refuted point blank that there was a crisis, even when some very qualified (I mean knowlegeable, frontline etc) people told them. They didnt want to know then and it seems they dont want to know now.

    Also, did you spot that almost four times as much money has been spent and more than six times as many people have been helped. That means, on average, each person has only received less than 2/3 of what the government thought people needed. And you can bet there was no slack in the original figure.

  21. sirpat 21
    2 March 2017 at 4:00 pm

    fek me….looking at that pic Bennet looks just like Donkey in Shrek……just not as funny