Housing policy omnishambles
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- Date published:
2:45 pm, May 27th, 2016 - 19 comments
Categories: accountability, housing, making shit up, national, you couldn't make this shit up -
Tags: housing, housing crisis, NFI, omnishambles
Homeless could be offered up to $5000 to leave Auckland
Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett announced in Parliament yesterday that homeless families would be offered up to $5000 to move to empty state homes outside Auckland.
$3000 offer for beneficiaries to move
The Government will pay beneficiaries $3000 to move to cities such as Auckland for work – but the Budget doesn’t mention Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett’s plan to pay social housing tenants $5000 to move out of Auckland.
It seems that I am not the only one to sense a business opportunity here:
https://twitter.com/reedfleming/status/735989374748229632
Rinse and repeat.
Nat policy is now totally incoherent and actively contradicting itself. This is what happens when you have no vision, no plan, no NFI what you’re doing.
Oh, it gets better: they're demolishing state houses in the regions https://t.co/RnkyPqZKta
— Idiot/Savant (@norightturnnz) May 27, 2016
https://twitter.com/grantrobertson1/status/735987453308194817
Oh and by the way the plan to hock off state houses has just blown up – Sole buyer of Invercargill state houses pulls out, stalling Government plans
https://twitter.com/PhilTwyford/status/735973163255795712
Update: [MS] For those interested in the likely source of the phrase “omnishambles” I believe it is from this:
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Whoever termed the term “omnishambles” receives Keys next knighthood.
I wonder if I could expand that too, renting my house out to a needy Auckland family as I need to go to Auckland for work get 3k, move back but need a council house as my house is rented out, get 5k kick the renters out and pay 8k off my mortgage.
Luv National they make fraud a business.
Perhaps it’s a cunning way of admitting the UBI was a good idea, but they want to target the homeless and unemployed with 8k but cleverly so as not to admit labours idea was brilliant!
Was Bennet’s $5,000 actually in cash, or is it towards the costs of relocation, ie you don’t actually get to keep the money yourself.
I was wondering that too. WINZ have long had a relocation grant, so it wouldn’t surprise me if this is on top that. It’s specifically targeted at homeless people I think (and only those in Auckland?)
actually Weka, i posted a link yesterday stating that the 5 grand are for people living in state houses.
so our homeless may not get any of it, nor will they get relocated.
Ok that makes sense (in a stupid neoliberal way). Have the remnants move elsewhere, put the homeless in the newly vacated house (or sell it).
and its “up to 5000″…dependent on circumstances
Lol. I’d love to visit rellies in Auckland, so WINZ will pay me $3,000 to go for a few months and $5,000 to leave again. I really really hope there is a politicised homeless person who tries this, or even just one with a good sense of humour and willing to take the piss out of them.
Enough of the joking though. I’m pretty sure that WINZ/HNZ will have some pretty tight rules in place to prevent this, and in fact those rules will leave some people stranded. It wouldn’t suprise me if they try and control where people live. Shift out of Auckland and can’t get a job? Too bad, if you try and go back to Auckland you’ll lose your benefit.
I’d also like to know how all this affects people on a HNZ waiting list. Does moving affect their place on the list?
this is very much what i expect to happen to all that take up such a grant and then can’t make it.
Does not matter if they went to CHCH, leave AKL or move to AKL. And what other Cities is Ms. Bennett gonna at to that list of unafordable Cities? Tauranga? Wellington? Whakatane? Rotorua?
these guys have only one thing that they are good at and that is getting themselves rich without having to put up an honest day of work. Everything else? Fail.
WINZ have had designated areas where if you move there you will be refused a benefit that has a work ready criteria. Golden Bay, West Coast, Queenstown area, not sure about the NI. The theory is that all those places had a negative employment rate so the dole would never be needed. All other considerations are irrelevant. I don’t if they still exist, but there is precedent there for the govt to control where people live by financial control.
I am resigned to the fact that I will never be able to afford to rent in NZ again. I have qualifications that are useful here, including a degree but the wages don’t even come close to living costs. This is why I am currently selling the furniture and fundraising to move overseas. It upsets me to sell my furniture because it makes a future of homelessness or leaving the country quite real for me.
Being a female in NZ is another huge disadvantage because I can’t get the tech jobs I am interested in and tend to get low paid jobs in hospitality and admin. In my last admin job in real estate, none of the female staff have ever had employment contracts. I tolerated abuse from male staff for some time. No one around me seemed to care because it is becoming the norm to be treated like a slave at work, rather than a human being. Of course I could go self employed….
It’s not possible for normal working people to compete for accomodation in a global market that exists on a small island. There is a grotesque of level greed here. No questions are asked of the international speculators hiding their wealth at the expense of working class New Zealand. You can’t blame them for taking advantage of the situation when there is nothing to prevent it. Sadly, there are many people who are gleeful that there is a shortage (and homelessness) because it only makes their property value higher.
Up to 150 people in emergency or state housing can make an application for the up to $5,000 relocation grant to a untenanted state home or a private rental. $750,000 is available for this.
A drop in the bucket with negatives, e.g. family separation (from extended family), loss of job or fewer job oppertunities, change of school.
A summit on all levels of housing, including all political parties needs to occur asap.
…….. just listening to the Mora ZB Aunt Daisy Hour on RNZ National, with panel guest Gary Moore in which various figures were quoted.
It seemed to me that of the Housing New Zealand stock that is vacant, an unreasonably high percentage of houses were ‘not ready for habitation’.
Whatever your beliefs as to potential sale or otherwise, who else thinks this represents a massive fail by HNZ and its CEO – i.e. a large percentage of real estate supposedly being unfit for habitation. UNLESS of course this is deliberate policy (which no doubt it is).
Given that under our supposed corporatised Public Service model; given that Munsters use more often than not – that they can’t comment on ‘operational matters’ despite the promise of greater accountability when this PS model was created in the 80s; and given that there is a proven massive demand – isn’t it time for that supposedly independent CEO to front up and explain him/herself?
Does this not represent a massive fail on the part of HNZ and its CEO? OR on the part of its ‘responsible’ Munster?
I reckon its a CEO bonus killer for not delivering on HNZ mandate.
Whether you’re left or right – is this a fektiv and fishint use of Tex Payer money going forward?
Either the CEO should front up and explain why there’s such a high percentage of stock that is uninhabitable, OR they should state that running down stock was deliberate policy. After all, that’s what they get paid the big bucks for eh? and in the name of accountability and political independence.
(I know the answer of course, but I’m just wondering why the 4th Estate hasn’t seen fit to ask the bleeding obvious)
The government is morally bankrupt when it comes to state housing and no COMMUNICATION between English, Bennett, Work and Income and Housing New Zealand.
Yesterday I heard there were 2500 vacant state dwellings and 201 ready for tenants. FFS this is less than 10% and if the houses to be flogged off are not included in the 2500, the situation is critical and requires immediate action.
You ask some good questions. I have an answer, it costs money for state homes to be made ready and this is not a priority for the government. Selling state housing stock is.
L0L ! OMNISHAMBLES !!! – so close to the Spanish word for UFO… OVNI…which isn’t really that far from the truth of this idiot govt run by little grey headed creeps with big black dead eyes!.
They are paying people to move to Auckland.
Unemployed people are paid to move to Auckland.
This is policy.
Can this get any more fucked up?
With Bill & John in charge? Count on it.