Mana | Movement of the People

 

Housing women stops child poverty – Mana Women’s policy released

Housing women stops child poverty – Mana Women’s Policy released

Mana is the only party to provide a practical path out of poverty for sole mothers and their children says Mana Social Wellbeing spokesperson Sue Bradford.

‘Many children living in poverty have a sole parent mother living a difficult and hard pressed life,’ she says.

‘It’s quite simple; if the mother is poor the child is at risk.

‘Last night’s screening of the Inside New Zealand documentary on child poverty will rightly have shocked many people. That programme was quite clear about the relationship between housing and child poverty.

‘Mana has designed a unique programme that would see the accommodation supplement paid to sole mothers used to assist them into their own homes.

‘At present millions of taxpayer dollars are handed over to prosperous landlords in rent subsidies each year.

‘This is welfare for the rich and the money would be much better spent paying off a home for a sole mother and her children.

‘This would give both mother and children a real stake in society. They would gradually build up equity, their children would be healthy and secure and the exorbitant rents that the taxpayer subsidises at present would fall.

‘Once a family is settled in their own home both mother and children are in a position to concentrate on their education and gaining employment.

‘It would also help woman as they grow older. The Retirement Commissioner has made the point that home ownership is the best form of retirement provision a person can make.

‘It is far more sensible to get low income people into their own home than to put them at the mercy of the financial sector through compulsory savings schemes.

‘Put alongside our commitment to build 20,000 new state houses and our intention to extend the range of options for assistance with home purchase for all low income people (including sole fathers) we will start seeing some real change in the dreadful statistics that are the shameful legacy of every government of the last two decades‘.

‘When it comes to the poverty of women and children every other party is offering platitudes and making promises we know they won’t keep because they never have in the past.

‘Mana has practical solutions that will work because we care about the people in need and are not fooled by the nonsense neo liberal economists keep trying to shove down our throats.’

The full Mana Wahine policy includes a commitment to providing ongoing and stable funding to women’s refuge, rape crisis and men’s stopping violence groups, ensuring strong representation of Maori women at all levels of elected government, the reinstatement of the Training Incentive Allowance and a range of other measures.