Homelessness – action needed, not just talk – Mana
Posted on October 20, 2011 by admin in Press Releases, Sue BradfordMana condemns National’s inept and uncaring approach to homelessness.
‘It is way past time Governments in this country took the problem of homelessness seriously,’ says Mana Housing spokesperson Sue Bradford.
‘Homelessness isn’t just about people sleeping rough in central Wellington and Auckland.
‘It is a much bigger problem than that.
Mana knows that homelessness is also about all those adults –and children – who are living in inadequate, substandard and/or overcrowded accommodation, including boarding houses, cars, sheds, garages and tents, in both rural and urban areas.
‘Things were bad enough under Labour, but have got a whole lot worse under National, with its unilateral cutting of state housing lists, the withdrawal of Housing NZ support workers, and with wages and benefits which are in many cases too low for people to afford rent.
‘Mana supports a full Government inquiry into the true levels of homelessness, taking into account all forms of it, including people who are constantly shifting just to find a roof over their head for the night.
‘However, inquiries are not enough – we need action, now.
Mana calls for:
- Ongoing, regular quality research into true levels of homelessness.
- The development of an effective national housing strategy based on the facts, and which includes the NZ Coalition to End Homelessness goal of ending homelessness by 2020.
- Legislation which makes it a duty of Government to ensure everyone is housed in safe, secure and affordable accommodation.
- Boosting the role of Housing New Zealand in meeting housing need by building 20,000 more state houses in the next two years; and by increasing HNZ’s role in providing emergency and supported housing to meet particular social, health and disability needs.
- Introducing a major papakainga housing programme, which works to overcome in sensitive, practical ways the many current barriers to building on Maori land, including through providing greater access to capital.
- Increased state support for whanau, hapu and iwi, and other community based housing providers who provide quality social housing for those in need in their local rohe.
Mana’s full Housing policy can be viewed online at http://mana.net.nz/policy/
Graham says:
Post Author October 20, 2011 at 8:33 pmWith successive National and Labour governments considering homelessness within a conservative conceptual framework it is nor difficult ot see the thinking behind policy applications. Both parties perceive ‘homelessness’ within an narrow definition of that circumstance. In other words, if a family or individual lives in an unlined leaky garage then they are effectively housed. Similarly, those that live in a vermin infested doss house [ masquerading as a boarding house], then they too are ‘housed’.For Labour and National that’s pretty much the end of it particularly when a crisis like the Christchurch earthquake occurs the victims of which get housed in hitherto unoccupied state homes at the expense of those n the waiting list.
I have it on good authority from a previous Housing NZ employee that just prior to her resignation a couple of months ago, that if an applicant for state housing was already accommodated, then that was it. No futher movement on advancing from a garage to a house. That’s not to deny the Christchurch people a right to a home. The point is though that rather than advance an urgent re building programme the government [ and I would venture to suggest that Labour would most likely be the same ] simply cancelled the inappropriately housed out of the equation.
Mana policy on homelessness will go a long, and better way, to addressing these serious fumdamental human rights. Isn’t it interesting that National, full of pakeha multi- millionaires, is elected to pass judgement and make decisions on those who have nothing and to make that nothing even worse.
Labour set the platform on this matter of homelessness. National just went that extra bit further and put the boot in. We need a Mana influence more than ever.
Graham says:
Post Author October 24, 2011 at 3:58 pmFeel compelled to comment again.
While the ‘Occupy Aotea Square’ is not directly related to the issue of homelessness, the circumstance does have a connection in so far as homelessness is one of the outcomes of the adoption, by successive governments, of free market policies that were supposed to deliver us prosperity and happiness and the failure of which, the occupation is all about. The miserable collapse of these policies, still being pursued by National, who see any failure in the socio-economic circumstance as being solely due to welfare dependancy and an absence of individual gumption. Any corrections under this perverted rubric derive from austerity measures against the low waged and benefit recipients coupled, of course, with support for the rich and the top few percent. They, apparently, do us all a favour???
The curious thing is that many New Zealanders continue to deny the actualties and potentials of this recession and the causal factors behind it. They deny the need for change particulalry of the type Mana may suggest. Instead, they believe that Key, and National, can get us through by adopting sado- masochistic policies against the vulnerable, They care not one jot that Key made his millions on foreign exchange trading, that worked against NZ, particularly on buying and selling large sums of the NZ dollar when it was floated. When it crashed Key and Andrew Kreuger made millions. The rest of us went into shock and penury. So, how come it is the vulnerables fault? And how come the non- Mana population can’t see this? Part of the reason lies in the ready acceptance of National spin. Conservative New Zealanders are unable or unwilling to see beyond the notorious right wing moron provocatuers that promote this anti- Maori, anti- beneficiary, anti- worker sentiment and see any that prononuce against right wing corporates and the banking fraternity as dangerously seditious. This is the lot of the Occupiers in Aotea Square, if you read the blogs on the Herald site. Many of these are quite derogatory and are reflective of the conservative neo-liberal position.
So, back to homelessness and the interconnections. Mana adherents need to work very hard, twice as hard as others most likely, as we are up against a pretty formiable [ and wealthy ] enemy. We need to make as many connections with the alienated as we can and to the homeless not least because we need to impress on them that homelessness is not their fault. We need to reinforce that Mana is a party that cares for people and not institutions, that Mana holds human values in high place and that we have high moral standards. We are a party for all. Maori led, Maori inspired but nonetheless a party for all peoples in Aotearoa. As such we should, if able, visit the occupation to express our support and understanding to encourage them to stand tall and continue to be staunch and make clear that the wealthy corporates, banks and the battalions of their suited dicky lickers are at risk of ideological and political history.