14 May 2016

Housing crisis demands urgent action

Urgent action is needed to increase the supply of warm, healthy rental homes after a TV3 investigation into homelessness and overcrowding in Auckland.

“People are saying the housing crisis was ten years in the making. For most of those ten years, National’s been in charge while New Zealand has become a country where families are forced to live in garages and cars,” Green Party social housing spokesperson Marama Davidson said.

“Families heading into a winter of sleeping in a cold garage or their car are not going to take much comfort from Housing Minister Nick Smith sending stern letters to land-bank speculators in Special Housing Areas.

“The Government has been selling off state houses without building enough to replace them.

“Housing crises don’t just happen. Allowing property speculators to keep driving up the price of land, while landlords don’t have to make sure their properties are warm and dry, has been the recipe for the housing crisis.

“If the Government really cared it would invest in building thousands more affordable homes, and get rid of the tax incentives that encourage people to speculate on housing.

“Small so-called solutions like more emergency housing places don’t do enough to fix what is a very big problem,” Ms Davidson said.

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