Press release - Monday 29 October

Tamaki Housing Action Group

For Immediate Release

The government’s plans to alleviate the housing crisis by privatizing more state-owned assets and deregulating the building industry is shockingly short-sighted.

The “lack of land” the Finance Minister cites is a red herring. We need to build more houses, not simply move them from place to place only to sell the land freed up to private investors whose goals is to make a profit by building a mansion with a waterview.

This is the gentrification process that is happening in Glen Innes right now, and it does not create new houses that are much needed. Of the 156 state houses being removed from GI, so-called ‘brownfield’ development, only 78 will be owned by Housing New Zealand. The other half are to be put on the market and sold to private developers. For a working-class and mostly Maori and Pacific Islander community like GI, this is an economic and ethnic cleansing of the suburb.

Privatizing land that Housing New Zealand state homes sit on is a clear indication that the government wants to privatize the social housing system that generations of New Zealanders have fought for. This is unacceptable while there are thousands of desperate families on a waiting list for a state home that they can afford to pay rent to. The cutting back of the number and quality of state houses in New Zealand comes at a time of high unemployment, low wages and harsh austerity cuts. This is the time when the social housing systems needs to be strengthened, not attacked.

Deregulation opens up all kinds of worrying possibilities. Deregulation was at the roots of the leaky homes crisis, and the stress and financial hardship that took a toll on so many families across the country is the reason why such extensive red-tape exists around building consents and regulations.

There will be a Housing Crisis kakoi to Wellington on the 6th November, with groups around the North Island meeting at Civic Square 12pm 7th November to march on Parliament

More details and ways you can help out can be found at: http://gihousing.wordpress.com/housing-crisis-day-of-action/

ENDS

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