State Housing Action Network

28 May 2016

Media release:

SHAN welcomes Pact decision to pull out of buying state houses

SHAN welcomes the decision by South Island-based PACT community group to pull out of the process to negotiate the purchase of state houses in Invercargill.

SHAN has been lobbying potential buyers to discourage them from helping the government palm off the housing crisis for low-income families to community groups which can’t possibly solve the problem.

Only the government has the capacity and resources to meet the desperate housing needs of the tens of thousands of families on low incomes paying through the nose to live in cold, damp, precarious housing arrangements - or in garages, cars and vans.

SHAN will now step up the pressure on the three remaining groups the government has shortlisted to purchase Tauranga state houses.

1. Hapori Connect Tauranga - three foreign for-profit multinationals:

• Pinnacle

• John Laing

• Brookfields

2. Kāinga Community Housing Partners consortium members are:

• Morrison & Co, for profit NZ

• Trust House Ltd - not-for-profit, gaming

• Compass Housing Service Co – not for profit, Australia

• Programmed FM, for profit, NZ

• Ngā Pōtiki a Tamapahore Trust

• Tapuika Iwi Authority Trust

3. Accessible properties – not-for-profit – IHC

Minister of Social Housing Paula Bennett has previously accused SHAN of “bullying” when we picketed the national office of IHC in Wellington to protest its plan to buy state houses.

However this issue is of such critical importance that any group intending to buy state houses can expect to be the subject of community protest.

ENDS

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