Q&A: Twyford - A State of Emergency in Housing
State of Emergency in Housing Should Be Declared: Twyford
The Government should declare a state of emergency to deal immediately with the housing crisis, according to Labour’s housing spokesperson Phil Twyford.
“The latest independent research from Otago University says that there are about 41,000 New Zealanders who are homeless,” Mr Twyford told Q+A’s Jessica Mutch. “That includes people that are living in campgrounds, entire families squashed into the single room of a shared house. And this is a social crisis.”
Mr Twyford was responding to a story by One News political reporter Katie Bradford, looking a growing homelessness problem in the tourism hotspot of Taupo, as well as international news reports about New Zealand homelessness in the likes of The Guardian and Al Jazeera.
But Mr Twyford said it’s not about how the world sees New Zealand, but about immediate action.
“Look, there are a whole lot of ideas floating round. Someone’s proposed the old Mt Eden Prison be used. Someone else suggested a cruise ship. Paul Bennett’s talking about pod housing. Look, my message to the government is I don’t care how you do it; just do it.”
“Put a roof over the heads of these people.”
END
Q
+ A
Episode
25
PHIL
TWYFORD
Interviewed by Jessica
Mutch
JESSICA So, Renee Grey
ending that report by Katie Bradford. To discuss this issue,
Labour’s housing spokesperson, Phil Twyford, joins me now.
I want to talk to you about the solutions. What could the
government do right now, this week to try and help solve
this
problem?
PHIL What
they should do is declare a state of emergency. The latest
independent research from Otago University says that there
are about 41,000 New Zealanders who are homeless. That
includes people that are living in campgrounds, entire
families squashed into the single room of a shared house.
And this is a social crisis. But unfortunately, the
government is like a possum in the headlights. What they
should do is massively increase the resourcing for supported
emergency housing. It’s just not good enough to leave this
job to volunteers like Renee Grey in Katie Bradford’s
story there. She’s an angel, and there are people like
Renee doing that actually in towns and cities all over New
Zealand. We saw Te Puea Marae. But this needs the resources
that only government can
bring.
JESSICA So,
tell me more about this state of emergency. What would that
help, bringing in the army and things like this? Why do we
need
this?
PHIL Look,
there are a whole lot of ideas floating round. Someone’s
proposed the old Mt Eden Prison be used. Someone else
suggested a cruise ship. Paul Bennett’s talking about pod
housing. Look, my message to the government is I don’t
care how you do it; just do it. Put a roof over the heads of
these
people.
JESSICA But
why the state of emergency? How do you think that will
help?
PHIL Because
this is a social crisis - 41,000 New Zealanders living in
utterly unacceptable conditions. It’s the government’s
job to show some urgency to put a roof over their heads.
Now, the government has the resources to do it. They could
lease the homes overnight if they chose to, but they just
lack the political will and the sense of urgency to fix
it.
JESSICA Isn’t
it also, wouldn’t it be a terrible look if in New Zealand
we declared a state of emergency on homelessness? Wouldn’t
it have all sorts of
implications?
PHIL But
this is a disastrous look. It’s not about how the rest of
the world sees us, even though the international media are
now covering the New Zealand crisis. But I think the reason
why this is profoundly disturbing for New Zealanders is it
calls into question who we are as a nation. Are we really
the kind of country that thinks it’s okay for a mother and
young kids to pay $400 a week to rend a cockroach-infested
one-room cabin in a suburban campground? We are better than
this.
JESSICA Do you think New Zealanders
are getting complacent. Do you think if it’s not affecting
one personally -- they may see them when they come into
Queen Street or something like that – but it’s not
affecting people on a daily basis, do you think New
Zealanders are turning a blind eye?
PHIL No, I
don’t. I think the public are very very concerned about
this. The fact the homelessness crisis now affects young
families – families with children are a majority of that
41,000 people who are affected – 52% of the homeless are
either in paid employment or study. Now that’s
unbelievable. For people who are earning a wage, to be
homeless says that something is seriously out of whack.
It’s the government that’s a possum in the headlights
here. But I think the public are deeply concerned about
this.
JESSICA You
talked about the international attention we’re getting on
this. The Guardian and Al Jazeera came and did stories on
this. How embarrassing is that for us?
PHIL Well,
I think it’s extremely embarrassing. We should be able to
provide decent housing for everybody. Now, as well as
delivering emergency housing, the problem in Taupo, as Katie
Bradford’s story showed, is that there’s a desperate
shortage of affordable rental
housing.
JESSICA I
do just want to talk about these homelessness solutions,
though, in terms of the state of emergency. I mean, if your
brought in tents and things like that, is that going to
offer people a better option than these cabins that we saw
in that story in
Taupo?
PHIL Well,
the first thing here is to put a decent, warm, dry roof over
the heads of these people. But, Jessica, I’m going to push
back on you on this question of affordable rental housing.
There will be no solution to the homelessness crisis until
we get more affordable rental housing. And the
government’s currently selling off state houses. If they
were building a thousand more every year instead of selling
them off, we’d have an extra 10,000 state houses, and we
simply wouldn’t have this homelessness
crisis.
JESSICA That’s perhaps a medium
or longer term goal. In terms of the short-term solution,
your message to the government is saying, “Let’s do this
state of emergency, let’s call this.” Why are they
reluctant to do
it?
PHIL I just
think the government’s in denial, generally, about the
housing crisis. But they are even challenging the official
Statistics New Zealand definition of homelessness. They’re
trying to say that it’s only real homelessness if you’re
sleeping out under a bush. They don’t want to count people
who are crammed into single rooms in shared houses or
campgrounds, sleeping in their cars and so on. Do we really
think that someone who’s sleeping in their car isn’t
homeless? Or someone who’s sleeping in an uninsulated
sleepout in someone’s backyard has a home? Surely not. I
just think we’re better than that. The government needs to
wake up and take this crisis seriously.
JESSICA That’s a
nice place to leave it. Thank you very much for your time
this morning.