Media release

2 October 2013

Council social housing now ghettos

The shocking standards of social housing in Christchurch have the city’s most vulnerable living in substandard conditions, according to Noeline Allan, NGO manager and council candidate for Spreydon-Heathcote.

“Over the past month I have visited many of the social housing units owned by the council in the Spreydon –Heathcote ward. These units are crowded, cold and damp with walls covered in mould. In this environment we housed our elderly, sick and disabled. These are people living at the margins. People who have very little voice and none appears to care,” Ms Allan says.

Many of the building have concrete walls and no insulations. According to one resident “in the winter the water just drips off the walls. Another, who suffers from chronic asthma, refers to his doctor’s description of “the concrete jungle.”

“Last year when advocating with council staff on behalf of one such family”, says Ms Allan, “I was told that it was council policy to do no maintenance post the earthquake.”

In this instance there were two children sleeping in bedrooms with mouldy walls and wall paper peeling off.

“How do we support our children to be healthy, and grow beyond the poverty trap when this is all they know?

“In a city where we plan to spend over $700 million on anchor projects, why is it that the city’s housing issues are not being addressed? The needs of the vulnerable in our community are being log jammed between the failures of the council to drive a satisfactory resolution to the insurance issues and council bureaucracy.”

Councillor Johansson had tried to push for change but received little support.

“I wonder if this is a further example of how the A team at council blocked the endeavours of those not in their ranks’, says Ms Allan.

Whatever the explanation the social housing issue is serious and while city hall procrastinates the elderly, sick and the young suffer.

“I want to be part of a new council that properly balances people’s needs along with the infrastructure re-build and the anchor projects.

“There needs to be an integrated plan with Christchurch City Council and Housing New Zealand. The Council must stop trying to hide its mismanagement of insurance and lead a resolution which will see money available to for the repair, maintenance and rebuild of the existing housing stock.”

Ends

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