Minto for Mayor

3 October 2013

Media Release:

Len Brown and government tinker with Auckland Housing crisis

Todays’ announcement of 282 “affordable” new homes to be built at Weymouth is NOT a sign of better affordability of houses for most Auckland families.

113 of the houses will be unaffordable ($325,000 and $475,000) to the big majority of Aucklanders who need homes. The remaining 169 units are to be “rentals for community and social housing with a mix of providers” and these will be rented at market rates where the neediest families would have to pay much more than 25% of their income to move in.

The government and council are ignoring the fact that half Auckland’s wage and salary earners earn less than $24,000 per year. They are also ignoring third-world diseases such as rheumatic fever which haunt our children in slum-landlord housing.

Housing affordability is a crisis for everyone in Auckland but the sharpest point is for families on very low and fixed incomes. Markets have never provided more than plastic and plywood for these families.

In the absence of government help we need the council to roll up its sleeves and build 20,000 affordable, safe, warm council rental homes.

The council can do this without affecting rates through a stand-alone council agency and start with the 300 hectares of council owned land and which could build up to 9,000 such homes according to council officials.

Warm, dry homes are essential for the most vulnerable of Auckland’s children – rationing these homes is not an option.

ENDS

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