One of the best suggestions by the brilliant is taking back the Golf Courses. I’ve never understood how a rich elitist sport manages to take so much real estate while so many are homeless.
I’ve been banging on about intergenerational theft between Boomers and Gen X since student loans were brought in. It pleases me no end that the topic is finally getting attention.
I don’t have any beef with Boomers. They fought the SpringBok Tour, they fought Vietnam, they fought at Bastion Point, they fought Nuclear Weapons, they fought for the environment.
I salute their ability to create positive political change.
What I do demand however is that every other generation gets the cradle to grave universalism of social services that set the Boomers up so well.
Free Education, state housing, free public transport, real student allowances, free lunches at school, free health care, free child dental, free legal aid and a public broadcaster available to all that is focused on explaining rather than rating. These universal services are what are needed to help plant the seed of democracy so that all can share in the bounty of that civil society.
Yes it will cost more, but that’s the cost of democracy and it’s a price we must pay.
But that is some way off. Right now, Gen Xers and Gen Y who’ve never connected to an idealogical compass are coming to terms with the reality of right wing mythology in their own lives.
This reality demands action because we have the numbers to democratically impact on the system and force concessions from those with a vested interest in the current property speculation.
Welcome to a hegemonic structure of power you can’t ever beat if you don’t fight it.
As Key looks to test 5000 state tenants to throw out onto the streets, the reality is we need less market forces and more direct State investment.
20 000 new state homes with new loan schemes to allow beneficiaries to buy their state houses alongside a capital gains tax, land tax and property speculators tax is what is needed, not slum lords and overseas speculators. 4 bedroom Apartment buildings for first time home owners in central cities would allow Gen X and Gen Y entry into the property market and a vast new building program would connect our forestry industry to training schemes and work programs.
The current plan to take Maori land for more urban sprawl subdivisions rather than central city and central suburb intensification relies on cheap immigration to keep pushing prices up. This is bubble building economics designed for short term political gain at long term social damage.
We require new law cementing in long term tenancies with rent controls and the promotion of ‘ethical landlords’, people who refuse to squeeze every last drop of money out of their tenants for needless greed.
Our social inequality demands solutions. Renters rights, affordable housing and a realisation on behalf of those Generations thrown under the User Pays Bus that agitation is all they have left as hope, is part of that solution.
Just posted this in ‘Open Mic’, look back on the main page and you have a Post on a similar subject,
For ‘Renters’ in Wellington, Hutt Valley, Porirua, a new organization has been formed,
Joining is free, you may be able to help them, or, they may be able to help you,
Join at… RentersUnited.org.nz
A fine idea! Cheers for the link
Or ironically – thanks for the “links”
As a person who is currently renting (for the last 9 years, prior to that I owned my own home) these things would be at the top of my list:
1. Security of tenure. Currently landlords can give 90 days notice with no reason required. So even if you can negotiate a fixed term when that term ends, and every time it ends, you’re left with the threat of having to move. We need to remove this. In Germany a landlord cannot give notice for no reason. They need a serious and legitimate reason to kick someone out, and selling the home is not a valid reason. In NZ tenancies last only on average 15 months. That’s a lot of insecurity and expense for the poorest in our society!
Removing the right of landlords to give notice for no reason, and removing the right of landlords to give notice because a property sells, changes the meaning of “investment” property. It becomes like a business. You buy a property BECAUSE it’s tenanted, and rely on the income. You can’t rely on the capital gain, because you can ONLY sell it with the tenant in it (unless the tenant decided to leave, then you have to keep it empty for sale). This changes our relationship to rentals dramatically.
2. Letting fees. It’s one week’s rent + GST. It should be paid by the landlord, not the tenant. It’s supposed to be negotiable, but it never is. Even when the area you’re in has rentals sitting empty for months! (Amazingly stupid I know, but this has happened to me). For people on low incomes when they have to move this is a LOT of money.
3. Improvements to a home. As a tenant I’d like to be able to make improvements. If I knew I could be here for several years I’d do it, it’d pay off. But currently I’m not going to do anything too expensive, because I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay.
None of these changes would necessarily stop landlords from kicking out bad tenants. Non payment of rent, intentional damage to property, persistent disruption of neighbours… there could still be plenty of reasons for landlords to evict bad tenants.
But currently even good tenants have insecure tenure and have to put up with lower quality homes.
And I note that the subsidy offered to home owners for insulation and heating was taken up very well by owner / occupiers, and hardly at all by landlords. Says it all really. Even if government subsidises it the majority of landlords STILL won’t improve properties.
Some good suggestions Lara. I would add making electricity part of the landlord’s expenses, not the tenants. Or at least 50/50. That would give landlords serious incentive to insulate, install renewable energy systems etc.
Bomber, your suggestion about golf courses reminds me of the scene in Falling Down where Michael Douglas’ character rants at a couple of old golfers about how there should be families having picnics on that grass 😉
Daniel, in a free market enviroment defining electricity used in a rental property as 50/50 at the expense of the landlord and the tenants wouldn’t achieve anything,
The landlords would simply pass their 50% of the cost onto the tenants through the rent,
My view is that befor we go there we should be looking at income related rent for everyone who earns below a defined income,
i feel deeply for those trapped in the low waged economy, being a HousingNZ tenant my rent is capped at 25% of my income,
In my parents day as low waged workers they were entitled to and were in fact allocated a State Home with the same 25% of income as the rental,
As our masters embraced the Neo-Liberal snake the new class of poor, beneficiaries, have become entrenched largely shutting the working poor out of State Home allocations,
My view is that in the bottom of the economy there is 20% of those trapped in working poverty paying 40-50-60% of their income to private landlords, their rental payments should be capped at 25% of their income,
How an elected Government could achieve this tho is beyond me as the rentier landlord class does in fact hold a vast amount of electoral clout…
There is the other side of the coin
LOTS of tenants are total ratbags, who skip rent and power bills, we have found the ratio about 3 in 5 are bastards, and if you include the number that lie @ the interview its more like 9 out of 10.
Kind of like retailers and shoplifters I guess?
Or maybe just human nature … we are all scum.
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