Tenants of council-provided social housing face the risk of eviction after the government misled councils into putting council housing into private housing trusts believing this would give them access to the government’s IRRS (Income Related Rental Subsidy).
However it has now become apparent that the trusts will not be eligible for the subsidy for any existing tenant because the government is now insisting the IRRS will be available:
· ONLY for NEW tenants of council housing and
· ONLY if they are referred through the Ministry of Social Development
So far four councils have established social housing trusts (Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch and Whakatane) and none of them were aware of the new government requirement when they voted to do so.
Other councils are still giving local residents wrong advice. For example last month Horowhenua mayor Brendan Duffy told residents the council was looking to sell its social housing portfolio to a social housing provider because
“Under a community housing provider, tenants could actually be better off by up to $61 a week because they would be able to qualify for the government’s Income Related Rent Subsidy”
Thus is untrue and reflects appalling advice being given to residents by councils which are being deliberately misled by the government.
The housing trusts were established specifically so they would have access to the IRRS for their eligible tenants but will find themselves in the appalling situation of having to evict existing tenants in order to gain the IRRS subsidy for new tenants.
The financial viability of the trusts depends on the IRRS subsidy which will now only be available if council trusts replace existing tenants with tenants from government waiting lists.
Christchurch example
From the outset Christchurch City residents were seriously mislead.
In April 2014 the Christchurch Housing Accord was signed between Mayor Lianne Dalziel and Housing Minister Nick Smith and included these words:
“The government will work with the Council to enable the entity (what became the Otautahi Community Housing Trust) to become a registered Community Housing Provider and have access to the Income Related Rent Subsidy for qualifying tenants of the new Community Housing Provider”
In May 2014 the Council consulted with the community and told residents in its May 2014 Statement of Proposal to form a housing trust:
“As the Council is ineligible for the Government’s IRRS assistance, it is difficult for the Council itself to satisfy this requirement. It will always be more cost-effective for the local community to have a tax-payer contribution. The Council, therefore, has little choice but to restructure its involvement in social housing so that eligibility can be secured. This will necessarily involve ownership or control of the existing social housing portfolio being divested to a new entity that is eligible for the IRRS.”
Finally in September 2014 Christchurch City councillors voted to set up the Otautahi Community Housing Trust for the city’s social housing believing the Trust would get the IRRS (Income Related Rental Subsidy) from the government for its eligible tenants.
“That the intention would be to lease appropriate Council housing to that entity in order to access the Income Related Rent Subsidy…”
Council have allowed themselves to be taken for a ride by a deviant government determined to transfer the housing crisis onto community housing providers.
It remains to be seen if any of these councils will have the backbone to fight the new government requirements.
Yes John,
The main tool for Nactional is to use deception to reach their goals like most crooks weould do, so the lessoned learned is to never trust anything this Nactional lot ever say because it is a poison chalice to anyone of us all.
I’m speechless. In a country as rich as ours is but with the population of Melbourne AU.
What’s become of us? Why can we only kiss the feet of our abusers? dalziel and brownlee should be running for their lives.
Hmmmm… it must have something to do with Simone Bridges bridges…Nationals idea of killing two birds with one stone by creating a revolving door policy for the homeless…
In fact… National has always majored on revolving doors… from Goonboy Brownlee at the airport to the CHCH fiasco to the quick switch ‘don’t show us the money ‘ with zero tax foreign trusts , P.Bennett and her NEW 3000 beds to this latest debacle… it just goes on and on and on….
In fact, this govt has revolved so many incompetent ministers to new portfolio’s that one can only assume Key likes to give all of them a turn on the playpark’s slide.
Its always been this way with Key and his National party scrubs… does anyone remember THIS ? :
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10468960/Aroha-of-McGehan-Close-flees-NZ
– And that was BEFORE Key was even elected.
NZ?…. you’ve been conned.
Big time.
Key is a populist. He’ll say black is white and hot is cold if he genuinely believes it’ll get him a few extra votes. The fact that he was prepared to parade Aroha Ireland around the countryside in a transparent attempt to convince the general public he was all about “building a brighter future” is adequate testament. She was employed as a pawn in a calculated game to win popular approval, and regrettably for the entire country, it seemed to work. Once she was of no further use to him, he discarded her like so much human refuse. If you’re not part of Key’s “base”, you may as well crawl into a hole and die for all the thought he gives to your general welfare. You are nothing. You are of no consequence. You may as well cease to be.
https://youtu.be/cKUaqFzZLxU
The people on Councils in NZ are not particularly smart and most are there to satisfy there own egos, this Government said they were not going to privatise State Assets however that obviously doesn’t cover regional and council assets.
Key would sell his grandmother for sixpence.
The people on Councils in NZ are not particularly smart and most are there to satisfy there own egos, this Government said they were not going to privatise State Assets however that obviously doesn’t cover regional and council assets.
Key would sell his grandmother for sixpence.
The whole Key government is a con-job!
Agree The National Government is nothing but a bunch of mindless neo liberal zealots determind to line the 1% pockets.
Sneaky
bastardsbathplugs.Good grief, what mean and cunning agenda we have there.
So the housing trusts may have to evict their tenants, and then sign them up again, after sending them off to WINZ for a new referral, to get the subsidy.
That would be a way around it, would it not, but putting immense pressure and inconveniences on all involved.
This government simply cannot be trusted, not in anything they do, touch or say.
Disgusting!
And the lies keep comming
Never trust a tory when they are paying the money
This should be a salient lesson to all local bodies NOT to trust anything this government has to say.
‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you.’ Never a wiser maxim to live by.
But nothing changes.Nixon had to be prosecuted before things changed.
Comments are closed.