The Aung family with me outside the Hamilton home that rise 42% in value over 7 months, making it unaffordable for them.
The Aung family have beaten the odds.
As a refugee family from Myanmar, they have worked hard over the last four years to build a settled future for their three daughters in Hamilton.
Mr Aung works long hours as a sheet metal worker, Mrs Aung works evenings as a cleaner and the girls are doing well at local schools. They have all learned English and are loved by their neighbours.
The New Zealand Government has supported them too. A modest 3-bedroom state house has been their home for four years.
Last year, Housing New Zealand wrote to them saying their home was “surplus to requirements” and offering them the opportunity to buy it.
Hang on a minute! Doesn’t Paula Bennett maintain that they are only selling houses that are the wrong size, in the wrong place where people need to be housed?
This house is perfect for the Aung’s to rent from Housing NZ, so how come it is “surplus.”? It’s in a nice area of Hamilton and I see a needy family every week who would love to rent that house.
Anyway, the Aungs were excited by the idea of being able to buy their home which was valued at $315,000 in November 2015.
It would be tough, but they could afford it if Mr Aung could access his KiwiSaver account to help with the deposit. He would have to wait a few months to become eligible to do this.
When they went back to Housing NZ in July to start discussions on the purchase, this modest house had increased in value by a massive 42% to be worth $450,000 even though no improvements had been made to it.
This put it completely outside of their reach.
National’s wilful inaction on the housing crisis has crushed their dream.
Now here’s the stinger – the house is still considered by Housing NZ to be “surplus” even though there is a family living in it. The family fears their home will be sold to a property speculator and they will be left out in the cold.
And they have reason to be fearful. Coincidentally (yeah, right) MSD have recently conducted a tenancy review to see if the family is still eligible for social housing.
Even though they were both employed on the minimum wage and they have 3 daughters to support and pay market rent to Housing NZ – they face eviction from their home.
How convenient.
This looks to me to be the sneaky way that National is once again flogging our state housing stock off to private investors.
It’s more cunning than it was back in the 90’s, but the result is still the same. State houses built by taxpayers to house the needy, get sold to the greedy for profit.
Rust never sleeps.
Its not ‘ sneeky ‘ … it is outright sadistic neo liberalism.
And the sadistic ideology that has been termed ‘ neo liberalism’ could equally be termed by sociologists , economists etc as ‘theft by stealth ‘ , ‘anti sovereign ‘ and especially ‘ anti community’.
Why ?
Because a united and prosperous community / country is a country where the common people wield economic and political power and have choice.
AND THAT ,… is anathema to the 1% who have employed think tanks ( such as the Mont Pelerin society and their board members Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson ) such as the previously named Business Roundtable ( now the New Zealand Institute – which imply’s a benevolent ‘ intellectual’ front to what is more akin to marauders ) to lobby and finance policys that advantage them and them only.
Its no use dancing around the issue. Its no use pretending if you vote a particular party if there are key members that support that pernicious dogma that there will be any change. Only variances through the years to ensure the plebites ire is not raised too much and open rebellion starts to break out.
Think BREXIT.
So there it is. The dogma / religion of the elite defrocked. And that’s what you are up against. Neo liberalism.
And there will be no change until these parasites are voted out and / or imprisoned for corruption. Despite atrocity’s such as the ones contained in your well written post. And sadly , there will only be more and more examples of this sort of political abuse by so – called elected members of parliament of the population they were voted in to SERVE if it is allowed to continue.
32 years of lies, deceit and plundering of the commons wealth is far more than enough.
Very very -eloquently stated Wild Katipo,
Stunning wrap on “the big picture”! 100%
Now we need to shove that WK synopsis in Nactional Party politician’s faces, as we ask them as to what “National” now means to them?
Put that against the Sir Robert Muldoon model of the National party political strategy, – as against that the dictionary actually terms “National” to mean; Shall we?
See the National
Definition of national Collins English Dictionary.
adjective
1. of, involving, or relating to a nation as a whole
2. of, relating to, or characteristic of a particular nation ⇒ the national dress of Poland
3. rare nationalistic or patriotic
noun
4. a citizen or subject
5. a national newspaper
Derived Forms
nationally (ˈnationally) adverb
Welcome to New Zealand 2016, where it is the amount of money you have and the privileged status you hold, that determines how well you can do here.
Crumbs for the rest, it is, and the wealth shift to the top continues, with over 40 percent of residential real estate buyers here in Auckland are investors, keep to gain from property value increases.
With the now adopted Unitary Plan having upzoned many areas for intensification there will be massive gains possible for those who land bank and own property.
The market is only catering for those who can “afford” homes, others are simply shut out and have to sit and hope.
But as long as the majority of voters, the middle class and upper class property owners, rather continue with the journey under this government, we may not even have a change of government next year.
Housing New Zealand continues to sell homes, and to also shift responsibilities to non government “social housing providers”.
This is a perfect example of what is wrong with the system and this government’s failed housing policy.
Has this item made the media? Its a simple example of the rort going on from this government.
Good point. I have no idea what I’m Right is repeating himself about. I would ask him to explain, but I fear he would post too many replies. /Humour – I think Xray is actually referring to the serious matter of Sue’s post.
Media journos are too busy trying to follow the tweeting by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and Pip and Kate, the latter worried about pics stolen from their cloud accounts.
And there is still not final result on the investigations into that spying on the All Blacks, in their hotel in Sydney a while back, so that is more important also.
There is nothing more important than things like this, housing is only reported on when the next price record is reached, and when interest rates are under review. Perhaps on the odd occasion the MSM may tease Nick (the Dick) Smith with questions about his performance, but they would never go too far with pressing him for constructive answers.
This story shows government agencies as treating those who need housing as their adversaries while treating those who speculate in housing as allies. If you are willing to inflict homelessness on people, or are unwilling to change tack if your policies inadvertently leave people homeless, you are no longer running a representative government that favours this-or-that economic arrangement, you are running a colonising government and are a threat to our very system of governance. After all, what is colonisation but the taking of the very ground from under people’s feet? In a functioning democracy, ordinary people should not have to anxiously second-guess government institutions as if they were criminals second-guessing the police. But you have to second-guess a government that takes the side of those whose interests are hostile to your meeting your most basic needs.
Comments are closed.