GUEST BLOG: Anonymous – the truth about the housing crisis in Auckland
It’s hard to raise a people’s army and take control of the state when all the disposed are living in garages or cars.
If it hadn’t been for all those skyline garages that went up in the 80s and 90s along with the closing in of car ports from the 90s the housing crisis would be a lot worse – thank your lucky stars for those slum landlord that moved in and took over the provision of housing for the working poor whilst both the labour and national govts kissed the arse of investor class wealthy migrants and also bought in heaps of coolies to serve them.
Every week over this wet winter I am being asked to fix substandard structures that are leaking that should not in any way be housing but are being populated by families, couples, the working poor who consist in equal measure of both people born here and recent non-wealthy migrants.
Last week I saw a a two dwelling cross lease where the carport for one house and the skyline garage of the other – which met at the boundary had been converted into living with the gutter of the skyline garage being used as an internal gutter between the two shanty dwellings – of course it rusted out and failed – the owners of these units who each lived in the main houses could not agree who should have the gutter replaced – the owners were new migrants the tenants of the shanty dwellings kept out of site.
Often you find rooms with one power point, a light, no running water, a gas burners and gas bottles on a make shift bench, no sink, a food store and a beds or bunks – all in the same room.
I’m a fine one to talk I’m looking at over the next year converting the garage under mum’s house so that I can live there.
Welcome to Auckland the Worlds Most Liveable City – no matter what the level of housing health and welfare deprivation you can’t afford “we” will cater for it so that you can live and work here and afford nothing but to work and die. The Slogan for both parties should be Phuck off and Die Working Poor People but while you’re at it pay the rent sucker.
Anonymous lives in Auckland and doesn’t want to be targeted for telling the truth
Sounds completely true to me!!
Our low income housing hierarchy – worse housing, on street, 2nd worse in cars, 3rd worse vans, 4th worse garages.
Scary stuff when a garage is actually not the lowest you can go for housing.
I was an advocate of granny flats and tiny houses to solve the crisis. Unfortunately nobody makes enough money from that so the council has never gone that route. Instead more complexity of rules, deregulation of housing while not of anything that can be cheaply and quickly converted.
The reality is many NZ houses have basements that can be turned into granny flats. Sadly putting a kitchen into one will meet with absolute opposition from council, zoning rules and so forth, which has never been rectified under the new unitary plan. If you build a cheap yurt to live in, on your lifestyle block you will be prosecuted! Any way to try to get some affordable accommodation meets with resistance from council.
So with our ageing population, Gran can’t stay with family in her own self contained residence with family, nor can a family live self contained from their parents (more normal) or even allow Gran rental income to rent cheaply and both provide affordable housing for someone while allowing more income for Grandma.
There could be simple solutions to the housing crisis but the housing solutions and officials seem to be more about new expensive solutions to make money for apartment developers and payment of Body corporation fees, that won’t work for affordability, rather than quick and easy solutions that can be made within months.
Yes, our humanity has sunk to a lowest level under Key, English, SS Joyce.
Sadly, and we see average people prepared to take advantage of every chance to make an illegal quick buck at the expense of the defenceless.
We are living in desperate times under Planet Key the criminal prick.
Don’t you mean Conman Key , Double Dipper and Dildo ?
I have seen the same in Christchurch, The only fix is a MOW like government dept that builds houses, i heard Hooten this morning saying budget houses would be slums so while I dislike the idea some sort of housing regulations are needed that maintain quality & limit capital gain on what should mainly be owner occupied housing. I am sure the excessive immigration is a major cause of house price inflation as well so as the other blogs today show the other problems with immigration perhaps a solution is possible.
Only a few decades ago, a house worth half a million dollars would be considered a mansion. This is the value Hooter thinks makes a house a “slum”. Hooter’s only argument was that the houses would be of lower quality because they would be sold at a lower price. This is nonsense, and shows that he’s never been involved in building anything in his life. As usual, he’s just making noise to cover for his NatACT mates.
In my time getting to know permaculture designers at Permaculture in NZ Hui and visiting their homes and places they’ve done work, I’ve seen hundreds of beautiful and practical homes. Well-insulated, passive solar design to store the suns heat during the day for release as night, and often made from local materials like earth/ straw adobe, earthbag, locally-fired earth bricks, locally-milled wood, earth plaster, and so on. With sensible maintenance, these homes could still be warm, dry, and comfortable in hundreds of years. Not of them cost anywhere near half a million dollars to build. Cheaper, and more sustainable solutions exist, and you can find them by looking up groups like the Earth Building Association of NZ, and websites like Appropedia and OpenSourceEcology, and by browsing magazines like OrganicNZ.