A calm look at public housing

Jan 28, 2023

It was another ‘SHOCK! HORROR!’ headline from a media increasingly venturing into tabloid-style journalism:

Andrea Vance’s article seemed to focus on the "million dollar sums from the Government as the country grapples with a housing crisis and the soaring cost of living" . A seemingly astronomical sum of "$788m to house 37,887 people between March 2020 and July 2022" by Ms Vance.

However, brandishing only a calculator, the figure of $788 million is soon put into perspective:

Firstly, divide the $788 million between 37,887 people = $20,798.69.

Let’s round it up to $20,800. That’s per person.

Spread over two years: $10,400 per person, per year.

Per week, $200. Per person.

So in fact the headline should actually read,

But as we all should understand by now, good news doesn’t sell anywhere as well as negative stories. "Angertainment" is the new name of the game when media fall out with any prominent figure.

And as Andrea Vance herself pointed out in her political inside look at the NZ National Party, "Blue Blood":

“And the political media, by now bored of Ardern's popularity, have enthusiastically seized on a fresh narrative.” - p279

Never one to miss an opportunity to attack the government, National’s housing spokesman, Chris Bishop, was excoriating in his knee-jerks criticism of the government’s housing policies - meanwhile offering little more than vague alternatives:

“It’s a get-rich-quick scheme for motel owners. The Government has just basically written out increasingly large cheques and tried to wash their hands of the problem of people on the state house waiting list, which is now 500% higher than it was when National left office.
The solution is better use of the community housing sector which has capacity and the willingness and enthusiasm to provide social housing for people. But they just need a Government that will back them.
You've got community housing providers who do a fantastic job and are much better providing the kind of wraparound support that people who end up in emergency housing need. The Government has an ideological, blinkered view that the sole provider of social housing should be the state-owned Housing Corporation, Kāinga Ora.”

Bishop pointed to “better use of the community housing sector which has capacity and the willingness and enthusiasm to provide social housing for people”.

But Accessible Properties - which benefitted from a massive “transfer” of 1,140 state houses in March 2017, is not an emergency provider of accomodation, as it clearly states on it’s own website:

Accessible Properties does not offer emergency housing. If you need emergency housing you should contact Work and Income.

Instead, the website points to other charitabble organisations such as the Salvation Army and Women’s Refuge - many of which are already under considerable strain to locate housing for those in need.

It is also unclear how much, if anything, Accessible Properties actually paid for those 1,140 state houses. A NZ Herald/BOP Times does not address the question and is merely a word-for-word regurgitation of an Accessible Properties/IHC public relations media release. (Accessible Properties is the corporate-wing of IHC.)

And tellingly, Accessible Properties does not even promise to offer a house to a qualifying client. Instead, on their website, it is made clear “after your interview we will get in touch with you if a suitable home becomes available”.

In March 2022, Accessible Properties stated there are/were “900 people on the Public Housing Register across Tauranga and the western Bay of Plenty”. Unlike the government, Accessible properties is not transparent and does not provide a publicly available Waiting List.

Chris Bishop further derides Housing NZ/Kāinga Ora:

“The Government has an ideological, blinkered view that the sole provider of social housing should be the state-owned Housing Corporation, Kāinga Ora.”

Mr Bishop is either unaware, or carefully hid the fact that Housing NZ/Kāinga Ora and Accessible are already working together:

Perhaps Mr Bishop’s worst unintended “own goal” was when he criticised Housing NZ/Kāinga Ora for not offering social services:

“You've got community housing providers who do a fantastic job and are much better providing the kind of wraparound support that people who end up in emergency housing need.”

The reason Housing NZ/Kāinga Ora is unable to offer “wraparound support that people who end up in emergency housing” is because the previous National Government unravelled that ability in 2011:

Housing NZ chief executive Dr Lesley McTurk has told the corporation's 1100 staff that staff numbers will be cut by about 100 as the agency's focus narrows down to managing its 70,000 state houses.
"We will no longer have a role to assist individuals with their wider social needs. We will concentrate on their accommodation needs," she said.

As usual, National undermines our our social services - then blames a Labour government when inevitable problems arise.

This is what awaits New Zealanders if they are foolish enough to vote for a National-ACT government later this year.

And the media? Only too happy to spotlight a Labour government’s failure to restore the damage caused by previous National governments.

This is free political propaganda no Party could buy. And made worse because it is promulgated by mainstream media whose role it is to question; to probe; to provide some measure of context and historical perspective.

Andrea Vance should know better.

Fer’instance:

2016 - That was Then:

2023 - This is Now:

Postscript:

In 2008, Housing NZ/Kāinga Ora’s housing stock comprised of 69,000 rental properties.

By 2016, that number had fallen to 61,600 (with a further 2,700 leased) – a reduction of 7,400 properties.

By 2022, Housing NZ/Kāinga Ora had increased it’s stock to 69,509 - reversing and rebuilding the catastrophic depletion caused by the previous National government. A remarkable achievement considering that our economy was all but in ‘suspended animation’ for nearly two years.

But you wouldn’t know this, going by our mainstream media.

Good news doesn’t sell.

References

Stuff media: 'Get rich quick scheme': $16m paid to an Auckland motel for emergency accommodation

RNZ: Midweek Mediawatch - crime and ‘angertainment’

Scoop media: Accessible Properties acquires more than 1100 Tauranga homes

Accessible Properties: Emergency housing providers

RNZ: Hutt City domestic violence victims struggle to find housing

NZ Herald/BOP Times: Government sells off Tauranga's state housing portfolio to Accessible Properties

IHC: IHC’s Accessible Properties to take over Housing New Zealand homes in Tauranga

IHC: About the IHC Group

Accessible Properties: Affordable rentals