State Housing matters

All state house tenants, regardless of age or disability, will find themselves subject to the government’s new policy of reviewing state house tenancies.

### NZ Herald Online 11:45 AM Wednesday Mar 19, 2014
Elderly, disabled included in state house review
By Simon Collins
More than one in five of the first 780 state house tenants facing possible eviction under a new Government policy will be elderly or disabled. A paper taken to Cabinet last month by Housing Minister Nick Smith and Social Development Minister Paula Bennett reveals that the two ministers have decided not to exempt the elderly and disabled from the new policy of reviewing all state house tenancies, ending the previous policy that a state house was “a home for life”.
The full paper, placed on the Social Development Ministry website last week included a detailed breakdown showing that 20 per cent of the first batch of tenants to be reviewed would be 65 or over and 27 others would be “permanently and severely disabled”. The paper was later removed and an edited version was subsequently posted with the breakdown of affected tenants deleted.
The controversial policy is intended to “shift expectations away from social housing for life to social housing for the duration of housing need”. It takes effect after the Social Development Ministry takes over allocating social housing from Housing NZ on April 14, and the first affected tenants will be notified before the end of next month.
Read more

█ Cabinet paper on state house tenancies

—

### ODT Online Tue, 18 Mar 2014
Fewer Kiwis own their own homes
The number of homeowners in New Zealand continues to fall, with less than half of all Kiwis owning their own property, new Census figures show. In 2013, 49.8 per cent of people aged 15 years and over owned or partly owned the home they lived in, compared with 53.2 per cent in 2006, according to census results released by Statistics New Zealand today. 2013 Census Quickstats about housing, which contains detailed information about New Zealand’s housing stock, also reveals trends in the number, type, and size of the dwellings we are living in. APNZ
Read more

█ 2013 Census QuickStats about national highlights

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: APN – State Housing

Dunedin’s social housing need —they built a bastard stadium

Dunedin civic leaders built a ‘bastard stadium’ instead of making the conscious decision to look after our most vulnerable citizens.

The increasing cost of private rental accommodation in Dunedin has seen the demand for social housing rise during the past six months, with Housing New Zealand housing one family a day during that time.

The amount of money people needed just to get in the front door of a private rental was out of reach for many families.
–Nicola Taylor, Anglican Family Support

### ODT Online Sun, 2 Mar 2014
State housing in demand
By Tim Miller – The Star
Unaffordable rental property in Dunedin is driving lower-income families into social housing, with one property manager saying the situation could get worse if rental properties are required to lift their standards.
Increased demand has seen the waiting list of families waiting for one of Dunedin’s 1451 state houses increase to 64.
Read more

****

### radionz.co.nz Friday 28 February 2014
Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon
09:08 Revised statistics reveal true extent of elderly poverty
Roy Reid, president Grey Power New Zealand Federation; and Jonathan Boston, professor of public policy at Victoria University and co-chair of the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty.
Audio | Download: Ogg   MP3 ( 23:33 )

****

The Accommodation Supplement available to low income people and beneficiaries has not been raised for NINE YEARS.

This fact, of course, doesn’t and won’t stop upwardly mobile Dunedin landlords (many of them absentee) seeking capital gains and higher rents, while exercising tax avoidance under current legislation —there are insufficient casual, part-time and full-time jobs available in the city to service increasingly high rents (income poverty). With the result Dunedin renters in genuine need are being severely squeezed — this impacts on the health and wellbeing of individuals, couples and families, placing a long-term cost burden on the rest of society. Not surprisingly, the number of homeless people is rising. Meanwhile, the mayor, the council chief executive and friends are skooting off to China on junkets, in the time-honoured tradition of the Old Dunedin CARGO CULT.

—

Accommodation Supplement is a weekly payment which helps people with their rent, board or the cost of owning a home.

You may get an Accommodation Supplement if you:
• have accommodation costs
• are aged 16 years or more
• are a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident
• normally live in New Zealand and intend to stay here
• are not paying rent for a Housing New Zealand property.

It also depends on:
• how much you and your spouse or partner earn
• any money or assets you and your spouse or partner have.

How much you will get on the Accommodation Supplement will depend on:
• your income
• your assets
• your accommodation costs
• your family circumstances
• where you live.

For more information go to:
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/individuals/a-z-benefits/accommodation-supplement.html

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: odt.co.nz – State Housing (re-imaged by whatifdunedin)

‘Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising’

The gap between New Zealand’s rich and poor is growing faster than any other developed nation, a new OECD report shows.

### 3news.co.nz Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:48p.m.
Rich, poor gap growing fast
The report, called Divided We Stand, charts the widening gap between the top 10 per cent wealthiest residents and the poorest 10 per cent. The richest Kiwis now claim an income 10 times that of the poorest residents. This is considerably less than the huge margin seen in the worst countries Brazil, Russia, China and India where the wealthy earn 50 times more, but New Zealand won the dubious honour of the gap widening the fastest. On an inequality index called the Gini coefficient, where zero means everybody has the same income and one means the richest person has all the income, New Zealand scored 0.33. This is up six percentage points from 1985, when it scored 0.27, constituting the biggest jump of any OECD country.
Read more

****

### freshbusinessthinking.com 05/12/2011
Divided we stand: rich-poor gap hits 30 year high
By Maximilian Clarke
The richest 10% of OECD member states own 9 times more than the poorest 10%- the highest income disparity for more than 30 years. A new report by the Paris-based OECD (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) entitled Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising urges governments to act quickly to prevent the growing discord between the haves and have-nots, which – particularly during times of economic decline – can fuel political instability.
The main driver behind rising income gaps has been greater inequality in wages and salaries, as the high-skilled have benefitted more from technological progress than the low-skilled. Reforms to boost competition and to make labour markets more adaptable, for example by promoting part-time work or more flexible hours, have promoted productivity and brought more people into work, especially women and low-paid workers. But the rise in part-time and low-paid work also extended the wage gap.
Tax and benefit systems play a major role in reducing market-driven inequality, but have become less effective at redistributing income since the mid-1990s. The main reason lies on the benefits side: benefits levels fell in nearly all OECD countries, eligibility rules were tightened to contain spending on social protection, and transfers to the poorest failed to keep pace with earnings growth.
The income gap has risen even in traditionally egalitarian countries, such as Germany, Denmark and Sweden, from 5 to 1 in the 1980s to 6 to 1 today. The gap is 10 to 1 in Italy, Japan, Korea and the United Kingdom, and higher still, at 14 to 1 in Israel, Turkey and the United States. In Chile and Mexico, the incomes of the richest are still more than 25 times those of the poorest, the highest in the OECD, but have finally started dropping.
Income inequality is much higher in some major emerging economies outside the OECD area. At 50 to 1, Brazil’s income gap remains much higher than in many other countries, although it has been falling significantly over the past decade. FBT Link

█ OECD Link

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr