The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most.
“The Government must end the shameful housing crisis by committing to an ambitious public housing programme,” says Green Party Housing spokesperson Tamatha Paul.
“The Green Party stands with Public Housing Futures and the Child Poverty Action Group in calling for sustained investment into building public housing at pace and scale.
“Housing is a human right. Everyone should have a safe, healthy, and affordable place to make their own.
“The government’s shallow politics of villainising people who live in public housing simply distracts us from the deeper issue, which is a scarcity of places for people to live. Governments have built public housing at scale before, we must do it again.
“Public housing needs to be seen as a core social service - just like public healthcare and education, with investment to match community need.
“While the last six years saw a much-needed shift to building more housing, this crisis is decades in the making. Since the early 1990s, housing in Aotearoa has become a source of enormous untaxed capital gains for some, while others struggle to face ever higher costs just to keep a roof over their heads.
“Today’s newly released report, A People's Review of Kāinga Ora: In Defence of Public Housing, echoes the calls the Green Party has made in Parliament for a sustained build programme to clear the waiting list.
“The report shines a light on what is really driving this government’s agenda - that landlords are making considerable money from a lack of public housing. A lack of supply of affordable housing puts property investors and landlords in a prime position to pump up rents.
“Aotearoa now has the least affordable rental homes in the OECD. We also claim top spot in the OECD for having the highest percentage of households paying more than 40 percent of their income on housing, significantly over the 30 per cent threshold commonly used as a measure of affordability.
“The experiment of the last three decades has shown that leaving housing to private investors is an unmitigated disaster. Worldwide, the places that fully embrace public housing enjoy lower rents, less poverty and greater housing security for all.
“The Green Party will continue to fight for strong and sustained public housing programme as part of ensuring everyone has what they need for a decent standard of living” says Tamatha Paul.
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