Jacinda Ardern’s Wellbeing budget has made international headlines for all the wrong reasons. One headline reads…
‘Roaming cats, faeces and cockroaches’: Squalid caravan park deemed unsafe for children is charging $500 per week for filthy living conditions in tiny cabins
A caravan park which was deemed unsafe for children is charging desperate families up to $500 per week to live in tiny cabins without sufficient plumbing or heating.
Some of the units occupied by long term tenants in Western Park Village in Auckland, New Zealand have no toilets, bathrooms, or stoves.
Residents share communal facilities, and are charged up to $500 per week for accommodation.
Villa Education Trust’s Alan Poole described the children forced to live in the squalid cabins as New Zealand’s ‘most vulnerable kids’ who get ‘no favours whatsoever’.
[…] ‘School children live here, children under five, those kids just haven’t got a hope,’ he said.
The Ministry of Social Development previously described the living conditions ‘unfit for children’ and said the park is often used as a last resort for desperate and in need families.
Former residents claim the living conditions were reminiscent of ‘a human zoo’.
Some of the units occupied by long term tenants in Western Park Village in Ranui, Auckland on New Zealand’s north island, have no toilet, bathroom, or stove
One former tenant said he had ‘plenty of bad experiences living there’.
‘It was hell… we had major problems with cockroaches… roaming cats, faeces, unsanitary drinking water, and nowhere to empty your waste from your campervan.’
Housing Minister and MP for the electorate Phil Twyford told the publication he agrees it is ‘no place for children’.
‘I’m sad to say it is not unusual. There are places like Western Park, campgrounds all around Auckland and New Zealand,’ he said.
‘The housing crisis is utterly unsatisfactory and the conditions that people are living in campgrounds like Western Park are unsatisfactory, that’s the problem we are dealing with.’
Daily Mail
So much for the International reputation of Jacinda’s ‘progressive’ Wellbeing budget.
