This Is All on You Jacinda

Jacinda Ardern’s government was elected off of the back of the promise to fix New Zealand’s housing crisis. Since that time the crisis has gotten worse, exponentially. Almost everything they have done to “fix” the problems in the market has in fact exacerbated them.

We all know that Kiwibuild was an expensive failure, but now we know that the government’s healthy home policy is making people homeless, and condemning them to life in motels:

A Rotorua mother and her three children are moving to Australia for a better life after being stuck in “scary as hell” emergency housing for more than 15 months, with no end in sight.

Hers are just three of the 624 children living in emergency housing across the Bay of Plenty, according to figures from the Ministry of Social Development revealed under the Official Information Act.

The number has increased 60 per cent across the region in a year as of June.

Of the children, 381 were in Rotorua and 177 in Tauranga and the Western Bay.

The mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was born and raised in Rotorua, renting as an adult with no issues until two years ago when that house was sold.

She couldn’t get another rental despite her good references, and the family had no choice but to live in a “run-down” two-bedroom flat owned by her iwi which she said didn’t have the money to bring it up to scratch.

They were evicted in March last year after it was deemed uninhabitable under Healthy Homes Standards, forcing the family into emergency housing after many failed attempts to find a home.

Telling her children, aged 8 to 17, they would be in emergency housing wasn’t the hard part as they had “high hopes” they would find a place, get their pets back, and be able to start again.

However, hope evaporated. The family had been in their current unit for eight months, and it was their third motel.

“The longer we’re here, the worse it’s getting. Coming from basically having everything to having nothing … just chucked in that category of homeless.”

They stayed at the first motel for a week but she said they were moved because of the frequent gang and drug activity.

They were moved from their second motel for reasons between the motel and the ministry.

Their current unit was small and confined, and although the owner and manager were “awesome,” she said depression had begun to surface for the first time.

“I had lost all hope of ever getting our own place.“

NZ Herald

This is all on Jacinda. The mother had somewhere to live until it was deemed uninhabitable under the healthy homes standards. Note that the NZ Herald didn’t follow up with the iwi over their provision of sub-standard housing to their beneficiaries. This has absolutely nothing to do with 9 long years. Instead it is all to do with 4 long years of an inept and morally bankrupt Labour government.

The crisis that Labour promised they would solve has deepened:

“Holding pens” and residents treated “almost like cattle” is how one social service provider is describing how children are living in emergency housing in Tauranga.

According to a social support agency, some children are internalising everything, some self-harming. Some are witnessing either gang and family violence, or alcohol and drugs being used at the motels.

Parents were desperately trying to leave the motels for their children’s sake, with many losing hope with nothing available, the agency says.

This comes as the number of children in Tauranga and the Western Bay soars 34 per cent.

There are 624 children in emergency housing in the Bay of Plenty region, a 60 per cent increase on last year.

Of the 624 children, 177 were in Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty, according to figures from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) revealed under the Official Information Act.

This was up 34 per cent on the same time last year.

NZ Herald

The only thing that Labour has managed to deliver with any sort of regularity is sermons from the “podium of truth”.

Not a single one of their reforms to alleviate the housing crisis has worked.  In fact, it can easily be argued that their reforms have made the situation worse.

Labour promised to build 100,000 homes in ten years. Four years after taking office they’ve barely built 1000 and most of those were consented under the last National government.

The simple fact is that Labour couldn’t build a house in a room full of Lego.

They have failed these people and condemned them to a life worse than what they had before these fools took over.

The same problem that bedevilled Helen Clark is now vexing Jacinda Ardern. She promised the universe, that she and she alone would fix this. Now it is abundantly clear that they lack the nous and the required joined together thinking to solve this crisis, or indeed any other issue.

The people living in poverty are still living in poverty. Now it is arguably worse with massive waiting lists for social housing that show no sign of reducing. Locked out of the market even for rentals and now residing in crappy, crime-infested motels ruled by gangs, pimps and drug dealers.

‘Let’s do this’ has become a hollow promise, especially when it appears that doing this only ever meant giving Labour power and nothing else. The only thing Labour has managed to do is create crime-ridden slums.

The rot has set in, and with barely over two years of this term left there is precious little Labour can do to improve the situation. Roll on the next election.

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