June 24, 2016
Housing rules lack discretion
Maori Party MP Marama Fox is calling for more flexibility in the way state house rentals are allocated.
She says in Gisborne there are 83 people on the waiting list and 60 houses lying empty because they don’t meet the Housing New Zealand criteria, such as not having enough people in the family to justify the size of the house.
She’s spoken about the issue to Social Hosuing Minsiter Paula Bennett, who says the managers can use discretion.
"Well they need to hurry up and use discretion and why the heck did it take a conversaiton for me for that to be an answer. Why were they not thinking about that before when you have got people rough sleeping, sleeping on other people's couches, sleeping in other people's garages because they can't get a house with Housing New Zealand and yet there were 60 vacant and empty homes," Ms Fox says.
She was also critical of a new policy to pay people $5000 to move out of Auckland if it means they are moving to areas where they have no support and little chance of a job.
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