Monday 19 September 2016

How a bureaucracy fixes things

 

Housing New Zealand is a government department supposed to house New Zealanders who can’t or won’t house themselves. At least that’s what it says on the label:

Housing New Zealand has bought a South Auckland motel to help meet the area’s housing shortage – but ironically the existing residents will have to move out to make room for the homeless.
    A spokesman said the agency bought the 10-unit Cimarron Motel in Waterview Rd, Takanini, as “part of our work to make more housing available in Auckland for those who require it urgently.”
    But the motel was already being used for long-stay accommodation, and former resident Roland Stehlin said he was worried about what would happen to the remaining residents.
    “There’s an elderly couple there who have been there 11 years, they have nowhere to go,” he said.
    “We’ve got a family that’s in the house [formerly the manager’s house]. Their kids are all going to the school there. The last I heard was apparently they are going out to Pukekohe, now they have to find some way of getting their kids into school there.”

HNZ also reports it

has reduced the numbers on the social housing waiting list in the Manukau and Manurewa-Papakura wards from 584 in June 2014 to 254 in June this year.

You may surmise there is some connection between these people who were already housed and the way HNZ reduces its “list.”

This is how bureaucracies roll.

[Hat tip Dim Post]

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1 comment:

Don Walker said...

I am surprised Housing New Zealand hasn't nationalised one or more of the large 5 star hotels in Auckland to house the homeless.