Press Release Sue Henry Spokesperson Housing Lobby: Charity treachery sells out State Housing tenants. 3 November 2014 State Housing tenants could see this attempted privatisation of State Housing coming - and it needs to be stopped in its tracks! says Housing Lobby Spokesperson, Sue Henry. Please be reminded of the warnings we made in the following Press Releases: ______________________________________________________ 17 May 2013 The relentless budgetary attacks on State housing tenants and their families, clearly highlights the treacherous role private sector charities have played in the housing policy-making process. says Housing Lobby Spokesperson Sue Henry. (April 2010 Housing Shareholders Advisory Group Report ) dbh.govt.nz/UserFiles/File/Publications/Sector/pdf/vision-for-social-housing-nz.pdf dbh.govt.nz/social-housing-nz Government have successfully used the private social housing sector as the mechanism to privatise the State housing stock and land these homes sit on. It was a sad day when people like Major Campbell Roberts from the Salvation Army, were on the same Board sitting beside property developers to form policies for temporary tenancy agreements, which, if implemented, will invariably create transcience and homelessness. ( #1 EVIDENCE) * Promoting submerging the housing subsidy into into the Ministry of Social Development did not work in the 1990s due to the widening gap between the accommodation supplement and the market rents - with a cap on subsidies, combined with over-inflated property values, this will have huge negative impacts on State housing tenants. * As will retrospectively extending the assessments on long-term existing tenants. This effectively equates to a sophisticated form of elder abuse and bullying , impacting on elderly pensioners, widows of Returned Servicemen, the disabled, and the vulnerable, who are legitimately in these homes. SOLUTIONS: * Tenure protection must be immediately reinstated for these State housing tenants. * State housing must be provided by central government, not privatised by stealth, by hanging the portfolio over to non-accountable, non-transparent, duplicated social housing providers, concluded Sue Henry. #1 EVIDENCE (April 2010 Housing Shareholders Advisory Group Report ) dbh.govt.nz/UserFiles/File/Publications/Sector/pdf/vision-for-social-housing-nz.pdf Appendix 2: Housing Shareholders Advisory Group Members Alan Jackson (chair) is former senior vice president in the Auckland office of The Boston Consulting Group. He is also a director of Fletcher Building and a trustee of The Icehouse business growth centre in Auckland. Dr Jackson has significant experience in change management with expertise in resources, diversified industrials, building products and construction sectors. Major Campbell Roberts is the director of the New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga Territory Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit of the Salvation Army. He is also a trustee of the New Zealand Housing Foundation, a director of the Centre for Housing Research Aotearoa New Zealand and the Auckland Housing Trust. Major Roberts is a media spokesperson, writer and speaker and has experience on issues of poverty and social housing. Andrew Body is a director of Crown Fibre Holdings and various private sector companies. He has 20 years experience as an investment banker, focussing on strategic and transactional advice to owners and managers of businesses. Mr Body has experience across a wide range of sectors in the New Zealand economy including the property sector. Martin Udale is an independent consultant with more than 30 years experience in the New Zealand, UK and Australian property markets, including developing some of the first office parks in Sydney and Brisbane. He was most recently the chief executive of McConnell Property, and has also been director of corporate advisory with CRI, an Australian property development and services group, specialising in partnering with asset owners to create value from underused assets. Diane Robertson is head of the Auckland City Mission and is the first non-clergy female City Missioner. She previously had roles on the Committee for Auckland, the Auckland University Community Advisory Board, Springboard Trust, Robin Hood Foundation, Child Poverty Action Group and the New Zealand Institute. Ms Robertson’s experience is in social and emergency housing issues. Brian Donnelly is executive director of the New Zealand Housing Foundation. He is also a director of the Centre for Housing Research Aotearoa New Zealand (CHRANZ), a trustee of the Queenstown Lakes District Community Housing Trust, a member of the Social Entrepreneur Fellowship and chair of the Wilson Home Trust. He has experience in social housing issues, including operating and managing a social housing organisation. Paul White is the Principal of Torea Tai Consultants, specialising in consultancy on Maori development, housing and strategic planning. He is also the chair of Te Waka Pupuri Putea (an Iwi asset holding company) and a council member of FITEC, the forestry sector training organisation. Mr White has previously been chief executive of Ngai Tahu Development Corporation and a member of the Housing New Zealand Board. He has experience in the operation and management of housing. _________________________________________________________ Sue Henry Spokesperson Housing Lobby ......................... ______________________________________________________ BACKGROUND INFORMATION: 13 May 2013 Press Release: Sue Henry Spokesperson, Housing Lobby: We cannot and will not allow the failed social housing model to take over State Housing. stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8662181/Govt-plans-to-ditch-Housing-NZ-properties Housing Minister Nick Smith will be setting up the private charity sector to compete against the poor if he implements the failed social housing model from countries like the UK and Canada, says Housing Lobby Spokesperson Sue Henry. We must retain the State Housing system we have and central Government must be responsible for it. The private charity sector (trusts included) will never provide a better service for State tenants. Under the provision of housing being delivered by private charities the income-related rents would go and State tenants would be paying market rents, as the previous Housing Minister Phil Heatley acknowledged the housing subsidy would be halved. (The Nation 1&2 October 2011). Tenants would effectively only be temporary visitors in transit housing. _________________________________________________________ scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1110/S00006/the-nation-phil-heatley.htm [Duncan Okay, what happens if they move out of a state house? You move them out and they get a private dwelling or a social housing somewhere else, are they eligible for income related rents. Phil No, if they move from a state house they get income related rents which is worth about $9000 a year. Duncan What happens if you kick them out to private dwellings? Phil If they move to a private rental then they qualify not for income related rents which is about $8000 a year on average, they might get something like the accommodation supplement which is worth about $4000 a year. Duncan So youre sitting here today telling me that for those people and there will be cases, theyre gonna be worse off? Phil No because if theyre in a state house, the amount of rent they pay depends on their income, so if their income doesn’t change when they shift from public to private… Duncan But youre telling me that theyre going to move to – potentially move to a private dwelling, so you can get other high needs people into that state house that they could be worse off. Can you sit here and say no one will be worse off? Phil No, no I cant. Theres a whole bunch of people in state houses at the moment who are being subsidised and have been there for a long time who were encouraging to move on. Duncan How are they going to afford to go, because these people are already poor aren’t they?... _________________________________________________________ Private charities would not be transparent or accountable and nepotism would be rife, as proven by the following UK research : _________________________________________________________ CORRUPTION IN THE UK PART TWO - Transparency International ... transparency.org.uk/component/cckjseblod/?...publication... 4.5.1 Types of social housing corruption The social housing sector neatly demonstrates how closely aligned fraud and corruption can be. For example, the recent BBC documentary, The Great Housing Rip Off, estimated that approximately £3.5 billion of housing benefit is directed towards landlords who house tenants in very poor accommodation. While this is a misuse of entrusted power, it is more likely to be considered a fraudulent use of housing benefit.138 The main types of corruption in the social housing sector are: • Tenancy fraud and corruption; • Abuse of position by social landlords; • Collusion and corruption in procurement..... _________________________________________________________ Overseas, the social housing model has delivered wealthy, duplicated administrative bodies, severe cuts in rent subsidies and cardboard box cities and tenement slums, continues Sue Henry. _________________________________________________________ corporatewatch.org/?lid=4180 Privatisation wave#2: demunicipalisation by any means It was soon evident that the Right to Buy had natural limits – not least that poorer tenants would never be able to afford or access a mortgage – and although discounts would continue to rise over the decade, reaching 70% of market price,[10] the Conservatives unveiled a second privatisation wave from 1985 onwards that focused on selling council homes en masse to alternative landlords in the private and charity sectors. All manner of initiatives were tried and failed, and through resisting, tenants won the statutory right to be balloted on any privatisation proposals and be able to block them if they lacked majority support. By the late 1980s, however, many local authorities began selling off their entire housing stocks to existing and specially formed not-for-profit companies called housing associations in response to the government’s financial straitjacket and the realisation that they would financially benefit. Housing associations – or Registered Social Landlords as they are known – were regulated and barred from floating on the stock exchange, but they were also private companies that had greater freedoms to charge market rents, evict tenants and build private housing, and had limited democratic accountability. __________________________________________________________ People need to be reminded that here in New Zealand, care for the elderly devolved from private charity groups to now multinational companies, when the bulk-funding was cut. business.auckland.ac.nz/Portals/4/Research/General/Wokiring_Paper_07_1_.pdf We cannot and will not, allow this to happen to our State houses and our families. Sue Henry Spokesperson Housing Lobby ....................... _________________________________________________________ STATEMENT BY PENNY BRIGHT, 2013 AUCKLAND MAYORAL CANDIDATE: MY POSITION ON SOCIAL HOUSING IS UNCHANGED FROM 2010: waterpressure.wordpress/2010/09/07/response-from-auckland-mayoral-candidate-penny-bright-to-waitakere-housing-call-to-action/ ...INCREASED HOUSING PROVISION: 1) First – I believe we need to head off the proposed housing decrease through giving private sector organisations huge chunks of existing housing stock and to ban any sale of existing state housing stock. I am opposed to ‘devolution’ of the provision of housing to ‘not-for-profit’ NGOs, as I believe it is still privatisation. For example – care for the aged has devolved from the ‘not-for-profit’ church groups to ‘for profit’ multinational companies. business.auckland.ac.nz/Portals/4/Research/General/Wokiring_Paper_07_1_.pdf(Pg 17) “The CEO of Presbyterian Support noted that the charitable organisations “reluctantly” exited the market which was increasingly dominated by “large national and multinational providers” (Presbyterian Support East Coast, 2005). 2004 also saw the sale of facilities belonging to the Auckland Methodists and Hastings St John of God (Presbyterian Support East Coast, 2005). Charitable providers seemed to find the government’s then $80 daily subsidy5 made their business unsustainable (“No budget money for providers of residential care”, 2005). In contrast to the charitable providers, the large for-profit providers are expanding within the market. The Macquarie Group recently purchased Eldercare NZ .” I believe we need to retain Housing New Zealand (HNZ) as a ‘one stop shop’ entity. Housing is a Government responsibility, and if all Council tenants came under the HNZ umbrella, they too would have more affordable rents at 25% of their net income. (As happened when Auckland City Council pensioner housing was taken over by HNZ in 2004). ............ Penny Bright Anti-corruption/anti-privatisation campaigner 2013 Auckland Mayoral candidate ......................... .........................
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 22:02:36 +0000
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