As someone who's skipped the whole OE and worked hard to scrape together a house deposit, living in a not too great area surrounded by KO homes whilst struggling somewhat to pay the mortgage, I don't get the sensationalism surrounding the news articles focusing on KO lately.
Like, I'd love to be able to live in a nicely insulated home where the cost won't exceed 25% of my income. If people take the mickey in this situation we shouldn't be giving them a rent free pass? ie rewarding people for not playing their part in society.
Alternative headline: Tenants who don't pay rent get evicted.
Because the outcome is a lot worse for society than unpaid rent if they don't have a roof over their heads.
New Zealand really loves to chase the wrong end of the stick and focus on benefit-bashing. The reality is that there's a much higher magnitude of tax fraud than there is benefit fraud, so how about we focus on the big ticket items first?
That may be true, but what other options do they have to control the behaviour of people in their housing? People are being assaulted and harassed by their neighbors.
KO should be significantly expanding this programme.
KO needs another tier of accommodation for those who can't afford the rent in KO's existing accommodation.
I can't quite grok why KO wouldn't already have this though. KO's reason to exist is to provide accommodation to those who can't otherwise afford it. That they have unaffordable rent levels is weird given its probably mostly just consuming the tenants' accommodation supplement anyway. There's a wasteful overhead there.
The risk is that the cheaper accommodation will probably end up as slums from NIMBY's and aggressive cost cutting.
It's great that you were able to achieve your life's goals. I don't know where the attitude to pull up the ladder behind you comes in though.
The way I see it housing is one of those survival needs and the state should be providing it for everybody who can't afford it. Hell I would be in favor of converting jails to housing. It won't be nice but it's better than living in the streets or in a car.