Too many Northlanders have substandard housing
green-party
Thu Sep 08 2005 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Too many Northlanders have substandard housing
Thursday, 8 September 2005, 4:34 pm
Press Release: Green Party
8 September 2005
Too many Northlanders have substandard housing: Bradford
Northland Green MP and Housing spokesperson Sue Bradford today released her party's Housing policy for the 2005 election.
"Here in Northland far too many people are still surviving in substandard and/or overcrowded conditions," said Ms Bradford, who lives near Kaitaia.
"While Labour has made good progress in beginning to address real housing needs in the north, we still have a long way to go. For example, there is an urgent need for more emergency and long-term accommodation for women and children fleeing violent relationships, and for people who are living with long term mental illness or physical disability.
"The Government also needs to ensure that we speed up the rate of providing more state houses in the north, and should commit more resources to assist community and tangata whenua groups who are providing much needed housing for local people."
The Greens are committed to retaining income-related rents for state houses, and substantially increasing the number of state houses the Government provides.
"National's plan to revert to market rents and restart the sell off of state houses will push tens of thousands of Kiwi kids into poverty and out on to the street," Ms Bradford said. "Dr Brash clearly hasn't learnt the painful lessons of the 1990s, and National is exhibiting yet again that it's simply not ready for government.
"All the tax cuts in the world won't protect another generation of children from a legacy of ill health, poor education and lowered life expectancy as a result of substandard and transient housing conditions."
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The Green Party is also committed to allowing third-sector housing to flourish.
"We'd also like to see more priority and resources given to helping community-based housing initiatives. There is a lot of potential in the third-sector to provide a diversity of both rental and ownership options, and the Government should be doing much more to enable that potential to be realised."
Some of our key policies include:
- Creating a legal obligation on the Government to ensure housing needs are met.
- Providing adequate emergency and long-term housing, including for women suffering from violence, and for people with mental illness.
- Increasing Government resourcing and other support for community based and tangata whenua housing programmes.
- Getting half a million solar hot water panels into homes and buildings over the next five years.
- Ensuring new state housing is built according to sustainable building principles and design.
- Fostering innovative, environmentally friendly building skills and techniques in building and architecture.
The full policy is available at: http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/policy4753.html
A summary of the policy is available at: http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/other9187.html
ENDS
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