Anti-poverty And Housing Groups Protest Punitive Govt Approach To Welfare And Housing

Tuesday, 27 August 2024, 6:13 pm
Press Release: ActionStation

Monday 26 August

A range of community anti-poverty and housing advocacy groups are gathering to express opposition to new rules that they say impose significant barriers on the lives of low-income people.

“During a cost of living crisis, where many people in our communities are having to make tough choices between food, rent and heating their homes, the Government has made a political choice to ramp up sanctions on people accessing income support, and put more barriers in place to access emergency housing support,” says Vanessa Cole, campaigner at ActionStation

“We are very concerned about the impact this Government’s decisions will have on the young people we serve. The most likely result of these decisions is an increase in youth homelessness, resulting in more young people shoved onto our streets, and pushed into dangerous and unsafe situations,” says Aaron Hendry, co-founder of Kick Back, a youth development organisation responding to youth homelessness.

“Instead of punishing our young people, and constructing new barriers for them to climb, we should be responding to what is actually going on in their lives, and providing our young people with the love, care and support they require to thrive,” says Hendry

Alongside ramping up existing sanctions through the traffic light system which will lead to cuts in people’s benefits if they don’t meet the often strenuous obligations, the Government has announced new sanctions which will come into force in 2025 that will serve as a form of punishment, halving someone’s income support onto a payment card, and placing people into community service similar to the work for the dole schemes in the 1990s.

“Our welfare system is broken and has been for some time. We need to move toward a high trust model at Work & Income, and liveable incomes for all so that people can be well, and live free of the stresses that come with surviving,” said Auckland Action Against Poverty Coordinator Brooke Pao Stanley.

It was recently revealed that the Ministry of Social Development had warned the Government that its changes to emergency housing could increase homelessness, and that the Government did not know where 20% of the children who have been moved out of motels have ended up.

“The Government has stopped building public housing all over the country that could have provided stable homes to the many people living in emergency housing and on the waitlist. Yet, they have decided instead to put up barriers to emergency housing, essentially blaming homeless people for the housing insecurity caused by an over-inflated rental market and a lack of public homes,” says Cole

The groups say that in an economic downturn, it is the Government’s responsibility to care for those who are most impacted.

“Instead, we are seeing the opposite – an attack on those who are struggling the most, and a reverse Robinhood situation where resources are going to those who have the most. While power companies and landlords make mega profits, people and families on low incomes are being driven further into poverty,” says Cole

The groups are calling on the Government to address the current economic downturn in a common sense and compassionate way, through supporting communities impacted the most. They are calling for an end to benefit sanctions, lifting benefits to liveable levels and building public housing.

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