New Zealand's housing crisis more entrenched than previously revealed
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Commissioned by Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford, A Stocktake of New Zealand’s Housing assesses the entire housing continuum from homeownership and market renting, to state housing and homelessness, and the social cost of substandard housing.
"It paints a sobering picture of the devastating impacts of the housing crisis, particularly on children," says Phil Twyford. "Homelessness, transience and substandard housing have had a lasting, and sometimes even deadly, effect on our youngest.
"The stocktake highlights the increasing number of elderly facing housing-related poverty because fewer and fewer are mortgage free and able to survive on Superannuation alone.
"Most concerning is the hidden homeless – those who feel they can’t seek government housing support for their families – for which there are no official estimates.
"The stocktake suggests there could be significant numbers of ‘floating homeless’ which will lead to a growing homeless rate as more people seek help."
The stocktake warned New Zealand is "quickly becoming a society divided by the ownership of housing and its related wealth" and found "recent housing and tax policy settings appear to have exacerbated this division." ■