New Zealand has the worst homelessness in the OECD, new figures show.
YaleGlobal Online, a magazine published by the prestigious US university, says “more than 40,000 people [in New Zealand] live on the streets or in emergency housing or substandard shelters” – almost 1 percent of the entire population, citing OECD statistics.
Labour Party housing spokesperson Phil Twyford said homelessness was “National’s legacy”. “Families living in motels, cars and garages; a record waiting list for state houses; Auckland City Mission forced to turn people away; homeless people dying in the street – these are the human costs of National’s housing crisis, along with falling home-ownership and skyrocketing rents,” he said in a statement.
Figures released by Auckland Council earlier this week suggest there are around 24,000 homeless in Auckland alone.
Nearly 24,000 homeless in Auckland
Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett admitted on The AM Show on Friday the Government’s response had been too slow. Ms Bennett told The AM Show she couldn’t give “actual numbers” on how the Government’s emergency housing build was going, because she “didn’t know we were going to talk about it this morning. I haven’t looked at it for about a year.”
Extracted from http://robinwestenra.blogspot.co.nz/2017/07/nzshomelessness-worst-in-oecd-by-far.html – 21 July 2017