Dialogue: One escape route from tenants' poverty trap

GRANT GILLON* responds to criticism that income-related rents for state-house tenants will help only a few of the poor.

Some of the terrible poverty in New Zealand will be alleviated by the Housing Restructuring (Income-related Rents) Amendment Bill, which was recently tabled in Parliament.

It is an excellent start towards assisting about 40,000 state-housing tenants who are living in impoverished conditions and trying to survive on very low incomes. Many are mental health survivors, sickness or invalid beneficiaries and older citizens.

These tenants will benefit from the changes by up to $60 extra a week.

There are about 17,000 other state-house tenants on higher incomes. Some deliberately moved into state houses, sometimes in affluent suburbs, to qualify under the previous Government's flawed home-buy scheme. These tenants won't benefit to the same extent because the bill is designed to help only those on very low incomes.

Housing advocacy, community and church groups support the bill. In fact these groups should take a bow. The bill is as much their achievement as the Government's because of their hard work and commitment over many years.

Tenants who wish to move on to the income-testing regime will need to supply details of their income to Housing NZ. There is no inspectorate as implied by Act MP Muriel Newman in her Dialogue article.

Tenants who don't wish to move on to the income-related scheme will stay on the accommodation supplement system.

Low-income families who don't live in a state house will still receive their accommodation benefit.

The changes may even create some downward pressure on their rent, especially when more state houses are built.

I don't support Muriel Newman's proposal that the state legislate for income-related rents to be applied to the private rental sector.

We can't force private landlords to lower their rents to only 25 per cent of their tenants' net income.

Private-sector tenants will continue to be assisted with the accommodation supplement.

No tenants will be worse off under the changes, but 40,000 of the most desperate will be significantly better off.

My office in Northcote receives regular calls from people begging for help. We've heard from people with incomes of $300 a week paying rents of $200. After buying their food, there's hardly any money left for clothing, school fees and even going to the doctor.

Poverty has a domino effect. In 1997, eight whooping cough cases on the North Shore were brought to the attention of health officials, and in 1998 there were five. But the number of cases skyrocketed to 58 last year.

The figure is frightening because the victims are so young and vulnerable.

There were 115 salmonella cases on the North Shore last year, nearly double the 64 cases in 1998. Tuberculosis cases jumped to 13 last year, up from eight the previous year, and there were 17 meningococcal cases last year, up from nine in 1998.

The figures show the link between illness and over-crowded, damp living conditions.

Independent studies show that high housing costs are the biggest single cause of poverty in New Zealand.

Research by Canterbury University demonstrates that after paying high rent, many tenants and families are unable to buy food that provides adequate nutrition.

This situation has become increasingly desperate in recent years and has led to an upsurge in many diseases of poverty.

In conjunction with the Income-related Rents Bill, the Government is working on a comprehensive building programme to tackle the waiting list created by the previous Government's decision to sell 11,000 state houses.

Clearly New Zealand has been doing something terribly wrong in recent years.

Too many children are being sent to school without breakfast and lunches, and without adequate footwear and clothing. This has to stop.

Of course, the Income-related Rents Bill alone won't eliminate poverty. But people who can't afford to go to the doctor need to be helped now, not some time in the future when the wealth from the top trickles down.

* Grant Gillon is the Alliance spokesman on housing.