As an occasional marathon runner, you see people lining up on the start line who have absolutely no business being there. They're overweight or heavily strapped or GoldCard users – sometimes all three. They look knackered before they even cross the start line and while a part of youthinks, "Jesus, Mary and St Joseph, it shouldn't be allowed", the bigger part of you is saying, "Good for them. I hope they make it". Probably, they're thinking the same thing about you.
Anyhow that's pretty much what I thought about when Labour was touting KiwiBuild as a game changer during the lead up to the 2017 election. They wanted to put more young Kiwis into their first homes, they believed young Kiwis were being thwarted from doing that because of the nasty National government's policy of allowing foreigners to buy up homes, baby boomers investing in property and denying the young 'uns a chance to get on the property ladder and a low wage economy that prevented young people from existing, far less saving.
So KiwiBuild was touted as the answer. One hundred thousand homes in 10 years, was the clarion cry. Except that nobody had done the sums. Nobody had done the stats. And 100,000 in 10 years was an absolute fail.
KiwiBuild was the marathon equivalent of the overweight heavily strapped oldie that everybody wanted to cross the line but simply couldn't. And finally this week, Housing Minister Megan Woods was given the unenviable task of putting KiwiBuild out of its misery.
To be fair, she did it with humanity. And she swallowed so much humble pie, she probably won't have to eat for a month.
No more targets for homes being built. Rather a focus on helping people on lower and middle incomes get into their own homes. And that's a worthy aim.
There are plenty of people paying the sort of rent that would easily service a mortgage but because they're paying $600-plus a week to put a roof over their heads, getting a good sized deposit together is beyond them.
The Greens, Labour's coalition partner, wanted to see a rent-to-own, shared-equity scheme to allow hard-working, low-paid, city dwellers the opportunity to rent their way into their own home, and the Housing Minister said $400 million would be set aside for that. But no details. Details are yet to come.
Seriously?! The Government's had this long to work on a reset and it's still not quite sure about whether the 400 mill will be used to establish a shared equity government scheme or to boost existing ones ... spare me.
Helping people to bu their own home is a worthy aim, but the Government's efforts are failing. Photo / 123RF
The announcement that the deposit for home loans under the Welcome Home scheme would be dropped from 10 per cent to 5, I am cautiously optimistic about. People paying rent in the cities can easily service a mortgage but if interest rates rise, I feel sick at the thought of the pressure those people will be under to service a mortgage. But there's no doubt decent hard working souls deserve a break.
I received an email this week from a man I feel terribly sorry for. He told me that anyone who couldn't get their act together to find a deposit for a house was a loser and a failure and just looking for a handout to buy a cheap, shitty house in a poor person's ghetto.
What an ignorant fool. Imagine waking up being him every day. Cities need people on low incomes to survive. These people do the shit jobs – quite literally – that keep a city running. And they do them well and with pride and for many years. Cleaning out office bathrooms, keeping people safe as security guards, clearing our streets as rubbish truck drivers – so many people do thankless jobs for little reward. How the hell can they afford a home in a city when their employers keep driving the pay down? These are the people a Labour government traditionally looks after. And this is hopefully what the reset of the dog that was KiwiBuild will be.
The only problem is, for all its good intentions and well meaning policies, I just don't think this government's got the chops to deliver.
