Sonya Bateson: Housing crisis up there with any disaster we’ve had

The housing crisis is raising questions about our ability to feel empathy for others. Photo / 123RF

OPINION

Humanity has an amazing capacity for empathy.

We shine in times of tragedy. The empathy we have for our fellow human beings translates into action – we look in our closets and cupboards for things we can spare, we open our arms and our homes, we donate our hard-earned money, and we use our strength to help rebuild.

It’s beautiful.

I’m lucky (unlucky?) enough to have seen plenty of examples of this behaviour in my life.

Growing up in the Eastern Bay of Plenty in the 2000s meant I witnessed a number of serious flooding events, for example.

For those who don’t remember, in 2004 and 2005, our little neck of the woods saw the Whakatāne River spilling its banks and flooding part of the Whakatāne CBD and Awatapu, the Rangitāiki plains going underwater, and a debris flow sweeping through Matatā, all causing widespread devastation.

To this day I have vivid recollections of looking out the backseat window of our car as we drove carefully over bridges that seemed inches from being swept away by raging rivers, constantly smelling the musty stench of wet mud, warily navigating the lakes of water that were once roads, and feeling the speechless shock from seeing homes and buildings underwater.

And I remember it being all anyone could talk about for at least a week afterwards. Stories were always emerging – stuff like one family managing to flee out the back door as a tree swept in through the front; another family escaping a flooded home in one part of town only to learn their business in another area had also gone underwater; or a loved pet dog going missing and turning up days later at a stranger’s home.

There’s something about seeing all that first-hand and knowing, even distantly, the people involved that makes you realise just how easily any of us could be affected by disaster.

There but for the grace of God go I.

And that empathy drives us to help. It’s the flip side to a natural disaster – there’s the horror and devastation on one hand, and on the other there’s the way we set aside our biases and differences for just a while to lend a helping hand. Suddenly it doesn’t matter if we don’t agree with the choices they’ve made, what their financial status is, or the cultural differences that separate us.

They’re a person in immediate need of help and that’s all that matters.

I think most of us in New Zealand have been touched by natural disaster one way or another. Flooding happens everywhere. We’ve had numerous serious earthquakes in just my lifetime – Christchurch, Wellington, Kaikoura, and Gisborne spring to mind, and of course Edgecumbe just a few years earlier. The Rena. Cyclones. Volcanic eruptions. Wildfires. Pandemics. Tornadoes and tsunami. The whole shebang.

Sonya Bateson says New Zealand's housing crisis is a disaster on the magnitude of other natural disasters we have experienced this century. Photo / Felix Desmarais

We get it all. And we’re eager to help those affected because it’s relatable, it’s close to home, and it’s likely that one day it’ll touch us too.

Empathy, according to the Oxford dictionary, is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

To me, that means you need to be able to see yourself in another person before you can truly feel empathy for them.

It’s a beautiful aspect of humanity – but it’s also a flaw.

We can have empathy when we can see ourselves in someone’s shoes, but it’s much harder when we don’t have that perspective. We can feel sympathy, but sympathy is passive. Sympathy is pity. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone.

The difference may seem small, but it’s that difference that can affect how we treat people in need.

This week we learned that some over-65s are struggling to keep up with soaring living costs. One Tauranga family is at its “wits’ end” at being unable to find a house for their 70-something-year-old mother.

A number of elderly people are struggling to keep up with soaring living costs. Photo / 123rf

The woman, who has less than two weeks to find a home after her rental was sold in December, cannot find a suitable single-level one or two-bedroom home for under $500 per week and has told her daughters she wants to die.

Heartbreaking.

Tauranga’s housing crisis, particularly in relation to people who are living in garages, caravans, and cars, has been reported on in the media since at least 2016, and other cities weren’t far behind. That’s close to a decade of issues with housing supply and affordability, spanning three different governments.

I have noticed in those years a concerning lack of empathy (among parts of the populous) for people battling housing insecurity. It’s seen almost as a moral failing by some – as if they don’t deserve our support because their own bad choices led them there.

Tell that to the poor pensioner who has been unable to find a home. Should we advise her to pull herself up by her bootstraps and get a better paying job, or stop wasting money on lattes? Or is a retiree easier to find empathy for than, say, a single mother?

Mahatma Gandhi has been quoted as saying, “The measure of a civilisation is how it treats its weakest members.”

I think it’s absolutely disgusting that our country has such a severe housing problem. Our elderly, our young children, our disabled people, our mentally unwell people should never, ever be left in a position where they face homelessness. No one should.

Our housing crisis is, in my opinion, a disaster on the magnitude of other natural disasters we have experienced this century. Every single day, many of our most vulnerable are suffering in body and mind from housing instability – and that is our great shame.

If you cannot drudge up a little empathy for our vulnerable because of your own life experiences, at least try aiming for a bit of sympathy.

We can – and should – do better.

Sonya Bateson is a writer, reader and crafter raising her family in Tauranga. She is a Millennial who enjoys eating avocado on toast, drinking lattes and defying stereotypes. As a sceptic, she reserves the right to change her mind when presented with new evidence.