At least one family every three days is now seeking housing help across Auckland because their only place to live is a car.

Tough allocation criteria make it near-impossible for most people to even get on the state house waiting lists. The private rental market is a tough place to enter when you're down and out, writes Sue Bradford.

Children at schools in poor areas are still lagging far behind their wealthy peers, with rising pass rates making but a small dent in the achievement gap, latest data shows.

1215 rhinos were killed last year.This year, 749 rhinos were known to have been poached.

Nobel prize winning economist looks at how trying to help poor countries hurts them.

Up isn't down, black isn't white, and higher taxes on the rich don't do nothing about inequality, writes Matt O'Brien.

The CYF review panel recommends a child-centred system, "where the voices and needs of children and young people are at the forefront of everything the agency does".

The number of people living in extreme poverty is set to fall to the lowest on record, according to the World Bank.

It is extremely difficult to improve peoples' behaviour towards the environment, when their basic needs are not being met, writes Sam Judd.

The Government's 2015 Budget had at its centerpiece a push towards "compassionate conservatism", writes Michael Timmins. While more compassion is indeed welcome, the end result is mere tokenism.

Fixing child abuse and neglect is all about building relationships with families in need, social workers say.

Wherever you draw the line, too many children are going without, writes Brian Fallow.

Why don't Auckland councillors jump on a bus and take a study trip south to the People's Project's Garden Place headquarters in Hamilton, asks Brian Rudman.

The number of Kiwi children in relative poverty has jumped over 300,000 for the first time since 2010 - but it's because of record inequality, despite falling absolute hardship.

I'd like to see the Conservation Minister visit the sub-Antarctic region, perhaps for her Christmas holidays, writes Paul Charman.

Forget the hikoi and library training, the answer the council needs is in Utah - and it's quite straightforward, writes Brian Rudman.

Mills Lane at the back of the Herald building has offered the unmistakable stink of urine and a ledge of ramshackle cardboard beds where some of the city's homeless sleep.

Vicki Carpenter asks what the boards of two dilapidated schools have been doing about basic maintenance.

Assistant professor of finance Noah Smith believes the economic doomsayers are jumping the gun.

Record numbers of people are sleeping rough or in cars as Auckland's desperate housing shortage makes life harder than ever for those at the bottom.

Trailblazing legal crusader Dame Silvia Cartwright speaks candidly to David Fisher about longer jail sentences, child poverty and the strain of being Governor-General.

If we want to resist the trends dividing New Zealanders into the haves and the never-wills, the OECD has some policy suggestions the Government could take on board.

Just over two years ago, Housing Minister Nick Smith announced that "this year" the Government was developing a housing warrant of fitness, writes Brian Rudman.

You'd be surprised just how hard it is to find a family willing to let a Herald writer snoop around their home and ask all sorts of intrusive questions about their substandard living conditions, writes Peter Calder.

"It makes me feel happy." Darcy Rakete, the poster boy for the Jammies in June fundraiser, is glad to help others less fortunate than him.

Broadcaster Wendy Petrie has joined the campaign to get warm pyjamas on needy kids this winter.

Not only will the benefit boost do little to alleviate poverty, but it is accompanied by cuts to other associated benefits and payments, writes Dita De Boni

The Government recognised in last week's Budget that the gap between market and benefit incomes has become too wide.