A RECENT Chronicle feature highlighted excellent work being done by Kaitoke prison and local industry in improving inmates' trade skills and forging employment pathways for prisoners after their release.
The prisoner gets out with money in his pocket, new skills, a job, and a helluva better chance of not reoffending. Absolutely a win-win-win scenario -- for prisoners, for local industry, and the community.
The only gripe might be: Why does the offender have to be behind bars to access this order of support when it is so difficult to access prior to offending? Especially when it's the very lack of that initial support often leading to offending in the first place, with all the huge attendant costs.
The Government is reluctant to intervene in the first instance at minimal outlay, yet has no problem coughing up many times that amount dealing with the bottom-of-the-cliff damage resulting from that lack of earlier intervention.
However, that aside, we're still only scratching the surface of Kaitoke-type initiatives. There is a ton of wasted manpower parked up in prison at any one time -- as there is in the wider community.
Apparently Whanganui now has a housing shortage -- something in the order of 40 units of "social" housing. Fine -- let the prisoners, under supervision, build them.
They may not all be literacy and numeracy wizards, but they have heaps of existing hands-on skills just waiting to be harnessed. Plus, there'd be opportunities for private tradies with plumbing, wiring, supervising and so forth.
Let's do a constructive bit of Back to the Future here ...
The 1935 Labour Government -- in conjunction with private builders -- successfully tackled a housing shortage head-on with a range of designs for no-frills yet quality basic housing that could be mixed 'n' matched to create variation, and with allowance for later additions.
THE BIG HOUSE AT KAITOKE: Whanganui Prison inmates could be used to do work and could gain some skills in trade.Photo/file
Many of these robust homes are now fetching near million-dollar prices in suburbs like Mt Roskill and Onehunga.
These builds could easily be pre-framed off-site (i.e. in a prison workshop), and speedily erected and finished by trained gangs on-site.
Infrastructure costs are now a big factor, but if Whanganui wanted to make a real point of difference it could specify the houses be truly eco-friendly. A modern recycled wastewater and composting toilet system could eliminate the need for expensive (and problematic) conventional sewer systems, and have auxiliary solar water heating, insulation and double glazing.
The usual argument against such initiatives is that it takes work from the private sector. But given Government failure to provide anywhere near "affordable" housing in the Auckland disaster zone, these are 40 units that are not going to be built any time soon if left to present strategies.
The Government has just announced (in its ninth year of office!) a half-pie push on new housing in Auckland. We will see.
But partly why new builds are so expensive in Auckland is that authorities have tied "affordable" housing initiatives to private housing developments. Builders avoid them because of low-profit margins, sticking to the more lucrative bespoke market end.
Even then, this so-called "affordable" is still a bridge way too far for many. A no-frills approach (perhaps on leasehold land) could see new local houses go up for vastly less than Auckland builds.
A major benefit of such a project would be in transitioning those currently disengaged into work-ready status. It's scandalous that we presently import builders' labourers as "skilled" migrants, as with many other low or medium-skilled jobs.
Funding? There's no shortage of capital funds, and it's for creating a solid, enduring asset. If it chooses, government (for councils, too) can create interest-free capital through our sovereign Reserve Bank. Why it doesn't -- as it has before -- is total mystery.
A Whanganui-type project could also tap into several government budgets, given that it would be delivering wider social outcomes other than just housing.
