The poor state of housing

THE death of a 2-year-old from pneumonia in Auckland last year has brought the standard of state housing back into focus.

Perhaps now the call for a warrant of fitness for housing won't fall on deaf ears. Emma-Lite Bourne's death has been linked by a coroner to the cold, damp house she lived in with her parents and two siblings.

The house had no carpet, reportedly no curtains and didn't get much sunshine. According to Housing New Zealand, it had been insulated - however, it was still cold enough for the family to complain and for Housing NZ to provide a heater.

The family did not have enough money for electricity, so it was not used much.

Housing NZ has reiterated it is not a social service agency and did not have to draw the dots. That's a cop out.

New Zealand's legion of cold, damp houses cannot be fixed without every relevant government department participating. With electricity now becoming out of the price range of our poorest, houses have to be the best they can without extra heating.

Housing NZ has the $2 billion budget to rebuild and refurbish the property on its books. When asked on Radio New Zealand last week how many very cold houses there were, it did not know. Priority number one must be to find those houses this winter and prevent a similar situation to that of the Bourne family.

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei says the coroner's report is a call to action - so has the Asthma Foundation, nominating "overcrowded, damp and poorly heated housing" as one of the most important contributors to the poor respiratory health of children.

Now a Government minister must take control. It says something about all of us that state housing in this country is so bad it has likely contributed to the death of a child.