There are Community Housing providers throughout New Zealand. Literally from North Cape to Bluff. This sector houses around 35,000 people every night. Many of the people the Community Housing sector house are amongst our society’s most vulnerable. Add to this number those housed by Kainga Ora (housing NZ) and the number is massive.
The public realm is a combination of state and community housing. This realm is an indicator of compassion in our society for those who otherwise would miss out. They must be seen together by decision makers.
Everybody working either in a Community housing agency, or for Kainga Ora, worry about the vulnerable people they are providing housing for and yet, the media hits them time and time again when something happens to any of their tenants. I have written many times about how the “click bate” world that journalism has found itself in, so often dwells on issues which promotes effectively peering over the fence at a neighbour’s dreadful personal circumstances.
How tragic that this sort of writing about vulnerable people attracts so much media attention. I guess that’s easier than focusing on the poverty which drove many of these tenants to the position where they have been forced to rely of the public realm of housing agencies.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/300277290/man-found-dead-at-christchurch-social-housing-unit.
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