{"id":3207,"date":"2020-12-21T09:03:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T09:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=141741"},"modified":"2020-12-21T09:03:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T09:03:12","slug":"pacific-residents-express-hopelessness-as-otara-house-sales-hit-1m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/21\/pacific-residents-express-hopelessness-as-otara-house-sales-hit-1m\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific residents express \u2018hopelessness\u2019 as \u014ctara house sales hit $1m"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\">\n<p><em>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/authors\/jordan-bond\">Jordan Bond<\/a>, RNZ News r<span class=\"author-job\">eporter<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Million-dollar houses are now being sold in one of Auckland&#8217;s lowest-income suburbs and a local politician says New Zealand government failure is allowing the market to drive further inequality and hopelessness.<\/p>\n<p>Last month an unremarkable 1960s weatherboard house on less than a quarter acre section in \u014ctara in South Auckland sold for $1.01 million.<\/p>\n<p>Another &#8211; which 12 years ago sold for $340,000 &#8211; went for $1.1m, more than triple its last sale price in October.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.anz.co.nz\/content\/dam\/anzconz\/documents\/economics-and-market-research\/2020\/ANZ-PropertyFocus-20201215.pdf\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> ANZ calls housing unaffordability an &#8220;enormous problem&#8221; in NZ<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Manukau ward councillor <span class=\"aCOpRe\">Fa&#8217;an\u0101n\u0101<\/span> Efeso Collins said more than 80 percent of Pacific people did not own their own homes, and rising house prices were a cause of pain for his constituents, as rents went up and incomes did not.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That means there are times where some people have to go without,&#8221; Collins said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know there are parents who are decreasing the number of meals they&#8217;re having to ensure that the kids are eating enough, and getting three basic meals a day. That&#8217;s part of what I call the social trauma that&#8217;s being faced by many constituents that I work with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said people felt hopelessness about the situation, which they did not think would get any better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>People &#8216;have given up&#8217;<\/strong><br \/>\n&#8220;I think people have given up. There are many people in the Manukau ward&#8230; that have just given up,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m really disappointed with what the government&#8217;s done. I think the government&#8217;s thrown money at a banking system that in my view isn&#8217;t working, and that&#8217;s not going to keep house prices down.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The new highs in the local housing market served as a reminder to people in a low-income Auckland suburb that housing costs were eating up their paychecks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are parents in \u014ctara that I know of that are going without just to keep their babies fed,&#8221; one woman in \u014ctara&#8217;s town centre, who did not want to be named, said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sometimes you hear of parents that don&#8217;t eat because their babies need to eat.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Born and raised in \u014ctara &#8211; and still living there &#8211; she thought the high cost of living was feeding crime.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It contributes to the poverty in \u014ctara. How expensive the houses are is contributing to why there&#8217;s such a high crime rate,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Window washing<\/strong><br \/>\n&#8220;There are heaps of children out here that are window washing because there parents can only just afford the rent. It&#8217;s not their fault &#8211; they are doing crime, but if they&#8217;re doing it to put bread and milk on the table, who can blame them?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Another woman, a shop owner, said she was a Labour voter but housing was the government&#8217;s biggest failure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been living here for 35 years. I would like to buy my own house but I can&#8217;t afford to. It&#8217;s ridiculous, and now I&#8217;m over 60 [years old].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She had been in paid work her entire adult life, and was only ever just keeping her head above water, she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re too greedy, landlords. Every year she&#8217;s putting up our rent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For nearly six months I [haven&#8217;t] cut my hair. I have no money&#8230; $35 for a haircut, I can&#8217;t afford to pay. House prices must come down in New Zealand.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One man in \u014ctara said Auckland was a city of the haves and the have-nots. Another, without a house at all, said homelessness had broken him.<\/p>\n<p>Economists and banks are not expecting house price rises to plateau any time soon.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/2020\/12\/21\/pacific-residents-express-hopelessness-as-otara-house-sales-hit-1m\/\">Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jordan Bond, RNZ News reporter Million-dollar houses are now being sold in one of Auckland\u2019s lowest-income suburbs and a local politician says New Zealand government failure is\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[902,363,903,904,5,905,6,7,906,907,908,255,4,909,12,910,14,368],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3208,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207\/revisions\/3208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}