PHOTO: Housing was once a human right, not a way to make money. Photo credit: Getty Images
Forty thousand New Zealand families without decent housing; crowding into single rooms; cold, damp, mouldy accommodation…
Sounds familiar – but this was during the Great Depression in 1935. And now?
Habitat for Humanity believes 300,000 families are living in unacceptable housing conditions as a result of unaffordable homes, overcrowding and poor housing stock.
Covid lockdowns aside, housing issues are dominating the news cycle. Today The Detail looks at how it came to this.
Journalist Rebecca Macfie has written a feature story for North & South magazine this week on the path to our housing crisis and talks to Alexia Russell about the ideological swing and other contributing factors that spiked the great Kiwi dream of home ownership.
Macfie says housing is an incredibly complex eco-system that touches all aspects of society, because it’s a primal human need – people need shelter. But she fears the country is already beyond the point of no return.
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