HRC Says Emergency Housing System Breaches Human Rights
December 14, 2022
PHOTO: Supplied to Stuff
The Human Rights Commission has released damning findings, with much harsher criticisms than the government’s separate internal review summarised at Parliament yesterday.
Listing breaches, the Commission’s new report said firstly, emergency housing was often not clean, dry, safe, secure or in good repair and therefore failed decency standards.
Secondly, there was a “serious and ongoing breach” by government, after it excluded emergency housing clients from Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) rights and protections.
And the third breach, was that people were being evicted into homelessness by accommodation providers who were not subject to accountability arrangements honouring the Treaty of Waitangi.
At any one time, close to 9000 New Zealanders are living in emergency accommodation (60 percent with whakapapa Māori) and 100,000 people overall are considered homeless.
Earlier this year RNZ revealed the government had feared motels across the country would “exit the market” if the businesses had to meet healthy homes standards, or answer to the Tenancy Tribunal.
So, the government changed the law so motels could circumvent the RTA, and deliberately kept the reasoning quiet to avoid initial public backlash, according to documents released under the Official Information Act.