Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
11 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of regulation, human capital, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, transport economics, urban economics Tags: family poverty, homelessness, regressive left
Ani O’Brien writes – Chlöe Swarbrick wants you to believe the Government is intentionally increasing homelessness. She told RNZ’s Mata with Mihingarangi Forbes: “The only conclusion that I can really come to is that this Government has intentionally increased homelessness…” It’s the kind of soundbite that plays well on social media. Outrage travels faster than nuance, and a […]
Chlöe Swarbrick’s homelessness hyperbole
10 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: homelessness
************************* The biographical notes about Tama Potaka on the National Party website suggest he should be able to eloquently answer a Parliamentary question. He has had a diverse career across legal, public service, education, advisory, tribes, investment, charities and enterprise. He was the chief executive of Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki prior to entering politics. He […]
Tama Potaka brings te reo into play in Parliament while avoiding giving guarantees about numbers of homeless
04 May 2018 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, urban economics Tags: homelessness
21 Jul 2017 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, population economics, poverty and inequality Tags: homelessness
https://twitter.com/MPD_NZ/status/887960123259277312
Source: OECD Affordable Housing Database – http://oe.cd/ahd OECD – Social Policy Division – Directorate of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Last updated on 21/02/2017 HC3.1 HOMELESS POPULATION via http://www.oecd.org/social/affordable-housing-database.htm
10 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
17 Feb 2017 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, urban economics Tags: homelessness
10 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality Tags: homelessness
Did they swallow a dead rat! After complaining bitterly about the privatisation of social housing and the contracting out of government services and in particular social services generally, the New Zealand Labour Party, the New Zealand Greens and the Maori Party all accepted that part of the solution to better emergency housing services to the homelessness is to fund community housing providers to build them houses. A greater role for the private sector, be it the NGO sector, in solving pressing social problems.
Source: Cross-party enquiry into homelessness.
It is pious to say that NGOs should build new social housing but existing social housing should not be sold to them to administer better than the bureaucrats.
The private sector has always been the last line of the defence for the social safety net for the homeless. Hotels and motels are used for emergency housing. There are plenty of them and it takes very little time to book into one as long as WINZ sends along the documentation to guarantee payment.
The report of Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party included reference to the Kate Amore data on homelessness which comfirms its credibility. That data shows that homelessness has fallen significantly in NZ since 2001 and 2006.
Homelessness is a by-product of bureaucratic inefficiency. So few people are actually sleeping rough or in shelters on any one night that is really an issue of why are those people are not in a shelter or permanent social housing.
The problem of homelessness is the efficiency of the bureaucracy in identifying these people, putting them in temporary quarters be at a hotel or motel if necessary, and then moving them into social housing.
No one is surprised at a homelessness shelter is run by a church or charity all with the assistance of government funding. No one seriously expects bureaucrats to be any good at running homeless shelters or the hotels or motels where the homeless are occasionally booked in.
09 Sep 2016 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality Tags: homelessness, social insurance, social safety net, welfare state
I cherry picked data again by plotting it in full using the data labels and headings in the data tables at the original data source. I stand accused.
Max Rashbrooke is the latest to spit the dummy when reminded that the Otago report on homelessness actually was about the seriously housing deprived; their words, not mine.
UOW researcher Dr Kate Amore, from the Health Research Council-funded He Kainga Oranga/Housing and Health Research Programme, measured the “severely housing deprived” population.
Table 2 below is from the media release Rashbrooke suggested I read to enlighten myself as to what homelessness is and is not. I am going to commit my third strike at cherry picking with snap-shots of the tables from the original source. I am a recidivist cherry picker.
Source: 3 June 2016, Homelessness accelerates between censuses, News, University of Otago, New Zealand.
Labour, the Greens and Max Rashbrooke all conflated living with friends and family or in commercial accommodation with homelessness. Saying that serious housing deprivation has gone up is not much of a sound bite compared to claiming homelessness is up with the associated images of people living rough or in cars. Who is spinning, who is cherry picking and who just can’t handle the truth? Homelessness has not increased under the National party government.
A statistical definition of homelessness that includes 70% of data observations as people living with friends and relatives on a temporary basis is miles away from sleeping rough, in a car or emergency accommodation such as a shelter or refuge run by an NGO. But at one point the Otago study does include these vastly different social situations under the same heading
“If the homeless population were a hundred people, 70 are staying with extended family or friends in severely crowded houses, 20 are in a motel, boarding house or camping ground, and 10 are living on the street, in cars, or in other improvised dwellings. They all urgently need affordable housing.”
Definitions are supposed to clarify, not confuse but the Statistics New Zealand definition does
Homelessness is defined as a living situation where people with no other options to acquire safe and secure housing are: without shelter, in temporary accommodation, sharing accommodation with a household, or living in uninhabitable housing.
The Oxford dictionary definition of homeless is “ (Of a person) without a home, and therefore typically living on the streets”.
Homelessness is different from those living in a hotel paid for by WINZ pending rehousing. Sleeping in the streets, in a car or living in emergency accommodation and waiting in a hotel for social housing are separate policy problems.
Source: Severe housing deprivation in Aotearoa/New Zealand 2001-2013 Kate Amore (2016).
Some of the seriously housing deprived data from the Otago study show the system failing, such as sleeping rough or in a car. Other parts of the data shows the social safety net working when people are in a hotel or emergency accommodation pending a move to better quarters.
Including in the same definition of homelessness someone who is sleeping in the street or in a car with someone who is in the queue for social housing but booked into a hotel insults those who are homeless. This spin mixes up situations where the social safety net has failed with situations where it is working to help those down on their luck but perhaps not to our full satisfaction.
07 Sep 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics, Music Tags: homelessness, Phil Collins
31 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, urban economics Tags: homelessness, social insurance, social safety net, welfare state
Source: 24 August 2016, Most homeless people working or studying, News, University of Otago, New Zealand, table 4.
30 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, urban economics Tags: child poverty, family poverty, homelessness, New Zealand Greens, New Zealand Labour Party, social insurance, welfare state
I cherry picked my previous data on homelessness if the New Zealand sub-Reddit is to be believed and from which I am banned and cannot reply. Plotting the data in full is to cherry pick it. The chart below is simply the first two rows of the source data. The subsequent rows deal with those in emergency accommodation and in temporary accommodation.
Source: 24 August 2016, Most homeless people working or studying, News, University of Otago, New Zealand, table 4.
When I shared this data on Carmel Sepuloni MP’s Facebook page, she rightly and constructively said
Thanks for your comment Jim. Unfortunately the number living rough has increased since 2001. We want to focus on improving the future, which is why we are holding our homeless inquiries so we can best understand and address this issue:
Rather than pointscoring, the issue is what to do to fix the problem. How desperate is much of the rest of the Left to beat up this issue as the fault of John Key. This is an an important issue that should not be used for point scoring by sufferers of John Key derangement syndrome.
Homeless people are those who I charted above. They are sleeping rough or in a car. They have slipped through the social safety net which is obviously not working for them. If you are in emergency accommodation, the social safety net is working. The issue is making that safety net work better in terms of moving quickly into more permanent accommodation..
26 Aug 2016 2 Comments
in applied welfare economics, economic history, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality Tags: homelessness, neoliberalism, social insurance, vast right-wing conspiracy, welfare state
People living rough doubled under Labour! Fell under the National Party led government despite the global financial crisis and the return of neoliberal oppression.
Source: 24 August 2016, Most homeless people working or studying, News, University of Otago, New Zealand, table 4.
25 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality Tags: child poverty, family poverty, homelessness, social housing, social insurance, welfare state
There is a difference between not having a roof over your head and being in emergency or temporary accommodation. It disrespects those who lack a roof over their head tonight to equate their grave misfortune with those fortunate enough to already be in emergency accommodation. Once they are in emergency accommodation, that shows that the system is working. Finding them somewhere to stay pending finding something more permanent.
Source: 24 August 2016, Most homeless people working or studying, News, University of Otago, New Zealand, table 4.
https://twitter.com/childpovertynz/status/768631393459040256
https://twitter.com/PhilTwyford/status/768672477807456256
.
06 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, public economics, urban economics Tags: economics of housing, homelessness, social insurance, welfare state
Statistics New Zealand spent 21 pages trying to define the term homeless. How Orwellian.
When I first moved to Canberra and when I moved back, I stayed with friends. Some regard that as being homeless under the Statistics New Zealand definition, much to my own surprise.
I qualify because I shared accommodation . Having shared or short-term accommodation is not homeless. The descriptions shared and short-term accommodation quite adequate to the task.
People living in temporary accommodation including with friends are not homeless. Their situation is unsatisfactory but describing it does not justify butchering the English language by conflating their inconveniences with the few hundred people who live rough each night.
Source: New Zealand Parliament – Homelessness in New Zealand.
Those that conflate having a roof over your head tonight with living rough take advantage of the great sympathy people have for those living rough for people in far less dire situations.
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