ZB ZB
Live now
Start time
Playing for
End time
Listen live
Listen to NAME OF STATION
Up next
Listen live on
ZB

WINZ staff demand better housing options

Author
Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Sat, 23 Jul 2016, 6:50AM
File photo (Getty Images)
File photo (Getty Images)

WINZ staff demand better housing options

Author
Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Sat, 23 Jul 2016, 6:50AM

Auckland Work and Income staff want more housing options for people when, or if, they come for housing assistance.

A shortage in housing has led to some families living in garages, and sometimes ones without resource consent.

Glenn Barclay, national secretary of the Public Service Association, believes change needs to happen in order to address this problem.

"We'd like to see more state housing being built. We'd like to see more housing options out there so that Work and Income have got more options to provide support for members of the community."

Barclay argues it's unfair to blame Work and Income staff for the increasing amount of Aucklanders living in garages, when it's a wider housing crisis that should be taking the fall.

Barclay said WINZ staff are under immense pressure and are not to blame.

"The years of underfunding, years of understaffing, it's cumulative, and the pressures rising in the community are huge as well. So our members are under huge pressure."

However, Alastair Russell of the Auckland Action Against Poverty advocacy service, said they wouldn't have to exist if the Ministry of Social Development was doing its job properly.

He said increasing numbers of people seeking accomodation support, and a decline in overall benefit numbers, are evidence of a toxic culture at WINZ offices that harasses, intimidates and punishes people.

"It's unsurprising that people simply do not want to go into those offices, there is absolutely no evidence from the government, from those statistics gathered, to show that people who move off benefits are in any way better off."

Ministry of Social Development figures show in the June quarter alone, accommodation assistance was 23% higher than the same quarter of last year.

It also showed overall benefit numbers are declining; they're down six percent in Auckland and two percent nationally since June last year.

 

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you