Tax payers paying $1million a day for motels

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Forums › Politics › Tax payers paying $1million a day for motels

Batman

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#284602 3-May-2021 20:06

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/government-spends-55-million-on-it-to-charge-for-emergency-motel-stays/ON7CPLAL6QRHOX6KHHYW5J7ZK4/

in the last line:

The Government ... is spending about $1m a day on motels.

Is there a better way?

tdgeek

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#2701501 4-May-2021 08:27

Probably buy back the social houses that were previously sold would be a start. Build some. But however you cut it, taxpayers will be funding social housing no matter how its done. Certainly motels even with long term discounts will be more expensive than taxpayers buying a $500,000 house and charging low rent.

arcon

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#2701515 4-May-2021 08:55

Buying back social housing might not be much help if many have been bulldozed or massively increased in price. I'm sure the government has done the math on available houses and the shear volume of people in need now have made it not work I guess.

Purpose built apartments are ideal but obviously take time. Speeding things up would require a wartime footing and there doesn't seem to be that level of urgency yet, so whatever lol.

tdgeek

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#2701521 4-May-2021 08:59

arcon:

Buying back social housing might not be much help if many have been bulldozed or massively increased in price. I'm sure the government has done the math on available houses and the shear volume of people in need now have made it not work I guess.

Purpose built apartments are ideal but obviously take time. Speeding things up would require a wartime footing and there doesn't seem to be that level of urgency yet, so whatever lol.

They are building/buying, last I read was 2900 of which 90 were sold as unsuitable. Slow process

Varkk

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#2702829 6-May-2021 09:48

The trouble is the time to get the social housing built and in to use. The people in the emergency housing in the hotels need somewhere to live today. A new house will take a few months to build. The only other option would be to buy the hotels used as emergency housing. Then they will still need to pay for upkeep etc.

The long term answer is lots more state houses and housing complexes. Of course these will need to be well designed and maintained to avoid them becoming slums as has been seen with some of the low income housing projects overseas.