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Child poverty in NZ

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Crusader
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« Reply #175 on: December 18, 2015, 05:03:40 pm »

haha..at least we can assume that we have not paid for what has made him obese, unlike many others ...and he,  like all obese people are less likely to trouble the pensioner payment clerk for very long Wink...giving the remaining taxpayers a break Smiley...and not to forget the fact that the shorter peoples lives are..the better it is for the planet  because after they die they  no longer cause global warming  Tongue

The only thing that matters with guys who have a belly a certain shape that precludes  them from seeing their own penis when they pee, is that their opinion on anything related to food should be laughed at.
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reality
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« Reply #176 on: December 18, 2015, 05:26:38 pm »

..I disagree..in this case I think he has it dead right...until I am proved wrong Wink
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Crusader
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« Reply #177 on: December 18, 2015, 05:33:59 pm »

Well I think he is a complete fat slob that should keep his mouth shut on anything food related until I'm proven wrong.
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reality
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« Reply #178 on: December 18, 2015, 05:38:56 pm »

And therein lies the problem...dictators are never proven wrong...nothing more soldiers wont fix Wink
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« Reply #179 on: December 19, 2015, 08:51:45 pm »

..he makes a very good point..I would be inclined to agree Roll Eyes

EVERY YEAR, MORE PEOPLE WANT FREE FOOD


The Media party is once again ramping up their pimping the poor stories for Christmas.

And once again they are making claims that hordes of people queuing up for free food is an indication of poverty and struggle when it really only shows that the bludging mentality is strong amongst many of our population.


 
With just seven days to go before Christmas, record queues of desperate Kiwis have become a permanent fixture outside the Auckland City Mission. This year, the aid organisation has seen the largest numbers of people seeking help and an alarming number of “first time” clients requesting food parcels and presents for children.

Auckland’s City Missioner Dame Diane Robertson said a third of people were making contact with the mission for the first time.   

“Last week out of the 1200 or so people who came to us, 450 people had never gone to a food bank before and you can’t get a food parcel unless you really can prove that you haven’t got any other resources. I think that is quite interesting, I have never had such a high percentage of new clients before during any Christmas,” she said.


“Obviously more people are struggling, more people are turning to food banks for the first time ever and I think it is people who were perhaps just coping last year who aren’t coping this year.”

That’s bullshit. The word is out they can get free food and goodies from the dimwitted but well meaning folk at City Mission.

If the City Mission made everyone attending for their free food attend a budgeting seminar prior to being eligible for the food they’d be no one queuing.

It isn’t like Christmas is a freaking surprise is it?

– NZ Herald
by Cameron Slater on December 18, 2015 at 12:30pm

That comment shows just how clueless Cameron Slater is.

Food banks don't hand out parcels to all comers. You have to be referred and have proof you are have inadequate financial resources. By the second or third parcel you do have to sit down with a budget advisor. Those receiving parcels at Christmas usually have a well documented history with food banks.

Sure Christmas comes around just like clockwork. And many people on low incomes also know weeks, if not months in advance that there will be no money for extras and possibly not even the basics.

No amount of rearranging the deck chairs helps if there are not enough deck chairs to being with. One illness, one asthma attack and boom any money put aside is gone. If the landlord sells the house you rent (a common occurrence in Auckland), boom you have to find new bond money before the old bond money is paid back - if it is paid back. There are some really classic ways some landlords employ to delay repayment even after you have cough up for professional cleaning etc.

Inevitably there will be some who will not have as great a need and are quick to sing "woe is me" but that is not most.
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reality
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« Reply #180 on: December 20, 2015, 04:33:48 am »

sp..."boom you have to find new bond money before the old bond money is paid back"

.....I have had 4 bonds paid in the last few weeks....the bond AND the first 2 weeks rent in advance came from WINZ.... ..the NZ taxpayers very generous people Tongue

..the last bond that I paid back (last week) was processed and paid in 2 ...yes 2 days..and it was for the complete amount Wink

....if the full bond is not paid back ...there is probably a reason..in my experience the Tenancy Services is quite quick and fair, actually surprising really being a govt agency... Smiley

...it would be a great test for people turning up for food parcels....yes you may have a food parcel as soon as you have completed our 4 hour budget training course....actually...it is a bloody good idea...because alot of those people probably could do with budget training Wink
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« Reply #181 on: December 20, 2015, 10:17:02 am »

I know people who have had to wait weeks for bonds to be paid back. Usually because the landlord has had a quibble about how clean the carpet was (after it was cleaned with a Rug doctor) or blamed the former tenant for existing damage or a lost key they never had to begin with etc. One of my daughters friends had to couch surf for a couple of weeks because of a dispute with a bond that turned out had never be lodged in the first place - that was the one with the lost key.

Most landlords are good but there are some rotten ones out there.
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« Reply #182 on: December 20, 2015, 08:50:43 pm »

Most landlords are good but there are some rotten ones out there.
I remember once instance when I was flatting where the landlord had them (It was a block of eight)  on the market. When I asked her about it she denied it, was saying they couldn't be sold while her father was alive - I later found out he had been dead for several months.
Having denied the place was for sale she then decided to refer agents to show the place and as I was the only one at home during the day I was constantly getting a stream of people wanting to see through. They (the agent and the people) would arrive without warning and on one day I had just got out of the shower. When I told them to come back in an hour the agent shouted through the door that it doesn't take that long to put some clothes on. Needless to say I made a point of pointing out all the defects in the place and was then accused by the landlord of trying to sabotage her sale. What did she expect? That I would be perfectly willing to entertain prospective buyers without prior warning they were coming and adjust my life to suit her demands?
Thank god I found another place which I was later able to purchase myself.
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reality
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« Reply #183 on: December 21, 2015, 05:38:55 am »

...and many tenants are good , but there are some rotten ones out there Shocked


Serial rent dodger Anna-Ria Melroy sucks in landlords with tale of woe 
 
Tenant from Hell
EMILY SPINK/stuff.co.nz
The Good Girls property management, and landlord Sam Russell give notification of instant dismissal to Anna-Ria Melroy in Christchurch.

A serial rent dodger who owes up to $40,000 to landlords has been evicted from her latest Christchurch rental.

Anna-Ria Melroy, 28 — also known as Ann Marie Smith and Anne Marie Fraser Smith has been targeting mostly private land lords in Christchurch since 2011. She owes up to $40,000 in unpaid rent and bond money to multiple landlords, including Housing New Zealand.

Her most recent victims, Sam Russell, and Jade Leung, said they would rather their Richmond rental property had sat empty than have gone through the nightmare Melroy had caused.

Anna-Ria Melroy, pictured in 2013, sells landlords a sob story to live rent free in Christchurch.
KIRK HARGREAVES/FAIRFAX NZ
Anna-Ria Melroy, pictured in 2013, sells landlords a sob story to live rent free in Christchurch.

They were told a sob-story — which they now know to be fabricated — of how Melroy's home had been demolished, her then landlord had given her no time to get out, she was caring for foster children and was looking after her terminally ill 78-year-old grandfather. On her tenancy application form, she claimed she worked for IRD and gave a fake reference for a previous landlord.

"She came across as being the sort of person who had had a hard life, dealt a few bad cards, and was trying to make good of it," Leung said.

Melroy moved in to their property in November, with the promise of a bond transfer from her previous address.

A person connected with Anna-Ria Melroy shuts out Good Girls Property Management and owner Sam Russell, after receiving an eviction notice from them.
JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/FAIRFAX NZ
A person connected with Anna-Ria Melroy shuts out Good Girls Property Management and owner Sam Russell, after receiving an eviction notice from them.

She paid just 81 cents of the $1200 rent owing, in her third week in the flat.

"You feel really stupid looking back on it now, but the stupid thing would be to let it carry on. We've got to be the last," Russell said.

Russell and Leung took Melroy to the tenancy tribunal last week, with the help of Good Girls Property Management, after Melroy had clocked up over $2000 in rent arrears.

A person connected with the tenants of a house in Christchurch arrives, soon after they were served with an eviction notice.
JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/FAIRFAX NZ
A person connected with the tenants of a house in Christchurch arrives, soon after they were served with an eviction notice.

Melroy failed to appear at the hearing.


Last year Alan Fraser, 61, of Hampden, took Melroy to the tenancy tribunal, where she admitted under oath to going by different names. She changed her name just weeks before applying for the tenancy of his Gloucester St property. The 2014 tribunal terminated the tenancy of Melroy, and she was ordered to pay the landlord over $1700 in rent arrears for his Christchurch property.

"I've never seen a cent and I'm still paying for it," Fraser said.

Home owner, Sam Russell, watches as police serve his tenants with an eviction notice.
JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/FAIRFAX NZ
Home owner, Sam Russell, watches as police serve his tenants with an eviction notice.

At the hearing, she "promised" to never do it again, and four weeks later she was reportedly doing the very same thing to a Christchurch motelier.

Jenny Pawson rented her Sumner property to Melroy two years ago, and is still owed $1500 in rent.

Like Fraser, she was told a similar story of hardship involving EQC repairs, and foster children.

Good Girls Property Management managing director Prudence Morrall said the case was a real "wake-up call" for private landlords across Christchurch, who might be desperate to fill their properties.

"There are a lot of properties on the market. The market has softened back so you haven't got the same desperation with forty people lined up willing to apply," Morrall said.

"Ma and Pa" investors, who might not know the law as well, were particularly vulnerable to people like Melroy.

"These landlords are not going to open their hearts to people ever again. It's flagrant abuse of people's generosity of spirit and I loathe that," Morrall said.

Brazier Property Investments principal Tony Brazier said the market now favoured tenants. Immediately after the quakes there were 1600 rental properties, there were now 1847.

"Landlords need to stop believing the market is romping full because we have an over-supply of properties at the moment, as was warned."

Private investors needed to be more vigilant about who they rented to.

Brazier said although the Melroy case was an "extreme exception", it would affect relationships between landlords and tenants.

"Like a nation shuts down when we have a terrorist attack, the landlords will shut down when they are likely to be ripped off."

Tenant's Protection Agency manager Helen Gatonyi called for clearer identification of applicants, to stop people like Melroy slipping through the cracks.

"We've been calling for a register for rental properties but we're not a police state," she said, of a potential blacklist for tenants.

"We don't want to make it so. It's about education and the education comes from day one."

Search tenancy tribunal orders online at justice.govt.nz
 - Stuff
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« Reply #184 on: December 22, 2015, 09:12:09 am »

Yeah, I saw that article.

I have certainly heard of other difficult tenants too.

Based on what I have heard first hand difficult tenants seem to be as common as bad landlords.
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guest49
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« Reply #185 on: December 22, 2015, 04:28:46 pm »

We have just rented a house where the landlord has had to renew 3 year old carpet after the dog turds and urine were just trodden into the pile.  The shower floor lining cracked and the tenants merely kept using it till the floor rotted out from underneath their feet.  The walls were all scribbled over as high as the kids could reach and holes knocked into the walls.
Outside there is a pile of bones that looks like half a horse!
I wouldn't want to be a landlord for these reasons, and keep our homestead empty while we are not there.
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« Reply #186 on: January 02, 2016, 01:15:15 pm »

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/75556427/the-myth-of-how-families-in-poverty-spend-their-money
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« Reply #187 on: January 02, 2016, 06:15:56 pm »

That article is correct.

A young lady I know looks "poor" mainly because she is very overweight, taller than me and Samoan. I tend to see her dressed in "traditional" clothes i.e. her church clothes which are sewn by many of the older women in matching "Hawaiian" prints or dressed in long black dresses or skirts.

She smokes.

Reality is that she also earns a good income, is single with no dependants and doesn't own a house (normal for a young single in Auckland). Her car is newer than both of mine.

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« Reply #188 on: January 18, 2016, 06:34:17 am »

At long last a definition of overcrowding.



Quote
Under the Housing Improvement Regulations 1947 a house is over-crowded if two people over the age of 10, of the opposite sex, are sharing a room, unless they're a couple. In 1994, the Ministry of Housing index classified a house as "seriously over-crowded" if there were more than three people per bedroom.

- NZ Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11575356
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guest49
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« Reply #189 on: January 18, 2016, 05:23:42 pm »

Well Well Well.
We were overcrowded from 1946 to 1965 then!
Strange.  We never looked at it that way
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dragontamer
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« Reply #190 on: January 18, 2016, 07:37:27 pm »

Well Well Well.
We were overcrowded from 1946 to 1965 then!
Strange.  We never looked at it that way

Hmmmm.

My thoughts on the matter are there are an awful lot of people being told they are living in poverty, who would in fact never have thought any such thing if they weren't told that.   

When my daughter was 7 we were listening to the news at breakfast, before school.  the announcer said "Maori cannot learn in New Zealand schools".  My girls hand froze as it took the cereal to her mouth, she looked up at me and said "I can't learn?  What's wrong with me?"

Would you plant a garden to get more fruit and vegetables, or would you just put out your hand and plead poverty?  Where is the balance?  Why should people look after themselves when the rest of the country is telling them they can't?
 
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reality
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« Reply #191 on: January 20, 2016, 11:02:01 am »

....sounds reasonable Roll Eyes


Jenesa Jeram: Truth on poverty lies amid wealth of statistics

9:32 AM Wednesday Jan 20, 201622 comments

There is no poverty in New Zealand because the poor are not living in slums. Some people in so-called poverty even have cars and ovens.

Whether you agree or disagree with the above statement, you are right. And with that same kind of reasoning, Jamie Whyte's recent opinion piece - that there is no poverty in New Zealand - is not wrong.

Not technically, anyway. Poverty in New Zealand can mean nearly anything the commentator wants it to mean. After all, there is no formal definition (though international organisations and agencies have advocated their own).

New Zealand also does not adopt an official poverty measure. Rather, a suite of measures is collected annually by the Ministry of Social Development on trends in indicators of inequality and hardship. The measures have different purposes.


If poverty were to be defined in global terms, then it is indeed ridiculous to compare the cellphone-toting poor in New Zealand with the malnourished children we see on World Vision ads. It is not the most compassionate definition of poverty, but it is not incorrect.

Whyte is also right to take issue with some of the most common measures of poverty. When you hear 305,000 children in New Zealand are in poverty, or even the Child Poverty Advocacy Group's assertion there are 220,000 children in poverty, what you are really hearing is a measure of relative income inequality. Most commonly set at 50 per cent or 60 per cent of the median income (after housing costs), these measures yield the most shocking statistics.

Yet, as Whyte points out, these income measures tell us nothing about how people live, or their material suffering. Poor students whose lifestyles are still funded by their parents would be considered in poverty. So would those lucky Aucklanders who can afford to stay home and play World of Warcraft all day thanks to their property investments.

And among these will be those suffering from many of the indicators traditionally associated with poverty such as low disposable incomes, inadequate housing, poor nutrition and lack of security.

The relativity of the measure also means the poverty could decrease when the median income decreases, or the poverty rate could rise, even if the incomes of the poorest rise too. That's fine, if inequality is the concern. But inequality is not absolute hardship. Inequality says nothing about how people live.

Now, all poverty measures in advanced economies like New Zealand will necessarily be relative measures. Even absolute poverty measures must first depend on an agreed set of minimum standards of living.

If it is standard of living that is of concern, then measures of relative material hardship come close to reflecting that. Material hardship includes criteria such as situations where households face an enforced lack of essentials, have had to economise, cut back or delay purchases, are in arrears, or face financial stress and vulnerability.

Those reporting on poverty do not have to hunt much for those hardship statistics either. They are published in the same ministry report used to extract those headline-grabbing figures. The ministry itself discourages the reporting of just one headline-grabbing statistic such as 305,000 children in poverty, stating "While it is true that that is one figure given in the range of income poverty figures reported, the Incomes Report does not support such a bald definitive claim that is misleadingly matter-of-fact."

Delve deeper into the ministry report, and you may even be surprised to note that there is only a modest overlap between the income poor and materially deprived. Not all low-income households are suffering hardship, and not all of those in hardship are defined as low income.

In 2012, only 48 per cent of those experiencing material hardship were also households earning less than the 60 per cent median income (after housing costs) threshold. A small but significant portion of those in material hardship (17 per cent) even earned above the median household income.

The poverty campaigners who scream the highest number they can extract on poverty are being just as hyperbolic as those who claim there is no poverty in this country.

Between the extremes though, lies some real insight into who the poor are, and the nature of their hardship.

Thanks to the Ministry of Social Development, at least there is no poverty of measurements and statistics from which to draw from.

Jenesa Jeram is a researcher at The New Zealand Initiative, which will be releasing a report on poverty in February.

- NZ Herald
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