July 07, 2016
Community offers P clean-up
A community meeting in the Napier has challenged Housing Mew Zealand to allow volunteers to make its vacant housing in Maraenui habitable.
Ikaroa Rawhiti MP Meka Whaitiri, who was at the hui, says homelessness isn't just a problem for the major centres.
She says 90 percent of inquiries to her office are about housing, with solo mothers with three or four children seeming to be at particular risk.
She says the hui was angry that houses were standing vacant because they had tested positive for contamination from methamphetamine or P, regardless of whether the drug was cooked there or just smoked.
"The locals who know their neighbourhood say that alot of the P contaminated houses is from smoking. They have also received some advice that those homes that have just had P smoked in it, just need a good thorough clean. Those at the hui volunteered to be crews to go in there to clean the homes so, Housing NZ have supply, that those families in real need can move into," she says.
Meka Whaitiri says people also say responsibility for housing vulnerable families has been split between Housing New Zealand and the Ministry for Social Development which has created confusion, and there has also been a loss of expertise through the agency centralising its housing managers rather than having staff locally to sort out any problems.
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