Yet in many, rents keep going up.

While rent hikes can reflect the costs landlords face, there are standards that must be maintained, according to Wellington Property Investors Association president Peter Ambrose.

Passing those costs onto tenants was how landlords kept their rentals to a high standard, he explains. Conversely, landlords also need to do whatever maintenance is required.

It's unacceptable for landlords to rent properties which should not be lived in, Ambrose says. In fact, maintaining them was ultimately a basic human right.

Successive governments have failed New Zealand's renters, the Green Party says.

It has recently conducted a survey which confirms New Zealand 2023 is not a good place for many of the country's 1.4 million renters.

If it were part of the next Government, the Greens promise a Renters' Rights Bill.

Rental survey findings

Many landlords are quick to hike rents but slow to fix homes, the Green Party survey found. Renters are living in damp, mouldy houses, coping with rent rises and accepting insecure tenancies.

In Wellington, one in five renting households pay over 50 percent of their weekly income on rent, the Greens discovered.

One tenant told RNZ the state of one Wellington house she rented was so bad she and her partner moved out.

Parts of the house were unstable, damaged and damp.

Among the long list of problems she mentioned were the fireplace with cracks so big you could fit your fingers in them, and a deck that was falling apart.

Complaints dismissed

The woman who spoke to RNZ said she informed her landlord the bedroom leaked.

The landlord decided to do nothing as the leak happened only intermittently. Ditto to problems with the neglected bathroom which had mushrooms growing in it. A variety of mushrooms.

Landlords with multiple properties make big profits, the woman said. In her view, they should treat their rentals like a business and invest.

For some of them "it's quite apparent that rather than investing in repairing or maintaining these properties, they're just kind of degrading them," she added.

Tenants health at risk

The Government's new Healthy Homes Standards for heating, insulation and ventilation came into effect in July 2021.

Landlords with existing tenancies, however, needn't comply until 2025. Negligent landlords ignoring evidence of substandard accommodation are driving many tenants out of their rentals.

The mental health issues that follow are manifold.

One tenant says he is offered only annual leases. At renewal, there's a rent increase. He can't afford any more of those, he says. If there are, he'll be driven to return to his family home.

Then there's the fear a landlord won't renew a lease. This leads to tenants tiptoeing around their homes, so there's no "just cause" to be kicked out.

"That can be extremely anxiety-inducing and debilitating, and I feel quite powerless at the end of the lease cycle," the tenant says.

Futhermore, few landlords allow pets, which adds stress to pet owners, he says.

Source

• RNZ

Rising inequality and related disparities and anxieties have been stoking social discontent and are a major driver of the increased political polarisation and populist nationalism that are so evident today.

An increasingly unequal society can weaken trust in public institutions and undermine democratic governance.

Mounting global disparities can imperil geopolitical stability.

Rising inequality has emerged as an important topic of political debate and a major public policy concern.

High and rising inequality

Current inequality levels are high.

Contemporary global inequalities are close to the peak levels observed in the early 20th century, at the end of the prewar era (variously described as the Belle Époque or the Gilded Age) that saw sharp increases in global inequality.

Over the past four decades, there has been a broad trend of rising income inequality across countries.

Income inequality has risen in most advanced economies and major emerging economies, which together account for about two-thirds of the world's population and 85 percent of global GDP (Figure 1).

The increase has been particularly large in the United States, among advanced economies, and in China, India, and Russia, among major emerging economies.

Beyond these groups of countries, the trend in the developing world at large has been more mixed, but many countries have seen increases in inequality.

In regions such as Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa, income inequality levels on average have been relatively more stable, but inequality was already at high levels in these regions—the highest in the world.

Wealth inequality within countries is typically much higher than income inequality.

It has followed a rising trend across countries since around 1980, similar to income inequality.

Higher wealth inequality feeds higher future income inequality through capital income and inheritance.

Figure 1. Inequality has risen in most advanced and major emerging economies
Richest 10% income share, 1980-2020

Source: Author, using data from World Inequality Database.
Note: Pre-tax national income. Some data points are extrapolated.

The increase in inequality has been especially marked at the top end of the income distribution, with the income share of the top 10 percent (and even more so that of the top 1 percent) rising sharply in many countries.

This was so particularly up to the global financial crisis of 2008-09.

Those in low- and middle-income groups have suffered a loss of income share, with those in the bottom 50 percent typically experiencing larger losses of income share.

These trends in inequality have been associated with an erosion of the middle class and a decline in intergenerational mobility, especially in advanced economies experiencing larger increases in inequality and a greater polarization in income distribution.

While within-country inequality has been rising, inequality between countries (reflecting per capita income differences) has been falling in recent decades.

Faster-growing emerging economies, especially the large ones such as China and India, have been narrowing the income gap with advanced economies.

Global inequality—the sum of within-country and between-country inequality—has declined somewhat since around 2000, with the fall in between-country inequality more than offsetting the rise in within-country inequality.

As within-country inequality has been rising, it now accounts for a much larger part of global inequality (about two-thirds in 2020, up from less than half in 1980).

Looking ahead, how within-country inequality evolves will matter even more for global inequality.

The interplay between the evolution of within-country inequality and between-country inequality, coupled with the differential growth performance of emerging and advanced economies, in recent decades presents an interesting picture of middle-class dynamics at the global level (as depicted by the well-known "elephant curve" of the incidence of global economic growth). It shows, for the period since 1980, a rising middle class in the emerging world and a squeezed middle class in rich countries.

It also shows an increasing concentration of income at the very top of the income distribution globally.

Drivers of rising inequality

Shifting economic paradigms are altering distributional dynamics. Transformative technological change, led by digital technologies, has been reshaping markets, business models, and the nature of work in ways that can increase inequality within economies.

While the specifics differ across countries, this has been happening broadly through three channels. Continue reading

In the few months since then, we have seen Italy ban ChatGTP over privacy concerns, leading technology luminaries calling for a pause on AI systems development, and even prominent researchers saying we should be prepared to launch airstrikes on data centres associated with rogue AI.

The rapid deployment of AI and its potential impacts on human society and economies is now clearly in the spotlight.

What will AI mean for productivity and economic growth? Will it usher in an age of automated luxury for all, or simply intensify existing inequalities? And what does it mean for the role of humans?

Economists have been studying these questions for many years. My colleague Yixiao Zhou and I surveyed their results in 2021, and found we are still a long way from definitive answers.

The big economic picture

Over the past half-century or so, workers around the world have been getting a smaller fraction of their country's total income.

At the same time, growth in productivity - how much output can be produced with a given amount of inputs such as labour and materials - has slowed down. T

his period has also seen huge developments in the creation and implementation of information technologies and automation.

Better technology is supposed to increase productivity.

The apparent failure of the computer revolution to deliver these gains is a puzzle economists call the Solow paradox.

Will AI rescue global productivity from its long slump? And if so, who will reap the gains? Many people are curious about these questions.

While consulting firms have often painted AI as an economic panacea, policymakers are more concerned about potential job losses. Economists, perhaps unsurprisingly, take a more cautious view.

Radical change at a rapid pace

Perhaps the single greatest source of caution is the huge uncertainty around the future trajectory of AI technology.

Compared to previous technological leaps - such as railways, motorised transport and, more recently, the gradual integration of computers into all aspects of our lives - AI can spread much faster.

And it can do this with much lower capital investment.

This is because the application of AI is largely a revolution in software.

Much of the infrastructure it requires, such as computing devices, networks and cloud services, is already in place.

There is no need for the slow process of building out a physical railway or broadband network - you can use ChatGPT and the rapidly proliferating horde of similar software right now from your phone.

It is also relatively cheap to make use of AI, which greatly decreases the barriers to entry.

This links to another major uncertainty around AI: the scope and domain of the impacts.

AI seems likely to radically change the way we do things in many areas, from education and privacy to the structure of global trade.

AI may not just change discrete elements of the economy but rather its broader structure.

Adequate modelling of such complex and radical change would be challenging in the extreme, and nobody has yet done it. Yet without such modelling, economists cannot provide clear statements about likely impacts on the economy overall.

More inequality, weaker institutions

Although economists have different opinions on the impact of AI, there is general agreement among economic studies that AI will increase inequality.

One possible example of this could be a further shift in the advantage from labour to capital, weakening labour institutions along the way. At the same time, it may also reduce tax bases, weakening the government's capacity for redistribution.

Most empirical studies find that AI technology will not reduce overall employment.

However, it is likely to reduce the relative amount of income going to low-skilled labour, which will increase inequality across society.

Moreover, AI-induced productivity growth would cause employment redistribution and trade restructuring, which would tend to further increase inequality both within countries and between them.

As a consequence, controlling the rate at which AI technology is adopted is likely to slow down the pace of societal and economic restructuring.

This will provide a longer window for adjustment between relative losers and beneficiaries.

In the face of the rise of robotics and AI, there is possibility for governments to alleviate income inequality and its negative impacts with policies that aim to reduce inequality of opportunity.

What's left for humans?

The famous economist Jeffrey Sachs once said

What humans can do in the AI era is just to be human beings, because this is what robots or AI cannot do.

But what does that mean, exactly? At least in economic terms?

In traditional economic modelling, humans are often synonymous with "labour", and also being an optimising agent at the same time. If machines can not only perform labour, but also make decisions and even create ideas, what's left for humans?

The rise of AI challenges economists to develop more complex representations of humans and the "economic agents" which inhabit their models.

As American economists David Parkes and Michael Wellman have noted, a world of AI agents may actually behave more like economic theory than the human world does. Compared to humans, AIs "better respect idealised assumptions of rationality than people, interacting through novel rules and incentive systems quite distinct from those tailored for people".

Importantly, having a better concept of what is "human" in economics should also help us think through what new characteristics AI will bring into an economy.

Will AI bring us some kind of fundamentally new production technology, or will it tinker with existing production technologies?

Is AI simply a substitute for labour or human capital, or is it an independent economic agent in the economic system?

Answering these questions is vital for economists - and for understanding how the world will change in the coming years.

• Yingying Lu Research Associate, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, and Economic Modeller, CSIRO
• First published in The Conversation. Republished with permission.

New research has revealed that the gender pay gap begins earlier than most of us could have imagined: in childhood.

"This report is the product of two of our strongest passions: improving children's financial literacy skills and eroding the gender pay gap," says Helen Bierton, chief banking officer at Starling Bank, who commissioned the research.

"We've worked closely with Prof Tim Jay [who conducted the study] and his brilliant team at Loughborough University for a few years now, and one day he mentioned that parents talk to boys about money and maths from a younger age than they do to girls," she says.

"We knew there was something further to explore here - and unfortunately, our hunch was correct."

So, what exactly did they discover?

Gender inequality around money runs deep

Well firstly, Jay and his team confirmed that the gender pay gap - or the "play gap" as they're calling it - does indeed start in childhood; with boys receiving a whopping 20% more pocket money a week, on average, than girls (£3.00 v £2.50).

But worryingly, the disparity in how girls and boys are treated when it comes to money doesn't end there.

Boys are more likely to have their pocket money assessed via academic performance (14% more boys are assessed this way).

Girls, on the other hand, are more likely to receive pocket money if they have completed their chores (12%), and are more likely to be rewarded for good behaviour (6%).

Furthermore, the way boys and girls receive their pocket money is also different, with girls more likely to receive theirs in cash (15%), and boys more likely to be paid into a digital bank account and card (8%).

"The degree to which traditional gender stereotypes are at play within childhood astounded us," says Bierton.

"What starts as pennies and pounds for young girls can multiply to tens of thousands of pounds for working women."

The findings are based on two quantitative surveys of a representative sample of 4,106 parents across the UK with children aged four to 11 - and is the largest known study of its kind to date.

The results were then assessed against the respondents' children's financial literacy development to determine correlations between parents' pocket money approaches and children's skills.

In addition, the Loughborough University team also analysed the prices of 450 toys sold by retailers who segment their offering by gender - and once again found that girls were getting a raw deal.

"Products targeting girls are on average 5.48% more expensive than products aimed at boys," the team explains in its Make Pocket Money Equal report.

Adding: "A ‘pink tax' was also discovered, with pink toys and games costing an average of 5.16% more [£9.98] than those marketed as gender neutral [£9.49]."

"As a parent, it's something I've seen myself, and our research found that more than one in four parents with daughters have noticed this too," says Bierton.

"But we weren't expecting toys to cost 5% more at such a systemic level - and we weren't expecting so many retailers to segregate toys by gender either."

Does financial inequality in childhood really matter?

As a busy parent, with more than enough already on your plate, you might be wondering if this is an issue that really needs your attention - but both Bierton and Jay are clear that it is.

"The ways that children learn about money, the ways in which they receive it and how much all have an impact on their financial literacy skills," says Jay.

"An inequality of this scale, at 20%, is one that we must raise awareness of in order to help parents check any unconscious biases they may have."

"Bierton adds: "Does it matter that men earn higher wages?

"Of course it does - and pocket money is no different, and for so many reasons.

"How much less you earn affects your sense of worth. If children can earn their money in the same way, it can help to equalise their expectations for the workplace and their careers."

So that being said - what can parents do to rectify the situation? Continue reading

These streets are where hundreds of vulnerable people live - and die. A disproportionate number are Maori.

Homelessness is a terrible situation, says Helen Robinson. It can take up to 30 years off someone's life. It affects everything: physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

"It affects us on every level of our being from practical, where do you wash yourself or put your clothes, to not feeling safe.

"Imagine what it's like for every moment of every day to have no place to know you are safe."

At Home Ground, the Mission's central Auckland shelter, street community members die at age 50 on average. That's 30 years earlier than the national average lifespan.

They struggle to cultivate and maintain relationships and employment; they battle drug and alcohol abuse and neglect health.

There's nowhere near enough money or resources to help.

One in six New Zealanders needs help with these issues.

We're all just two or three life events away from that reality.

Revolting racism

"I am incredibly conscious we are seeing the impact of colonisation," Robinson says. It's "deeply incumbent" on her to "mirror the impact," she adds.

"When you strip people of their land and resources, this is the result.

"We all need to see the truth, and we need to continually call our country to account.

"The level of racism I sometimes see is revolting, but more and more New Zealanders are coming to understand the harm that has occurred."

Maori women are among the most vulnerable members of our community, Robinson says.

"They have been silenced and marginalised like no other group in our society. There is a real challenge to be appropriately responding to the needs of people, particularly Maori.

"We need to make sure they feel connected, comfortable and welcome."

Help needed

Robinson says the need she sees at Home Ground is far greater than the Mission can meet.

Working people and the unemployed are suffering. They're homeless. Hungry. There's only so much in a weekly budget.

"Many New Zealanders simply don't have enough money for food," Robinson says.

The Mission provides about three million meals a year.

Christmas

Last year the Mission delivered 10,000 food parcels and 40,000 gifts for tamariki in the weeks leading to Christmas.

Robinson's anticipating an even greater need in 2022 and is relying on the community to fill it.

"Food and toy donations are absolute gold at Christmas.

"We know where the need is greatest, whether its baked beans or a pavlova," a Mission staff member comments.

Get real

While, as a country, we have much to be proud of, there's a lot that we need to address, says Robinson.

"We need to be brave ... acknowledging the number of people that are homeless and hungry.

"Women are bearing that burden. We desperately need to have those honest conversations. What does it mean to use alcohol safely? The significance, impact and amount of domestic violence. It's just too much. The only way out is if everyone is talking about this."

Source

• RNZ

Called HomeGround, Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson (pictured at the new facility) says its new one-stop health and social services space for the city's most vulnerable people realises a long-held dream for Te Tapui Atawhai.

Purpose-built to Te Tapui Atawhai's specifications, the nine-storey building has a health centre, a pharmacy, a community dining room, specialist detox services and 80 apartments.

"We can begin to do what we have longed to do, in the manner in which we have longed to do it, with the resources to support us" Robinson says.

"HomeGround makes so much more possible, we can do more and better".

For many people moving into HomeGround, this will be their first permanent home for a long time, Robinson says.

Residents will pay rent for their accommodation to the City Mission which is a community housing provider.

Besides providing a safe, private, secure place to live and sleep, the apartments include a fridge, washing machine, dryer, shower and kitchen.

"When there is that deep sense of safety, we can rest as human beings and begin to be our best selves, we can begin to address the challenges in front of us and even begin to thrive".

Residents will also have access to a communal lounge and a rooftop garden, which Robinson hopes will help build a real sense of community.

Robinson says that people who are going through medical or social detox at HomeGround can easily access its on-site health centre and pharmacy. These amenities, along with other support Te Tapui Atawhai offers, ensure they benefit from a much more integrated service.

In addition to general residential accommodation, HomeGround has 25 beds available for addiction withdrawal services.

Demand for the Auckland City Mission's services has ramped up dramatically since the pandemic began.

"The increase in the demand for food in the time I've been at the mission, which is just on nine years, is extraordinary" Robinson says.

"It's deeply, deeply distressing the numbers of people [coming in] for food".

She says there are "hundreds of thousands" of people without money "to buy enough good kai for their families.

"It is reprehensible and should never, ever be occurring - certainly not in Aotearoa".

Robinson worries about Omicron's impact on those in the most desperate need - on their jobs, access to good food and increasing numbers of sick people.

"People who are vulnerably housed, in boarding houses or motels are of particular concern, especially if they become ill" she says.

Being unwell for them is "incredibly difficult".

Despite the negatives, Robinson remains optimistic - and the Auckland City Mission is better placed than ever to help the people coming through its doors, she says.

Source

• RNZ
• Image: Stuff

The changes are taking the form of new sorts of funds where ‘donors' still get a return.

They include bonds resulting in community housing being built, investments in education and health and ‘impact investment'.

Today, strategic giving is helping bridge the massive gap in government funding for social services - estimated to be a $630 million shortfall.

It's philanthropy in action, but not in a traditional way, says James Palmer, who runs a business called Community Finance.

Palmer's business raises hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy people and wealth funds. He then puts the money into building houses for those who need them most.

The result is what he calls a win-win.

Investors buy bonds and get a return for the money they put in. Community housing providers like the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity get the funding they need to build affordable homes to scale.

"We've got more money than ever in the country, we have some proven solutions and we have growing need. How do we join the dots between those three?" Palmer asks.

"Philanthropy being effective and scaling up and innovating is going to be really critical, particularly with what we're going through," he says.

Palmer says he taps into his network of philanthropic individuals to help finance the housing projects, but "the power" is with the KiwiSaver funds and fund managers.

Wealth manager company JBWere reported last month that in 2018 the charitable and for-purpose sector was worth $12.1 billion to our GDP.

Given the growing number of wealthy people in New Zealand and what's about to be the greatest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history, as baby boomers reach the end of their lives, what's the likelihood of the charitable sector benefiting?

JBWere head of philanthropy John Morrow thinks there may be some large increases in giving from the wealthy coming up.

He's already seeing growth in family philanthropy and says bequests are also set to become more significant with the latest figures showing half of all the money donated in New Zealand comes from everyday Kiwis.

Only 15 percent comes from corporates.

A National Business Review journalist Nicky Shepheard says many on the list of New Zealand's wealthiest prefer to be discreet about their philanthropy.

She says it is not clear how much those on the rich list give in total.

Source

• RNZ
• Image: One Donor

Decision-makers and gatekeepers - from border guards to maître d's - will have a means of knowing who can safely engage with others.

To that end, the New Zealand government aims to have one in place by year's end.

But vaccine passports have also prompted riots and protests overseas, and there are as yet unanswered questions about their use domestically.

A central concern is that they will cause or exacerbate inequality because access to a passport relies on access to vaccines, and access to vaccines has been unequal.

Internationally, citizens of some countries are more likely to have access to vaccines - and so to vaccine passports - than citizens of other countries. And within countries, some individuals and groups are more likely to have access to vaccines than others.

Furthermore, these inequalities track familiar and ethically troubling fault lines: New Zealand has struggled to lift Maori vaccination rates to match those of European New Zealanders, though Maori are more at risk.

And vaccine passports could compound existing inequalities, as those with them return to work and other activities while those without remain trapped.

Inequality and discrimination

But there are reasons to think these legitimate concerns don't automatically mean vaccine passports are unethical.

Firstly, the need to contain COVID-19 justifies the significant restrictions of important liberties in lockdowns. But to the extent that vaccines work, that justification doesn't apply to someone who has been vaccinated.

The justification for curtailing liberties has gone (or at least, given the possibility of breakthrough cases, been considerably weakened), so for the vaccinated the curtailment should go too.

Secondly, distinguishing between people on the basis of their COVID immunity may be discrimination, but it's not obvious it is unjustified discrimination.

Whether someone is vaccinated or not is arguably legitimate grounds for discrimination.

The unvaccinated (for whatever reason) pose a greater risk to others than the vaccinated. They are also more likely to suffer severe symptoms if they get COVID-19.

Thirdly, one reason to tolerate inequality is that sometimes it improves the position of the disadvantaged.

We might tolerate doctors' high incomes, for example, if the promise of a higher income led people to study medicine and we believed a good supply of doctors benefited the worst-off members of our community.

Vaccine passports might work the same way. They help get the economy going, so the government can support those still locked down. They're also an incentive to vaccinate, and high vaccination rates are good for everyone — perhaps especially the unvaccinated.

An offer you can't refuse

But the use of vaccine passports as incentives poses some real issues. How they are used is crucial. Under some proposals, vaccination passports are (like conventional passports) essentially another international travel document.

Increasingly, however, countries (including New Zealand potentially) are proposing their use to control access to a significant range of domestic activities, such as returning to work in person, dining out or going to concerts and sports events.

In this context, it's clear some incentives can be coercive: they might be an offer you can't refuse.

There are some people desperate to travel overseas, perhaps for good family reasons. But most of us can still decide whether the incentive of the IATA Travel Pass is enough to motivate us to travel.

Justified coercion?

Many people, though, will simply not be in a position to refuse the incentive of a domestic vaccine passport.

Getting back to work and a pre-COVID life will not be a discretionary matter. For them, domestic vaccination passports are likely to be coercive.

For now, at least, the government insists vaccination will not be mandatory.

But effectively it will be for those who have no choice but to get a vaccine passport to work or have access to non-discretionary domestic activities.

And that coercion will not apply equally. There will be much greater pressure on those who are already socially disadvantaged and less able to make a genuine choice.

Coercion is sometimes justified, and perhaps the threat posed by COVID-19 warrants it. However, we should be wary of accepting kinds of coercion that are discriminatory and inegalitarian.

Governments need to be clear

So what should we do about vaccine passports and vaccine incentives?

We could restrict them to more discretionary activities, such as international travel, concerts and restaurants. That would be an offer anyone could refuse, especially the already disadvantaged.

But this use of passports might be an insufficient incentive — too many people might refuse to get one. That's a problem if we think trying to increase vaccination rates is justified.

So we think governments have a choice: they should address concerns about vaccine passports by avoiding uses that are coercive, discriminatory and inegalitarian.

Alternatively, they should acknowledge their position that COVID-19 justifies coercion, and make vaccination mandatory.

The second option would be less discriminatory and seems less likely to threaten trust and cooperation than the surreptitious and uneven compulsion provided by wide-ranging requirements for domestic vaccine passports.

• Tim Dare Professor of Philosophy, University of Auckland and Justine Kingsbury Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Waikato.
• First published in The Conversation. Republished with permission.

We have a shortfall of more than 100,000 dwellings, all urban housing markets are considered severely unaffordable by international standards.

• 500,000 Kiwis are in overcrowded housing situations
• 350,000 households are on accommodation supplements
• Maori home ownership sits at just over 30%
• less than 50% of people in our largest city (Auckland) own their own homes, and
• 1 in 100 people — that's 50,000 people — are living in ‘severe housing deprivation (sleeping on the streets or in cars, in emergency housing, temporarily staying at relatives or friends, etc).

Our housing situation is driving inequality and it's dangerous.

The Fall of Rome, the French Revolution, the Arab Spring and Brexit, were all, in part, driven by inequality.

Inequality is a key contributor to crime, violence, abuse in its many forms, and mental illness. It destroys social cohesion by eroding the bonds that make us feel like we're all in the same boat.

As it stands, the current housing system is growing the divide.

It is creating conditions where those who own homes are witnessing their wealth grow — without having to exert any effort, and in many cases faster than their incomes ever will — while those who do not, watch the prospect of obtaining one become more and more prohibitive.

Some people will choose to take on large and unprecedented sums of debt; many more will acknowledge that homeownership is out of their reach.

At the same time, a growing number of hard-working people in this country are in unsuitable living situations, staying in cars, sheds, garages and overcrowded houses.

Every week an article is written examining the various drivers of expensive housing in New Zealand:

• lack of supply,
• easy access to finance,
• low-interest rates,
• investors,
• speculators,
• red tape,
• restrictive building codes and council rules,
• material costs and so on.

And every other week an article is written with solutions to these issues: a tax, a change in regulation or policy, a homeownership scheme or a building programme.

Why is it that despite our best efforts — that is, knowing the problems, having the technical expertise needed to address them, and making efforts to do so — the trajectory for quality affordable housing is only getting worse?

Could it be that we are not addressing the heart of the problem?

I believe it is time to reexamine and update our values and beliefs that lie at the heart of both the issues and the solutions to our housing crisis.

We are all in the same boat

We do not get to choose the circumstances into which we are born.

We don't choose our race, our gender or our economic position, and yet these circumstances have far-reaching implications on our lives.

We need to design our housing system so that every member of society, no matter who they are or where they are born, has equitable access to good quality affordable housing, along with fundamentals such as quality education, healthcare, and food, in order to lay the foundations for a strong future society.

Our current system perpetuates unaffordable housing as the status quo, and isn't good for the millions of individuals who are not in homes which they own or have unprecedented amounts of debt in their names.

We have to be fair

An expensive house or no house isn't much of a choice.

Why should future homebuyers, who are entitled to the basic human right of adequate shelter, be forced to pay ever-higher prices for property that hasn't necessarily had any real value (such as habitable space) added to it?

Is it fair that those who have been on the receiving end of property sales have accumulated large sums of money at the expense of buyers?

If large sums of money have found their way into the hands of current and previous property owners without any real value being added, wouldn't it be only fair to look at how that money could be redirected and redistributed towards things that add real value to our society?

Given our current state of crisis, we could begin by looking at how such money could be directed towards solutions to the housing crisis.

No pain, no gain

It is not possible for the average house to be both unaffordable and affordable at the same time.

In order to move towards affordability, we're going to have to give up our expensive housing. This will mean a sacrifice for some individuals who, relatively speaking, have more than others.

It is not easy to give up something that we enjoy, even when we know the outcome of giving it up is better for us.

Whether it's giving up or reducing smoking, alcohol, or sugary drinks for a healthier lifestyle, or forgoing a social outing or sports activity to spend more time with the kids, all of these require some sort of sacrifice on one level in order to achieve a greater objective.

The same is true when it comes to expensive housing.

We will need to find and develop the strength within ourselves to overcome our self-interest for the benefit of all.

The media

The tone of the conversation about housing and especially housing as ‘an investment' needs to change, and our media industry needs to lead this charge.

We need to critically examine whether it's appropriate to talk about rising house prices as if it's a good thing when in reality, rising house prices also plays out as rising inequality, crime, mental illness and violence.

Newspaper stories with headlines "Major urban centres continue to show strong gains" and "Cheaper suburbs leap ahead" could accurately be rewritten to headline "Major urban centres witness inequality and child poverty grow" and "Rents increase for already struggling families in cheaper suburbs".

Just substitute any reference to ‘rising house prices' with ‘rising inequality' and you have a fuller picture of what is going on.

Some hard choices

We have some choices to make.

We can allow our house prices to rise.

We can watch as our homeless population grows, more people sleep in cars, and the prospect of homeownership slip away from more Maori and Pasifika families.

We can build taller fences and put up barbed wire to keep thieves out as we further isolate ourselves from ‘the other' — people in different socio-economic circles than us.

We can witness our society become more and more divided.

Or we can design our housing system to ensure that everyone, no matter who they are, has access to quality affordable homes, homes that they can own should they wish.

We can make the price of property commensurate with the real value of property.

We can stop concentrating wealth via property into the hands of a minority at the expense of the majority, and we can think about how wealth that has been obtained without creating any real value can be redistributed in a sensible fashion.

Redesigning the housing system to be more fair and equitable means we are going to have to make some changes in our thoughts, attitudes, policies and practices.

We are going to have to give up a system that is helping an increasingly small segment of society get ahead economically for one that is more holistic and considers the wellbeing of all over the wellbeing of only some.

It may be hard in the short term but a more equitable society, a society where we all feel more connected and safer, one in which all human potential is given the chance to develop, is surely a society that we'd rather live in.

Be sure, however, that if we fail to make the necessary sacrifices soon, it is our future generations that we are sacrificing.

• Zane Sabour retrofits garages, runs youth empowerment programmes is often with his children. He is interested in broadening and deepening the conversation on affordable housing in Aotearoa, and is the founder of the web platform Low-Cost Housing Aotearoa where he showcases practical examples of completed projects in New Zealand communities.

The venture has reinforced his commitment to tackling the climate crisis, and using New Shepard (his rocket) as a stepping stone towards colonising space for the benefit of Earth.

"The whole point of doing this is to practice," says Bezos, who announced in February that he was donating $10bn to efforts to "preserve and protect the natural world".

"Every time we fly this tourism mission we're practicing flying the second stage of New Glenn," he added, referring to the planned reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle, which is central to his vision of ultimately moving industry off the planet.

Deepak Xavier from Oxfam International is less than impressed.

"We've now reached stratospheric inequality.

"Billionaires burning into space, away from a world of pandemic, climate change and starvation.

"Eleven people are likely now dying of hunger each minute while Bezos prepares for an 11-minute personal space flight. This is human folly, not human achievement.

'Space race' resources should be directed to help the poor and the planet says Estelle Henrys, Convenor of the Integral Ecology Committee of the Wellington Archdiocesan Ecology, Justice and Peace Commission.

Billionaires could make a huge contribution towards solving inequality throughout the world and advancing climate change research and development, she says.

"We see more hope for our future in the everyday decisions of people working to reduce our carbon footprints and poverty in our neighbourhoods.

In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis said, "How wonderful would it be, even as we discover faraway planets, to rediscover the needs of the brothers and sisters who orbit around us".

"We need to focus on caring for God's gift of creation here on earth, rather than blasting away from it."

Henrys and Xavier's concerns are borne out by Forbes magazine, which says America's richest paid Federal income taxes of just 3.4 percent of $401 billion.

Forbes says research firm ProPublica found while the median American household earns about $70,000 per year and pays 14 percent in federal taxes each year, the Forbes '25 richest Americans' paid a "true tax rate" of just 3.4 percent on wealth growth of $401 billion between 2014 and 2018.

"Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos paid a true tax rate of 0.98 percent as his wealth grew by a staggering $99 billion between 2014 and 2018; he reported just $4.22 billion in reported income during the same period," Forbes quotes.

ProPublica also found Bezos paid no federal income tax in 2007, but added $3.8 billion to his fortune that year. He offset his $46 million income with losses from investments, deductions on debts and other expenses.

On his return from Space, Bezos thanked Amazon's workers and customers for paying for his Blue Origin space flight, however some Amazon workers said they want better pay and working conditions, not a thank you.

"He should just go to Jupiter and live his best life there," one worker told Insider.

Amazon's $1.5 billion Lord of the Rings television series to be shoot in New Zealand could mean Bezos, the world's richest man gets a fat New Zealand tax-payer subsidy.

In order to attract foreign screen productions, the New Zealand government offers a 25 per cent rebate on all money spent in New Zealand - in this case, that'll be more than $150 million.

Source

• The Guardian
• Oxfam
• Forbes
• NewsHub
• Insider
• Supplied by Integral Ecology Committee of the Archdiocese of Wellington
• Image: The New York Times

Sue Moroney said the Government, with its "strong mandate", had the ability to start tackling growing inequality in New Zealand.

"Naming it [climate change] as an emergency is important," she said.

"I'd like us to name inequality as being an emergency in this country as well because it's all very well to have a healthy environment, but if your people are sick, then it's not going to go very well at all." Read more

In his latest encyclical (Fratelli Tutti), Francis points out "The marketplace, by itself, cannot resolve every problem, however much we are asked to believe this dogma of neo-liberal faith.

"Neo-liberalism simply reproduces itself by resorting to the magic theories of 'spillover' or 'trickle' — without using the name — as the only solution to societal problems."

The "trickle-down economics" Francis was referencing refers to the idea that as the rich accumulate wealth, money will automatically flow into the pockets of poor people.

The pandemic's fallout, including massive unemployment spikes around the world, are evidence that "not everything can be resolved by market freedom," Francis continues in his encyclical.

Unfettered capitalism, he says, doesn't work.

Francis's analysis is similar to Buffett's. The Omaha, Nebraska billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway said in a Yahoo Finance interview earlier this year:

"There's no question that capitalism, as it gets more advanced, will widen the gap between the people that have market skills, whatever that market demands, and others, unless government does something in between.

"It isn't some diabolical plot or anything.

"It's because of the market system."

Buffett (who is known as the 'Sage of Omaha') suggested two ways to tackle the issue.

Firstly, there should be a more generous earned-income tax credit to reduce working people's tax burden, while ultra-wealthy people should pay steeper taxes.

Buffett plans to give more than 99 percent of his wealth to philanthropy.

He has repeatedly called on politicians to hike taxes on the super-rich. Existing laws allow him to pay a lower rate than his secretary.

Source

• Markets Insider
• Image: Citizens of Culture

Focusing his talk on the fourth of his "Healing the World" series, Francis is urging everyone to check statistics to see how many children are dying of hunger because of a poor distribution of wealth and a sick economic system.

We should also check many children do not have the right to school, for the same reason, he said.

"May it be this image, of children in need of hunger and lack of education, which helps us to understand that after this crisis we must come out better" and understand the need for change, he said.

Francis explained the pandemic and its social consequences are causing many people to be in danger of losing hope.

"The pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated social problems, especially inequality. Some may work from home, while for many others this is impossible."

"Some children, despite the difficulties, can continue to receive a school education, while for many others it has stopped abruptly."

"Some powerful nations can issue money to deal with the emergency, while for others this would mean mortgaging the future."

He said these symptoms of inequality are a social disease caused by "a virus that comes from a sick economy" and "the fruit of inequitable economic growth" that has taken place independent of fundamental human values.

"In today's world, a few of the very rich have more than the rest of humanity. [...] It is an injustice that cries out to heaven."

Francis said this economic model will result in irreversible consequences such loss of biodiversity, climate change, rising sea levels and the destruction of tropical forests.

"Social inequality and environmental degradation go hand in hand and have the same root, that of the sin of wanting to possess, of wanting to dominate brothers and sisters, of wanting to possess and dominate nature and God himself. But this is not the design of creation."

The transformation of money and property into ends in themselves, rather than as tools, had led to the emergence of individualistic and calculating people Francis calls "homo œconomicus."

"We forget that, being created in the image and likeness of God, we are social, creative and supportive beings, with an immense capacity to love. We often forget about this," he said.

"When the obsession with owning and dominating excludes millions of people from primary goods; when economic and technological inequality is such as to tear the social fabric; and when addiction to unlimited material progress threatens the common home, then we cannot stand by. No, this is bleak. We cannot stand and watch."

"After the crisis, will we continue with this economic system of social injustice and contempt for the care of the environment, of creation, of the common home?"

He hopes to inspire a healthier and more equitable world.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: United Way Worldwide

This is the latest push to give women a significant place in the Catholic hierarchy.

After submitting their candidacies for various leadership roles, including deacon, priest and bishop, the women attended a mass at the Madeleine church in central Paris to mark the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene.

French Catholic woman Anne Soupa, who in May declared herself a candidate to lead the archdiocese of Lyon, accompanied the seven women to Paris.

The post in Lyon has been vacant since Cardinal Philippe Barbarin stepped down last year as a result of a paedophilia scandal involving a priest in the diocese.

"The Church is experiencing a deep crisis, and we need to open up its doors," says Soupa.

"Women are rendered invisible in the Catholic Church."

"In this age of equality, when women's abilities are recognised by all, we can't continue like this."

"This isn't a move against the Church, but for it," Soupa says.

Scores of paedophilia and sexual abuse charges have been laid before the Church throughout the world in recent years.

These charges have prompted calls for a major shakeup of the Church, which critics say has failed to adapt its traditions to the demands of the modern world.

Although Pope Francis backs many progressive causes such as allowing priests to marry, to date he has refused to allow women to be ordained or to open certain roles in the Church for them.

As an example, last year he declined to allow women become deacons, an ordained position just below that of priest. Proponents say allowing women to become deacons could help fill the gap in countries were priest numbers are dwindling.

Source

• rfi
• Image: France 24

One homeless man, interviewed in his temporary motel accommodation, gratefully acknowledged the help, but worried it would be even harder to resume life "outside".

A Northland child whose family had been rehoused from leaking campervans to ones not needed for locked-down holidaymakers exclaimed it was "like being on holiday!"

Does experiencing the basic comforts the rest of us take for granted have to be only a temporary respite for those less fortunate?

Can we look away as fellow humans shiver and suffer on pavements, or in rusty cars or leaky buildings (and let's not disgrace ourselves further by calling these "homes")?

Does life "outside" lockdown have to be the same as before?

Will the creative families whose private lockdown sporting events were featured on the news in lieu of "live sport" resume passively watching individual screens in parallel?

During lockdown, the technology that isolated us became a priceless connector to the "outside" for many.

However, families and especially children without devices and internet access at home could not access education, vital community services or communicate with wider whanau.

The Government proactively ordered devices for affected children and their families.

However, even if these devices had all arrived in time (which they did not), the inequities caused by lack of power, no or insufficient internet bandwidth, lack of printers and scanners are not resolved by providing a single device that multiple family members must share.

Not only that, children and their family members without a history of working with personal devices would certainly lack the critical knowledge needed to gain the maximum benefit from those devices.

Some changes will happen regardless.

Those with lost or reduced incomes cannot resume social and retail therapy.

Those of us who were fortunate enough to have survived lockdown economically may be taking sobering looks at our finances, and wondering if the economies we made in lockdown could be extended.

For example, being in lockdown dampened our literal and figurative need to keep up appearances - if our hair was greyer and shaggier, or our shabby mailbox not replaced, the few who saw us or it, understood.

Perhaps others could be more accepting if we went to the barber or frequented our expensive salon less often.

Lockdown had ended, but the digital acceleration it forced upon us will continue to change the way we live and work. Continue reading

The response is much different today.

Essential workers are now nurses, doctors, emergency responders, grocery store clerks, truck drivers, delivery people, postal workers, public health workers, farmworkers and others whom we depend on in order to eat and survive. Most of these are not highly rewarded by the marketplace, yet they are being asked to risk their lives while others shelter at home.

Rather than manoeuvring politically, government officials should focus on helping these people.

Many of them were already on the margins before the pandemic and now have been pushed over the edge.

It is appalling, but not surprising, that blacks and Hispanics are becoming sick and dying at disproportionate rates. Decades of racism left many minority Americans with crowded housing, bad health and little savings, making it more difficult to survive the pandemic.

Yet they make up much of the essential workforce that is at risk of infection.

The wages of all essential workers should be immediately raised to at least $15 an hour, with government subsidies to businesses that need them.

It is outrageous that the Trump administration is considering relaxing the minimum wage for farm workers.

Exploiting the most vulnerable populations to save the economy is immoral and out of the question.

Public health experts say that before we can safely return to work, we will need to put in place a system of testing and quarantine.

Not only must those who test positive be isolated, but those with whom they have recently been in contact must be quarantined so that they do not spread the infection further.

Before this can happen, not only must the COVID-19 curve be flattened, it must be bent downward. It is impossible to test and track the contacts of tens of thousands of new cases each day.

When the testing regime is up and running, essential workers should be the first tested, not just for their own good but also for the good of all. For example, grocery clerks must be tested, since they are in constant contact with other people.

If they are infected, others will get infected.

The government should use empty hotels to isolate the sick and quarantine those who have been in contact with the sick.

Thousands of new public health workers must be hired and trained to do the work of contact tracing — tracking down those who have been exposed to COVID-19.

Public health agencies might consider hiring unemployed waiters and salesclerks who already have the people skills needed for such work. They don't need a college education.

Managing a quarantine is time-consuming and labour-intensive work for public health workers.

When the Rev. Steve Planning, my Jesuit housemate, tested positive for the virus on March 14, the 15 of us who live with him were quarantined for two weeks. We were confined to our house and no one was allowed in, including family, colleagues and employees.

Each of us was contacted by public health workers three or four times during the first couple of days of quarantine to make sure we were OK, to ask if we needed anything and to make sure that we understood the importance of staying in quarantine.

A big quarantine sign was put on our front door.

The public health department had each of us download an app named SureAdhere onto our phones. We used the app each day to give video reports to the health officials of our symptoms or lack of symptoms, including a daily temperature reading. Someone in the department had to review those videos.

Not everything worked perfectly.

The app did not remember my four-digit ID number, so I had to scrounge around on my desk for it each time I did a report.

A more serious problem was that the small electronic thermometers we were given to check our temperatures were not accurate.

Mine was a degree or more under my real temperature.

As a result, we all had to use a more sophisticated thermometer borrowed from the school nurse's office.

Perhaps we were simply unlucky, but if our public health depends on knowing our temperatures, thermometers need to work.

Getting new thermometers is almost impossible. If you have one, test it now before you are sick.

Besides being in quarantine, we were told to keep "social distance" from one another. For those used to institutional living like us, quarantine is unpleasant.

For a normal middle-class family, it would be very difficult. For a low-income family or people in poverty, it is near impossible.

How do you keep social distance in a small house or apartment?

How do you disinfect surfaces with children running around the house?

How do you get food during a quarantine?

If testing and quarantine are essential for reopening the economy, a major effort will be needed to help those on the margins, because for them quarantine is impossible without help.

No one will come out of this crisis whole. Everyone must make sacrifices, especially those who most benefited from the economic system in the past. Those who are essential workers today should not be worse off when we transition back to work or when the pandemic is over. We are making great efforts to flatten the COVID-19 curve. The income and wealth inequality curves should also be flattened, not made worse by this epidemic.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Jews, Christians and Muslims share a common belief in one God, share common characters, like prophets, angels and Satan and similar codes of morality, social responsibility and accountability.

They also exclude women from religious and spiritual leadership. Read more

The tent, available for $130 a week, "Includes all bills and $100/week of communal food that you can add to at your leisure."

The post also asks whoever rents the tent to be willing to take on cleaning responsibilities in the house along with contributing $200 bond.

The post has since been removed.

Closer to home, in Tauranga Sheree Galautau had been sleeping under the stars, but one morning she woke up and someone had left her a tent.

"I just woke up and the tent was just left there for me," says. It was a welcome step up.

Moving across the road and into Silver Birch and living in a caravan seems like moving to Beverly Hills.

The grass is greener over there - they have water, power, people and an alluring escape from the judgements that come about homelessness, writes Matt Shand in the Sunday Star Times.

Occasionally, Galautau crosses the busy road to talk to the manager. There is no room for long term dwellers - there never is.

"I probably get between five to ten calls a day from people unable to find a place to live looking for some options." says he owner of Silver Birch, Tony Makai.

Any way because Sheree earns just $306 a week, living in a caravan would be a bit of a stretch.

It costs between $30 and $150 a week to rent a caravan from a company but placing one in a powered site will cost at least $210 a week.

Source

• au.news.yahoo.com
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: resources.stuff.co.

The Methodist mission has taken the lease on six houses.

The tenants pay rent, but the mission has committed to the landlord to pay any missed rent, and repair any damage.

The Methodist Mission is working with Christchurch youth service, Youth Cultural Development.(YCD)

YCD works with the young people to provide support.

The mission does this for families.

Four Families now have a home

Methodist Mission director Jill Hawkey said the four families have needed far less intensive support once they were in a stable home.

She said for the families it had largely been an advocacy role.

"What we've found with the families we've worked with, is often they had a poor credit history, so landlords didn't want to rent to them.

"And sometime it's that they may have mental health issues, or just a lack of confidence so they are unable to really go out there and advocate for themselves."

Finding landlords who were willing to rent to homeless people was also a huge struggle, and Jill Hawkey rang at least 40 before she found someone who would take them on.

Caring for young homeless presents more problems.

Anni Watkin from Youth Cultural Development said for the young people the transition from living in abandoned buildings to managing a home hasn't been easy.

She said at times the homes have been chaotic, and the young people have had to be taught basics like the need to clean up after themselves, how to be considerate of neighbours, and how to portion out food to last a week.

"They weren't accustomed to responsibility and routine, and being considerate of others, so there was a lot of learning."

Watkin said the YCD youth workers helped the young people sign up for unemployment benefits, and to start addressing some of their negative behaviours with daily visits.

"They were living off stealing, begging, prostitution... We supported to them to address synthetic (cannabis) and drug abuse issues, and some of the barriers which were stopping them from moving forward positively."

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• Image: radionz.co.nz

In a project with Statistics New Zealand, the data, which looked at people's wealth between 2004 and 2010, has yielded grim ­results, says Rashbrooke.

The wealthiest 1 per cent of the country - about 34,000 adults - have nearly a fifth of all the wealth (18.1 per cent). The wealthiest 10 per cent - about 340,000 adults - have more than half (53.4 per cent).

The poorest half of the country - about 1.7 million adults - have only 3.8 per cent.
Read more