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Article

22 Feb 2020

Author:
Otago Daily Times

New Zealand: UN special rapporteur attributes housing crisis to Govt. entrusting housing largely to private property owners & investors

"NZ housing shortage a 'human rights crisis'", 20 February 2020

A visiting United Nations representative has called New Zealand's housing crisis a "significant human rights crisis" and it's time the right to housing was wrenched from the hands of the private market.

UN special rapporteur on adequate housing Leilani Farha ...revealed her shock at the number of people living without dignity in New Zealand.

The root of the crisis laid, she said, in the gutting of social housing and a speculative housing market.

"What the Government has done over successive years and successive governments is they have entrusted this fundamental human right in large part to private property owners and real estate investors. That's pretty dangerous."

[...]

Farha commended the Government for acknowledging there is a crisis and for it and other groups having a bunch of good ideas floating around.

[...]

Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt said it was helpful to have people like Farha to give countries a reality check.

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"Framing something as a human rights issue elevates the issue in importance."

[...]

Housing Minister Megan Woods met with Farha and said she had frank conversations about the future of housing policy.

She said the Government was in the "throes of consulting with different stakeholders" and that the human rights based approach was something they could consider.

[...]