http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/93195780/hamilton-motel-gets-more-than-200000-from-taxpayer
One of the biggest expenses of going on holiday is accommodation – especially as we are a family of 7 as even though we don’t mind sharing beds or using airbeds motels have a limit of people per room so we often need to book 2 rooms – annoying when you have the adults in separate rooms but normally we have managed to get adjoining rooms. So because this is such a big expense for us, it makes me angry to read that the government spends huge amounts of money housing people in motels. In a motel you get someone come in every day to vacuum your floor and clean your bathroom – wouldn’t we all like that? I think it is extremely unfair that we are paying for people to live in motels. Do they appreciate this huge expense? No. This article shows that a motel owner estimates 40% of the state funded tenants damage stuff or steal stuff – that’s pretty high. They take a bond so keep taking them on taking them – the tax payer pays. It makes you question how many of them are not a result of a housing shortage but the result of being bad tenants http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/90013961/auckland-moteliers-speak-out-about-what-its-like-providing-housing-for-the-homeless. Damaging the property is just one form of being a bad tenant, there’s the non-payer, or the party tenant which the neighbours continually complain about.
Those using motels for accommodation are supposed to pay back their debt, but we know most of them won’t. Read about this family: http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/80094682/work-and-income-keeps-clients-in-dark-says-poverty-group. This family of 10 live in a one bedroom motel room, must be one of the few motels that don’t limit numbers of people per room. They have racked up a debt of $78,000. They were apparently cleared of drugs which kicked them out of the HNZ house in the first place but are still blacklisted, there must be a reason for that. The motel she is in now is her third, why do they keep getting kicked out? And even more concerning is they had two of their kids whilst living in the motel. There are people who fall on hard times and people who dig themselves into one and this family have put themselves in this situation. You would think it would be impossible to get pregnant when living in a one bedroom motel room with 6 kids. Both her and her partner are on the job seekers benefit – which is a joke. You are not looking for a job when you are constantly pregnant or breastfeeding, she had deliberately made herself virtually unemployable. Sue Bradford says they shouldn’t have to pay debts which is the governments fault but this is not the governments fault – they lost their house through bad behavior and then had more kids despite not being able to afford a roof over the heads of the kids they have. I have 5 kids and that’s expensive, to have 8 kids you have to be very well off to be able to afford them. This is entirely their fault. They should have to pay but the reality is I doubt they ever will.
So what’s the answer? I don’t know. It’s not fair on the kids of these irresponsible people but it is not fair on the taxpayer for them to be taking a bottomless pit of money. We have more deserving people on hospital waiting lists and money should be spent on health rather than paying for people that fail to provide for themselves even though they are healthy enough to do so. We need people to take personal responsibility. Society only functions smoothly if everyone plays their part.
Revisionist Media 