State Housing stuff-up…
Finance
[supposed] whiz-kid Bill English,
while in the shower one Thursday [that’s the day he never goes to Parliament]
had a brain-storm, to help get into surplus he would sell off around 4000 state
houses…this would win him Brownie points with the PM and aid the policy of
selling off state assets…without actually asking permission to do so. His
second thought was, ‘Salvation Army…they are a wealthy cash cow, they love the
down pressed, they help the poor, they play musical instruments and shout
‘hallelujah’ from time to time. So he’d make them an offer they couldn’t
refuse…and turn them into the biggest landlord in the country. He was so elated
by his wonderful idea that he leaped out of the shower and shouted to his
wife…”eureka…I’m brilliant… His wife shouted back, you’re not; your bloody
naked and not a pleasant sight, for god sake get a towel…
All this took
place some months ago…Old Bill…set the plan in motion amid an up roar of those
working in the social housing field…and with those living in State housing. He
was a hero amongst the super right-wingers as well as many, local council’s
like the Palmerston North City Council who believed they too could cast off the
odious role of running social housing stock.
Sadly poor
wee Bill English dropped into a pool of crap when the Salvation Army turned
down his sneaky, unworthy and shameless effort to sell them a rotten apple…
While the Salvation Army may shout hallelujahs from time to time, they are wise
when it comes to rotten business deals. Anyway after being given the news, Wee
Bill climbed back into the shower and turned on the cold tap…
This from the
NZ Herald…
The Salvation Army has
decided against buying state homes off the Government, a blow the Labour Party
says is "hugely embarrassing".
The decision came after
a study to test its capacity to become a major social housing landlord.
Prime Minister John Key
confirmed earlier plans to go through the transfer in January. The plan is to
transfer more of the responsibility for housing low-income and vulnerable
tenants by selling a portion of housing stock to community providers such as
churches, iwi and non-government organisations.
But Major Campbell
Roberts, of the Salvation Army, says the church organisation does not believe
"the lives of tenants would be sufficiently improved by such a
transfer".
This is from
someone who was involved in repairing state housing stock…his comments give
balance as we need to recognise how short-sighted it is to let maintenance slip
to such an extent.
“I am very
pleased for the Sallies that they have seen the offer for what it is. All they
would be getting for their Hard Earned would be a bunch of old, out dated
wooden houses, in very poor condition from a maintenance point of view, which
would cost telephone numbers to restore to even a basic minimum living
standard. It only takes a short drive through any State Housing area to see the
numbers of houses in serious need of repainting. What they are like inside is
anybody’s guess.
I worked for
a couple of clowns some years ago, ostensibly refurbishing elderly houses.
Everything was done to a minimum standard. Sure, in some cases new baths were
installed. But in other areas it was a different story. In the kitchens I had
to replace drawer runners that with years of usage had become hopelessly worn
out. Not only was that, but the bottoms of the drawers themselves completely
worn out and for the best possible result, the drawer would have needed to be
machined and a new runner fixed to restore it to its correct standard. That
just didn’t happen.
In the
lounges and bedrooms the damage to the wall linings was a revelation. In one
bedroom I repaired 17 small holes in the walls. In some cases the damage
required a cut out in the lining and insertion of a patch and replastering, a
slow, time consuming, job. Many of those houses were approaching sixty years of
age and long past their useful use by dates. All were built mainly of OB Rimu
(Ordinary Building) a timber very prone to borer attack. The supposition
promulgated by Estate Agents that by buying a State House you would be getting
a SOLID home is a complete fable. What you in fact get is a heap of rubbish
well past its ‘use by’ date!
What the
Government has done, is to have surveyed the entire scene and decided the
levels of deferred maintenance represent a cost, that as the nation’s biggest
housing provider, is a cost it is not prepared to envisage, hoping instead to
flick those liabilities to some other poor mug, who due to greed and ignorance
would be prepared to add utter liabilities to their rental portfolios. I doubt
very much if any of the houses I worked on were scheduled for repainting.
It is an
unwritten rule in this country that any timber house must enjoy a five year
painting cycle for maximum preservation of the asset.
Not only that
but repainting of the interiors should be on a ten year painting cycle. It goes
without saying that the range of interior damage I witnessed would need to be
addressed during that stage. Only then could those houses be considered to be
maintained to a reasonable standard. A feature of weatherboards which clad most
of the houses is that when paint perishes with age the effect of the sun is to
dry out the timber and cause hairline cracks in the surface. Which even if
painted caused the paint to fracture along the cracks as the timber proceeds to
expand and contract with the normal action of the weather, causing accelerated
paint breakdown.
The kitchens,
which can be considered the action centre of every house, were modern sixty
years ago, but hopelessly out-dated in this day and age. As a minimum every
house should have been fitted with a modern kitchen doing away with the
hopeless cupboards, pushed hard up to the eight foot high ceilings, which saw
the top shelves, in most instances, never used. With that they would have been
a slightly more saleable proposition and drawing possible purchaser’s attention
away from the other defects, outlined here". Comments end.
Bill English was a flop as leader of the National Party, and it would appear that the same title can be used in regard to his effort as Finance Minister...but he is ideal for John Key, one because he never argues with the boss and secondly he never lets the truth spoil his behaviour.
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