Jane van der Beek

In response to Keith Melville’s Beacon letters, landlords and inherited landowners, of course, aren’t in favour of public/state housing because if there were enough houses to go around, they lose control of the rental market.

Rents remain high when rentals are sought after because they are in short supply.

Kainga Ora is in the business of building state/social housing.

This doesn’t make all its architects incompetent, or all its projects overspends or a waste of money.

Our community so needed, so deserved, the 72 houses earmarked for build. The promises had been made, the plans and consents ready, the sites acquired, money spent and Chris Bishop pulled the pin at the point of build.

This is an injustice not only to those low-income families who need affordable housing but to the local contractors and tradies who need the work.

Help is not coming to our community, instead, in July, we are getting a 9 percent increase in rates.

This will cripple and close more of our small businesses. Our mayor may consider this fiscally necessary to balance the books and follow the directive of Central Government, but you cannot take blood from a stone.

The National Party has backed itself into a corner. It will never consider providing temporary monetary relief in the way of GST exemptions or power grants or help with the burgeoning standard of living costs, or even consider the living wage as legitimate because it continues with the narrative that it’s Labour’s fault and they spent all the money so let’s continue to tighten our belts.

I believe Mr Bishop pulled the pin on our build and other projects because they were Labour initiatives.

Look after the people and the people will look after you. Sadly, this is not a vision for New Zealand communities anymore but instead we are reverting back to the archaic model of the trickle down.

Our young people used to leave town for Australia, particularly Perth, for bigger money and now they are leaving for a job. Ironically, those who left for university are returning with a degree but no job.