[New Zealand] Poverty, hardship all too exident

from The Northern Advocate

By Craig Borley

A lean-to in the slum of a dirty foreign city, or an unattended child too sick to flick flies off her face: poverty is something far away from most New Zealanders.

But it is an issue in Northland.

The Ministry of Social Development's New Zealand Living Standards Report showed 24 percent of New Zealanders were living in hardship, including eight percent in severe hardship.

And Maori were drastically over-represented in the figures, with 40 percent living in hardship including 17 percent in severe hardship.

With a high Maori population and higher unemployment in Northland, the story on the street here is at least as grim as the figures suggest, said Isopo Samu of Whangarei's One Double Five Community House.



"There are people living in caravans and lean-tos, you know, just tin pushed up against a tree."

The centre's emergency housing manager, Chris McLoughlin, is aware most New Zealanders' perception of poverty is not having a Sky TV subscription.

"Most people don't want to know. We've got three generations of poverty driven society.

"Probably some of our people use their money unwisely, but the bottom line is, in a lot of cases, they just simply give up," McLoughlin said.

"They've never got a chance to have their own home, they've never got a chance to have their own rental property.

"People don't realise this still happens, but I've seen a lot of children with scabies, children with nits. And they hardly ever get to the doctor.

"A lot of people are living in caravans, in sheds. To me that's just horrendous in this day and age, in a country supposedly of plenty."

These places are cold, they're damp. They have broken windows and leaking roofs that families cannot afford to fix, she says.

In winter there is no electricity allocated for heating. In some cases there is no electricity at all.

Dorothy Nelson of Rawene Budgeting Service tells the same story, of shivering families in broken down houses.

The Hokianga, along with much of the Far North and Mid North, is one of the poorest areas in the country, according to a 2001 report on Northland's health needs by the Northland District Health Board.

"Some live in garages, there would be people without electricity, or with their electricity set up just for lights," Nelson said.

She knows of a case where 10 people live in the same, small, three-bedroom home.

"They're just struggling along, there's not many jobs available. It's hard up here but they can't afford to live somewhere else, they can't afford to move."

A major issue in the Hokianga was the lack of public transport. People had to either run a car, or know somebody that did, just to get to work or get to the grocery store.

And the rest of the country just don't understand how hard that can be, says Nelson.

"I guess they don't really realise that there are people still living like that, there are people still living in poverty in New Zealand," she said.

For McLoughlin, the chances of a child in this environment to get somewhere in life and to succeed in the way most New Zealanders strive for, is slim.

"It's pretty much nil. These kids, they see what their peers have. They want nice clothes and nice things, no different to any other child in our society.

"Because they want it so much and their parents can't afford it, they steal it. And that's why they won't make it. Because they can't avoid crime."

The well used line of "just go and get a job" is spoken by people who fail to appreciate history of poor families, she said.

"How can you expect that from the third generation of unemployed people? They haven't had that goal, that push from behind to say they have to do it."

Often it is the basic skills many take for granted that need to be taught, Mr Samu said.

"It's being taught the real basic life skills, like how to be clean and budgeting skills.

"But until you've met their social needs, like warmth and food, you can't teach them anything," he said.

And as the next generation of Northland's poor grow up, a new problem is emerging, Mr Samu said.

The Maori culture of respect for elders is diminishing in some circles, he said, a problem that will have to be faced soon enough.

"With the gangs, with the youth, there's no respect anymore. There is a whole new generation coming through, of young people, with a shift in the values and ethics."