When rock bottom bites
Olive Taueu knows there is something worse than rock bottom.
After spending months living in emergency accommodation, the homeless 27-year-old thought life couldn’t get harder. Then came the bedbugs. Last week, Taueu’s 5-year-old daughter, Zion, was so badly bitten in a Porirua motel she was left with blisters covering her body.
‘‘When I showed [Work and Income] a letter from the doctor they said it wasn’t their problem to help me move to another motel. We had to sleep in the car.’’
Last week, Stuff reported that 8519 eligible households were waiting for state housing as of May 31, which was double the amount of two years ago.
Ministry of Social Development Wellington regional commissioner Louise Waaka apologised for Taueu’s experience.
‘‘We’re sorry Olive has had an issue with her emergency accommodation and we’re investigating as a matter of urgency what actually went wrong so we can prevent it from happening again,’’ she said.
‘‘As soon as we were made aware of the problem, we supported Olive to move to her current, three-bedroom house, where she is able to stay while we work closely with her to find her a permanent home.’’
Taueu said the bedbugs incident was typical of the way she and people in her situation were treated by the agency.
‘‘It’s like we aren’t even humans, the way we’re treated. All I want is a home of our own.’’
After one night in the car she was moved into a Porirua emergency house, where she can stay for 60 days, but fears what will happen when the lease runs out.
She had applied for numerous private rentals – and continued to apply – but believed landlords were put off by single parents.
‘‘Now that Zion is five I need to look for fulltime work, but how can I find fulltime work when I don’t have a fulltime house? I just hope she’s too little to remember any of this – the way we had to live.’’
Waaka said the department had been doing everything it could to help the pair find a home.
‘‘We’re very conscious of the urgent need for the family to have suitable, long-term accommodation.’’
There was a national issue of more people needing homes than there were available, and in Porirua it was no different.
‘‘The social housing register is not a time-ranked waitlist – people who have been assessed as having the greatest need are matched to appropriate housing as a priority. ‘‘
As of the end of March, the median wait time for families on the list or waiting for a transfer was 64 days. A quarter of all families waited longer than 150 days.
Housing NZ said there were no two or three-bedroom properties available in Porirua – an area of high demand.
Over the next two to three years the agency was looking to deliver 70 homes for the city, a spokesman said.