Motel home to family
A homeless family are being charged four-star prices for a South Auckland motel while they search for permanent accommodation and the taxpayer is picking up the tab.
Work and Income is paying $2200 a week for Rastaman and Tuaine Murray and their 12-yearold son Kaya, who uses a wheelchair, to stay at a motel in Otahuhu until they find somewhere to live long-term.
They’ve been at the motel, which has a three-star rating on the website Booking.com, since December last year.
The family’s entire possessions are in the room, which contains a double and single bed, small fridge and bathroom.
Rastaman serves as a full-time carer to Tuaine, who’s going blind due to diabetes. The Murrays previously lived in a state house in Papakura for more than a decade.
Rastaman, 37, says they left it suddenly when armed men showed up one night in August 2015 and demanded money.
Housing NZ considers the family ‘‘abandoned’’ the home. The agency suspended them from tenanting another of its properties until December last year.
Tuaine, 38, says any home they’re offered needs to accommodate Kaya’s disability.
‘‘We have to show them [Work and Income] quotes that we’re looking for a house. I said to them ‘I’m burned out. We’ve been doing this for so long that you’ve burned us all out’.’’
Manukau East MP Jenny Salesa has offered to help the Murrays. She says the weekly cost to house the family is ‘‘exorbitant’’ and emergency accommodation in boarding houses and motels in her electorate is ‘‘pretty much full’’.
‘‘We shouldn’t have to pay these kinds of amounts to supply basic shelter for vulnerable, homeless families.’’
See sidebar, right, for Ministry of Social Development comment on the family’s situation.
permanent to stay.’’
McKenzie confirms the ministry is paying $2200 a week for the Murrays to stay at the Otahuhu motel. He says the cheapest accommodation may not always be suitable.
‘‘While we work with people to avoid debt, the priority is responding to an emergency need.
‘‘One of the challenges we face is when clients repeatedly exhibit behaviour that makes them unattractive to landlords and many motel owners - the kind of behaviour that saw the family become ineligible for a Housing NZ property for 12 months.’’
The Murrays have a high priority rating but there’s a limited number of properties available that meet their needs as well as landlords willing to take a chance on them, McKenzie says.
‘‘We are working to find a permanent home for the family despite these challenges because their son needs a stable home.’’