Kāinga Ora: Punishment doesn't bring healing / A.J. Hendry
If we push more people into homelessness, we may find we're creating the very problem we say we're trying to solve...
This week the Coalition Government began their well signalled "crackdown" on what they have labelled as the "unruly behaviour" of some Kāinga Ora tenants.
The crackdown includes taking a harder line on tenants who breach their tenancies or get into rent arrears, the fundamental belief appearing to be that the threat of punishment - i.e eviction - would resolve antisocial behaviour and ensure prompt rental payments.
It comes in the context of a string of punitive policies - from cracking down on poor and traumatised kids through the justice system, to getting tougher on whānau in need of financial support through the welfare system - which elevate punishment as key to solving some of our countries most complex challenges.
The problem is that the issues we are talking about run deep. And though its not currently popular to seek to understand context, or ask why, many of these issues in our community have a whakapapa.
We may not like it, but the reality is, they are rooted in trauma, in poverty, in the fact that we have left generations of our people behind.
We can demand people change their behaviour. We can find the biggest stick in the world and whack people with it. But, punishment never brought healing. And until we begin to understand the reality of trauma and how it works in the real world, our ability to solve these challenges within our socity will be woefully lacking.
In fact, rather than solving the challenges we are facing, without a plan to rehouse, without an understanding of how housing insecurity and the threat of homelessness actually lays at the root of these social challenges we face, we risk simply moving deck chairs and exacerbating social harm.
I also think it is worth reminding ourselves that the poor do not have a monopoly on "unruly and antisocial behaviour". The rich, middle class, renters and land owners, can and are at times all capable of being bad neighbours.
I get concerned that whānau in Kāinga Ora whare are an easy scape goat for the anxieties that exists within our communities. Are there challenges in our communities, yes totally, but these aren't unique to whānau living in these properties.
These challenges are community challenges, and they require community solutions.
Does this mean that Kāinga Ora shouldn't move people on if have caused harm, are causing harm, and continue to breach their tenancies?
No, there may be times where eviction is the only option. However, it absolutely should be the last option after every other option has been explored and exhausted.
And it should always come with the ability and obligation by Kāinga Ora to rehouse those whānau, rather than pushing them into homelessness.
Housing is not a privilege as some have attempted to name it. It is a basic human need. And when we deny it to people, all those social concerns we're talking about, well they only get worse.
We cannot punish our way into a healthier community.
Not every problem can be solved with a hammer.
If we want to solve any of these complex issues we're facing, we must learn to listen to understand. Because, once we understand what is happening for our people, we will be better equipped to respond.
#LoveIsTheWay
A.J. Hendry is a Laidlaw College graduate, and a Youth Development Worker and rangatahi advocate, working in the Youth Housing and Homelessness space. He leads Kick Back, a service supporting rangatahi experiencing homelessness and is also an advocate working collectively to end youth homelessness in Aotearoa. He is also the curator and creator of When Lambs Are Silent.