The Government and Auckland Council seem to be enthusiastically pursuing a plan to steal houses from Aucklanders, deprive them of their private property rights and use the houses to provide homes for dropkicks:
A proposal to use vacant houses in Auckland for the homeless or lower-income workers is being discussed by Auckland Council and the Government.
But it could be complicated by privacy concerns, because the plan would require utilities companies to find and contact the owners of homes which are not using any power or water.
The latest Census showed that the number of vacant properties in Auckland had risen from 6.6 per cent to 7.3 per cent of the city’s private dwellings – around 40,000 properties.
A large number of these were holiday homes or properties which were temporarily vacant. But a portion of them were “ghost houses” – deliberately left vacant long-term by investors who wanted capital gains without having to manage tenants.
Privacy issues are the least of our concern, what about private property rights? So what if they are empty, that is the right of the owner. So long as they are paying their rates and meeting other legal obligation why can’t they have the house empty?
This appears to be a massive overreach by the government and Auckland Council and is tantamount to state-sanctioned theft of private property. Will the next step be the creation of Gulags to reeducate people? That is what usually follows after the state starts taking private property.
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said he had spoken to ministers about finding a way to utilise these homes, and they had shown an interest.
“You could get utilisation of several thousand homes around Auckland that are just being left empty – maybe by developers who are thinking ‘We are just going to develop this place in 12 months’ time’.
“If we can make it easier for them to utilise that house that would obviously be a win-win for landlords, prospective tenants and for Government and council and tackling the housing crisis.”
Hey Phil! How does get f*cked sound? This sounds suspiciously like confiscation to me.
Goff said electricity company Vector could find out what houses have not used power for more than six months.
“So we can get accurate information, but we would need to find a way to ensure we were not in breach of privacy laws in doing that.
“Then the company themselves could write a letter to the property owner and said ‘We noticed your house isn’t being used at the moment‘, would you consider having it managed by Housing NZ or someone else?”
Again, how does get f*cked sound? Clearly the Mayor and Minister don’t think that the Privacy Act applies to them. In any case, why would anyone willingly let the Council place Housing Corp tenants in their asset unless of course, they wanted the property to significantly diminish in value? These private homeowners have chosen not to have tenants inside their assets and Phil Goff and the government are not only proposing to put tenants inside their assets but to put tenants from hell inside them!
The council and NGOs say vacant houses could potentially be used for the Housing First programme, which finds shelter for homeless people.
A Newspaper
Ahhh, at the risk of sounding repetitive here, but, GET F*CKED!
This is what happens when you let governments quietly erode your rights. This must be resisted as where it leads is a descent into Soviet-style confiscation of private property.
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