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| This is a turn of the century villa. |
When I left last night's election party, I walked down a nice street. It's a wide street, with mature trees, roundabouts to slow traffic, and million-dollar renovated villas set back on green lawns. There's a primary school round one corner and your pick of organic cafes round the other. It's not even the nicest street in Epsom.
The last time I'd walked the three blocks from my friend's house to my partner's house, I passed two people sleeping in their cars.
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| This is a 1997 Toyota Camry |
I didn't peek through their windows, any more than I'd peek through the window of one of the villas they were parked in front of. But the windows were steamed up with someone's breath, and one of the cars had a carefully placed sun visor thing across the windshield.
There are very few people that live in a car out of choice. It's a last resort, when all other options have been exhausted. It's a choice people make when they cannot find affordable accommodation, or a job which allows them to pay rent. When they can't access money to pay for a motel, even for a few nights. When their friends get tired of them sleeping on the couch, or maybe the friends don't have a couch, or maybe they don't have friends. Anyway. Few sleep in a car from choice. They do it because their only other option is sleeping rough(er), on the street.
So that was two streets: the one with the upper-middle-class folks in their tastefully renovated villas, and the people with no other option. The same street, worlds apart. This is inequality.
I'm middle class, and last night's election results won't unduly affect me. It's not me I'm worried about. It's my country. I thought we were better than this. I don't want to see people sleeping rough: not because I'm scared or offended by their presence, but because all New Zealanders have a right to a basic standard of living. A right which is currently not being met for a lot of people.
Today I've signed up to sponsor a New Zealand child through KidsCan. Because 260,000 New Zealand children - 1 in 4 - live in poverty, and today they need our help.
Further reading:
- Homelessness amongst young people in Christchurch is at record levels and pushing increasing numbers to live in overcrowded houses. (Radio NZ)
- Advocates working with the poor in south Auckland say the people they try to help have never had it so tough. (NZ Catholic)
- No end in sight for the homeless. (Stuff)
- More children will suffer under a re-elected National government because it's "in denial" over the reality of child poverty in New Zealand. (Stuff)
- Tax cuts 'won't help' poorest children. (Radio NZ)
Hoping I'd missed something, I googled National Party Child Poverty Plan, and found... not very much. Not enough. The first result was National’s tax cuts cost ten times more than Green’s child poverty measures from the Green Party website.
I would encourage you all - no matter how you voted yesterday - to check out KidsCan. This issue is important, and it's not going away.
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