Housing New Zealand has ignored repeated warnings from senior government officials that it is misusing methamphetamine contamination guidelines to evict its tenants.

The Ministry of Health has repeatedly told Housing New Zealand that its methamphetamine guidelines were to be applied only for the…

Underlying this mess is the National Party's ideology that the state shouldn't be…

Welfare with a big stick

After researching poverty internationally for over 20 years, Darrin Hodgetts finds a "victim-blaming, punitive approach" to welfare in his home country New Zealand, where the poor are punished for being…

There was a hell of a frost in Chchch last night by the…

It mightn't be the house that's the problem but I hope the shift helps them one way or another. Jess handles things amazingly, imho, considering the circumstances she's been through in life until now... over and over…

So how do the homeless get on the electoral roll, given the above rules? There's probably enough of them now…

Same firm as today's story. They…

Hopkins said the discovery was made after potential buyers decided to have the house tested on their lawyer’s advice.

She said an inspector visited her home and took eight swabs – but put…

http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago613529.html

"At least one in every 100 New Zealanders were homeless at the latest census in 2013, compared with 1 in 120 in 2006, and 1 in 130 in 2001, say University of Otago, Wellington (UOW) researchers."

I wonder whether John Key can quote another scientist…

Yes, I'm pretty much saying that those are real and known hazards. The possibility of getting some meth on you, when it doesn't actually kill people who directly ingest it straight into…

Actually the guidelines suggest that the meth residue is very much the issue…

Well, no, I was only talking about the cases of “contamination by users”. But yes, with those qualifications, that was my TLDR. In the other kind of contamination, the meth residue itself would hardly seem to be the issue. It’s the fact that highly concentrated and toxic chemicals…

Not exactly. It's important to differentiate between houses…

I live in a house that was recently painted. Thus, solvents. There will be detectable levels of solvents in the house from that, cleaning products, and various other things which could cause serious health effects in sufficient quantity. Don't huff paint, kids. But it's not…

Minimal being an unspecified very small amount.

I'm…

No, their graphic still punts for "??,000 to ???,000". Helpful approximation, innit?

In South Auckland in particular, overcrowded houses are becoming the norm. I was talking to…

Have they updated their website RB? I see it saying it will be in the tens of thousands

http://www.trademe.co.nz/browse/categoryattributesearchresults.aspx?134=1&135=8&136=32,269&153=&132=FLAT&59=0&59=0&122=0&122=0&29=&123=0&123=0&search=1&sidebar=1&cid=5748&rptpath=350-5748-

And there is stuff all on offer,…

Have a look at the detailed Ministry of Health guidelines linked in the original post.

Some comments here from toxicologists:

Two things. If there's any truth in that at all:

1. They're obviously still…

Bill English would chalk that up as a surplus!

http://www.who.int/ipcs/features/chemicals_concern/en/

The current levels at which a house is considered 'contaminated' with meth is one two millionth of a gram .5ug .......... over an area…

Hasn't that been the case in NZ since before we had drug squads, back when the vice squads enforced drug laws? Exercise caution around filthy hippies with posh accents, you never can…

Oh, that crowd went through the P thing years ago. No one ever tests stately villas for meth.…

Looking at that website they're just a bunch of wideboys clothed in slick language.

what a market! should get em to run housing.

http://www.snopes.com/business/money/cocaine.asp

Except this is like testing a beneficiaries wallet and cancelling their benefit if cash tests positive. This is not to be taken as a suggestion, it is to be taken as an illustration of how stupid the policy is.

Probably not very, according to, y'know, toxicologists.

Apparently there might be hundreds of thousands of properties used as meth labs in New Zealand!

Or to put…

For that matter, is meth residue even harmful at all? What is a harmful level? How harmful? I expect most money that we touch with our hands a lot has meth residue on it,…

$20,000 in remediation costs for smoking P in a house?

Over the last few years, Housing New Zealand has placed greater focus on identifying homes where P may be used, or may have been used in the past (rather…

Ah, legal aid was cut back and made harder to get years ago.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/10285613/Legal-aid-funding-limits-creating-justice-gap

It started way back in November 2008.

I'd say it's been a steady progression. A gradual erosion of the concept of social welfare that's been going on for as long as I can remember.

This housing stuff is particularly crazy though. Our economic system went through the looking glass decades…

Depending on what power the department is exercising to do this, that could be grounds for judicial review.

Absolutely.

Maybe it's because I'm a bit jetlagged but this has left me quite depressed and horrified.

I know those working in our social services can become war weary and cynical. But this policy is just inhumane. When did our society become so uncaring? At…

I think you have mistaken the purpose of the system. This is not a just system, it is an economy.When justice conflicts with money, we choose money. Yay us! Vote money! The good news is that people are increasingly voting for more justice even if…

I don’t know at…

It basically runs counter to everything our National Drug Policy says.

That would be an interesting line of inquiry with the responsible ministers.

It would be handy if it showed which companies Housing NZ is using.

Specifically, what should be an indication that extra help is required is being used to dump people on the streets with no help at all.

Many of these companies are using consumer reagent testing kits.

And as…

Exactly.

I think you'll find I was considerably longer winded :).

Without knowing the details of the testing method it's hard to guess at thresholds.

Even more worrying, we know nothing about the methods used by the testing companies, sampling regimes, cleaning of equipment…

Much better question: do any of the cleanup companies only get paid when the house tests negative?

For that matter, can a former tenant pay for their own test and what are the…

You'd think so but this isn't about protecting kids from meth-contaminated houses. As Russell said in the post, it's about targeting lifestyle and…

If it's anything like the Narcotics Identification Kit tests used by border services all over the world, it's exposing a sample to a…

Yes, if it was done properly, we’d be able to see the entire ROC curve, and judge for ourselves how worthless it was. The sensitivity/specificity trade off occurs in…

“So she’ll clock up this debt for another six months and then go back to Housing New Zealand seeking assistance with a debt of probably in…

Recently there was a change in the advice MDs got regarding testing for prostate cancer. The situation was that a simple (cheap) test was…

... the government had wanted it to.

I know of more than one investor who was willing to take low/deferred returns if they could pile into Christchurch and help with emergency accommodation or repairs. It could have been a bureaucratic nightmare…

We didn't actually get tax cuts, we got tax increases. The proportion of growth in GDP that went to tax, under Labour, was 12%; while the proportion of growth in GDP that went to tax, under National, has been 18%.…

Provided Anne Tolley meets the Standing Orders deadlines, answers should start to appear at the above link in the next day or two.

I still remember the Government's corralling of 350 camper vans after the earthquakes – of which only one was used!!
They cost only $190 a week (not a night) yet still cost…

Based on that story, it looks like the most obvious first step would be to…

I think this is the year we really went through the rabbit hole. If we re-elect the government that presided over this rapid slide into shocking poverty, we will have gone through the looking glass.

Which argues that the drug test is being used as an excuse to throw people out of…

Good lord. How could it be part of any serious budget? Nobody with any financial acumen believes that money will be repaid, so putting into any…

Current Minister seems aware of that.

an online petition with more than 6000 signatures was created calling for Ministry of Social Development Minister Anne Tolley to wipe emergency accommodation debt accrued before…

Sounds like a fantastic social enterprise.

We got the tax cuts and everybody was all smiles.

Now we have the consequences.

There is no money…

He says the house was not…