by Iride McCloy
A young family with four children and one with special needs have been told to vacate their house which is owned by the KCDC; a family that has had 4 generations living in Kapiti.
The family also wish to support one of the parents who suffers from serious health issues and, due to the stress placed on his children, is homeless.
The home that the family is living in has been placed on the market for sale. This follows a significant rent increase for the family by KCDC who claim that depreciation on the house is the reason for this increase! Mayor Krisnansay Gurunathan has written several articles on Social Housing claiming that KCDC is doing all possible to address the poverty and homelessness in Kapiti.
This family has been offered a much smaller house in Porirua and the distance from family and friends who are trying to support the family will exacerbate the hardship that they are already struggling with.
Housing has been one of Council’s priorities in addressing the special needs of the Kapiti Community and this inexcusable fiasco is an indictment on the credibility of the Council.
We have read of the KCDC debacle over the Council voting to borrow to reinvest in the market in the hope of extra revenue from it. This was retracted last week. With the huge amount of ratepayers monies paid to the staff, one could wish that the KCDC elected members would have sufficient financial acumen to understand the financials that are increasing the KCDC debt.
KCDC has long been one of the top 4 most indebted councils in NZ and one does not need to be a rocket-scientist to come to the conclusion that in desperation to address the shortfalls in its financials that they are selling off the Community’s social houses.
While we can acknowledge that the Mayor Krisnansay Gurunathan has had an extensive career in journalism, we can at least expect that there would be some financial business expertise with transparency and accountability from the Mayor and elected members who are going to use monies from the social housing sales to service debts. These appalling transactions are at the expense of the people who are in our community and require housing and support while on the poverty line!
One must now consider the last recourse of action available and that is to call for a “Protest march for all of Kapiti to come in support to address the Social Needs of our Community”.
Please e-mail the Mayor — k.gurunathan@kapiticoast.govt.nz — your views by the end of business on Tuesday as this is the deadline placed on the family!
Iride A. McCloy
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Note: this is a separate house from the pending sale of the one the occupants received a 3 months’ notice to vacate after the secret session of the council meeting on 5 December and which Gwynn Compton brought to people’s attention last month. –Eds Update: Following Cr Elliott’s acerbic comment, we asked the Mayor for comment, and received the response below from his Personal Assistant Ms George. Accordingly it seems unlikely that the Mayor will have seen any e-mails that readers may have sent him on this subject.
Why does this continued appalling behaviour from our Mayor and councillors not surprise me in the least. The majority are money hungry hearless @#%*&%#s who really don’t give a damn about their constituents
I would like to know where you got your ‘note’ information from, because it’s news to me and I’m a councilor, and Iride’s story is even more incorrect than the incorrect one of three weeks ago which has already been responded to in the newspapers. – To ‘Me’ don’t panic, there is a major problem with accuracy in this story.
Perhaps you may care to particularize what you consider to be inaccurate? We know that staff often try to slip things past councilors and Cr Benton has criticized them for doing so.
To add, if indeed there are now two families with four children including one with a disability then I agree the two house sales should be reconsidered with urgency by the Mayor and councilors as this crucial information was not in the original report and I would hope the outcome is completely different.
Hi Jackie ….I’m just curious ….. Is this report available for public viewing at all ? or just a briefing report to councillors from council ….. was it furnished to a committee or coucil meeting ie would it be in the minutes of such ?
Hi there Martin, this item came to councilors under the public excluded provision of the meetings rules due to it involving private persons. That is why I would like to establish where the information came from alleging that two families with four children are involved.
It is noted on page 9 of the minutes of the council meeting of the 6th of December 2018, on the KCDC website. (Disposal of land) When the draft minutes of the public excluded session are approved and become the minutes, a councilor can ask the Chair if the minutes can be released from ‘public excluded’ status and the chair and CE decide whether or not that can happen. So I note they are not accepted yet. Most of our councilors have just figured out they too can ask for P.E. minutes to be released. Geoffrey to answer your questions, the houses were never part of the social housing stock, and I certainly was not aware there were two families with 4 children involved. I wont be changing my vote because I did not vote in favour of the disposal.
I apologize if my response to you was, as you describe, acerbic, Mr Editor, but at least I am here trying to clear up this information. You see, the council considered the disposal of two properties. One of which we councilors do know did not have a family renting it. Now there are claims of two families of 4 children being given notice to vacate the properties……….? One claim three weeks ago and now a second claim on behalf of another family …… hence my questions.