Society and environment

New Zealand’s housing crisis is by no means an easy fix, however, with the right interventions surely the issues can be surmounted. Peter Fuller's  article titled “Major's solution to the country's housing crisis - think tiny”. The story highlights the potential for homes to be smaller, costing less and states, “Gattsche believes he can put together a 24 square metre home plus a mezzanine bedroom for just over $90,000. Nigel Gattsche (ex NZ army) believes that these small homes would be an efficient building and a comfortable home. Seen bellow, the house looks functional and could be added to with large decks and verandas’ increasing the living space. Source: Stuff NZ. New Zealand house prices are amongst some of the highest in the world. According to an article by Ben Leathy from NZ Herald, titled “NZ house prices most overvalued in world, behind only Hong Kong”, New Zealand as you may have guessed is second behind Hong Kong. The article by Leathy point...

Misleading or confusing news stories makes for tedious reading. I’ve found an article from Scoop titled KiwiBuy the only answer to the housing shortage which was written as a media release by the Salvation Army. This story falls mainly within the confusing bracket, however, it could be argued that when confused, readers can become lost and therefore miss the point completely. The title makes a bold and somewhat biased statement; for starters there are 101 things that could make buying or building a home more affordable. So to say, ‘KiwiBuy is the only way’ is in my opinion somewhat short-sighted.   Maybe the title could say, “KiwiBuy scheme makes housing more affordable for low income bracket”. The lead-in sentence states, “Growing homelessness, rent rises and struggles for private investors could be on the way without serious changes to the housing market, The Salvation Army says”. Does this mean private investors will be struggling less? Also, what is meant by hous...