The Children's Commissioner says the Wellbeing Budget is a good start for children but it falls short when it comes to housing.
Andrew Becroft says housing is at the root of child poverty in New Zealand and increasing social housing stock needs to be a priority.
"The government looked at benefits, there's a family package, there's indexing of benefits to wages, that's all great. But the holistic package is going to need the next step of radically increasing what I call our social housing stock," said Mr Becroft.
"This is decades of neglect and there's been a chronic failure for probably 30 years or so. But all the economists make the point very clearly. We've just simply got to build and build and the government's got to have more state houses available. That's now a priority."
Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
When the budget was announced, students from Auckland's Tamaki College told First Up what they wanted to see out of the budget and highlighted the difficulty some of their families have making ends meet since they were evicted from their Housing New Zealand homes.
They said they were spending up to forty dollars every week catching public transport to school from their new homes in South Auckland and are working part-time jobs to help their parents, who are working two jobs, to cover the increased cost of a private rental.
"That's not what we want from our young people - to be almost secondary breadwinners to pay for family expenses. That's a sign of what we see around New Zealand," Mr Becroft said in response to hearing the stories.
"In one sense it would draw tears from stone," he said.
"I've met similar children of different ages around the country and I hear about overcrowding in homes and families struggling. I hear about homes that aren't warm and dry or constant. I think housing is a big constant and actually I think that's one area where the budget didn't deliver.
"That's the reality of what child poverty means day by day and it's not good enough. It's not what we want for our children," said Mr Becroft.
The Principal of Tamaki's college, Soana Pamaka, says the Ministry for Social Development needs to reach out to families who were forced out of their community while MSD was responsible for the new housing redevelopment. Photo: RNZ / First Up
First Up has repeatedly contacted the the Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, but she has declined to be interviewed.
Tamaki MP Simon O'Connor and the Tamaki Regeneration Company who are in charge of the redevelopment, say those families forced out of the community are welcome to return if they want to.
Mr Becroft said he was heartened to hear the students share their stories and he supports their return to the community.
"As children's commissioner, I would certainly lend my voice to the fact that those who did all their schooling in that area, who were brought up in that area, whose families were rooted and grounded there, their friends are there, their community and sports activities are there - of course, it's a no brainer."
"There's no place like home and there's no place like being rooted in your own community. That's where they need to be" he said.
Mr Becroft says media coverage in the wake of the budget also opened up discussions for better access to dental care which he believes should be free of charge up to the age of 20.
He also hopes to see free school lunches implemented in school - but the first step is housing.
"We could do much better for our children and young people that are struggling."
