Housing Minister Nick Smith and Auckland Mayor Len Brown have jointly announced a government plan to construct as many as 6000 new Auckland homes, where homeless people can be hidden so that “no one has to worry or think about them.”
The houses, which should be approved by Christmas and will be dispersed throughout a large selection of Auckland’s suburbs, will look and feel like the homes of normal families, but actually contain dirty homeless people, who will face a strict curfew between the hours of 4am and 11pm.
“This is an important and significant step towards tackling a long-standing problem in our community,” said Brown, flanked by Dr. Smith and a soft-serve machine. “As Mayor, I speak to people each and every day who tell me, ‘Len, we think you’re doing a great job, but we’re just sick and tired of having to see those homeless down on Queen Street, interrupting our lunch and getting stink all over the footpath.’”
Smith echoed Brown’s comments, saying that it was “unacceptable, unfathomable” that, in a modern, socially conscious city, passers-by would have to be confronted with the economic consequences of their consumerism.
“The Government understands this,” he said, “which is why we’re taking a meaningful series of measures to ensure that no Aucklander is made to feel guilty by a stranger in their own city.”
Both men agreed it was important that homeless people “not be seen,” and believed that 6000 homes would be “more than enough” to hide the city’s entire population of homeless people.
“Obviously it will vary by neighbourhood,” said Brown, “but don’t expect to see only a single homeless to a house. We’ll try to use the space as economically as possible, and by the end of it, we’ll probably even have a couple thousand houses left over. We’ll connect those ones to the city’s water and power supply.”
The Auckland City Council is billing the construction project as a more comprehensive version of Wellington’s homeless policy, which gave every homeless person a suit and ten movie tickets.