Eight months dead in a council house

Clio Francis at Stuff reports:

A second pensioner lay dead in a Wellington council flat for at least eight months – and was found the same year as fellow tenant Michael Clarke died.

An investigation by The Dominion Post has revealed that Wiremu Whakaue died in his one-bedroom flat in Adelaide Rd in 2009, but his body was not discovered until March 2010.

I do not believe the City Council should be a housing provider. I do not think it is their role, and further more they seem to be very bad at it.

Assistance with housing needs is the responsibility of central Government, not local. City Councils should not be building hospitals or schools, they should not be providing welfare benefits and they should not be providing housing.

Their apartments should be sold to Housing NZ, where tenants would enjoy subsidised income related rents, or to community housing providers who will keep rents at the same level. Both would ensure, I am confident, that tenants are not lying dead for almost a year in their properties. The City Council should focus on the responsibilities it has that no one else has, rather than try and be a landlord.