Read the whole article

The first paragraph grabs you:

A family of 11 are living in a four-bedroomed state house in Shirley, as Christchurch’s rental housing drought continues to bite.

Three are sleeping on the floor. There is only one bathroom, and they take shifts watching television in the lounge.

The extended family of Somali refugees say they are living in Third World conditions. Because of limited hot water supplies, the only shower in the house has a roster.

The kitchen transforms to a “restaurant” at dinner time, the one washing machine is also rostered and scores of shoes crowd the front door.

“In some parts of the world people are living in Third World conditions, but it is not acceptable in New Zealand,” resident Naema Warsame, 33, said.

Sounds like an awful failure on behalf of the state. Why would they put 11 people in a house too small?

A Housing New Zealand spokeswoman said the agency told Refugee Services Warsame’s family could not be housed in Christchurch “because we had no vacant homes”.

She said the new arrivals moved into the Shirley state house without the permission of Housing New Zealand.

So they just took it over? And now they are complaining about it? And they were told there are no vacant homes in Christchurch?  Yet this gets a third of the page three.

Hayden said Warsame’s family had turned down three houses in Christchurch because the family thought they were in the wrong suburb or too damp.

The wrong suburb? So you get to compare NZ to the third world because your 11 person family is choosy about what suburb to live in?