http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11553671&ref=NZH_Tw
Growing numbers of Kiwis risk becoming homeless in old age because of falling home ownership rates, rising rents and static housing subsidies, the Salvation Army says.
Homeless Baby Boomers, a hard-hitting report by the army’s social policy unit, says superannuitants in private rentals will jump almost four-fold from 61,000 in 2013 to 237,000 by 2030, as those owning their own homes drop from 73 per cent of the age group to 63 per cent.
It says rents have risen 4 per cent a year over the past five years, while the accommodation supplement has not changed since 2007, making it harder for many elderly renters to survive.
“Australian housing researchers are reporting increasing incidents of what they term first-time homelessness amongst people in their later middle age or early retirement years,” it says.
“These are people who have held down jobs and led fairly conventional lives until an event such as a relationship breakdown, redundancy, injury or a health setback means that they lose their housing and perhaps their income.