Shortage of affordable housing takes toll

The single mother with a BA in psychology and education earns $44,000 as service co-ordinator for the Waipareira Trust's wrap-around programme, while raising her two teenagers and one-year-old, and looking after a whanau member who stays with them.

Her income means she doesn't qualify for an accommodation supplement to help meet private sector housing costs. Nor can she get a childcare subsidy. And with 7000 Aucklanders on the waiting list, she wouldn't get near a state house of her own.

But after paying the rent, childcare costs and student loan repayments, Henare has less to come and go on than even her worst-off clients - $60 a week for food, clothing and bills.

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