Just over two years ago, Housing Minister Nick Smith announced that "this year" the Government was developing a housing warrant of fitness, writes Brian Rudman.

You'd be surprised just how hard it is to find a family willing to let a Herald writer snoop around their home and ask all sorts of intrusive questions about their substandard living conditions, writes Peter Calder.

Cold, damp housing is a significant issue facing children, with a paediatrician calling for more to be done to change the culture of accepting unfit houses.

Children are more likely to be in material hardship relative to the rest of the population in New Zealand than in any European country.

A bill aiming to give financial parity between the carers of foster children and children raised by their grandparents was passed in Parliament tonight but it wont take effect until 2018.

One of New Zealand’s most experienced private investigators offers advice on how to deal with stalkers.

The Government recognised in last week's Budget that the gap between market and benefit incomes has become too wide.

A mathematical model designed to predict children at risk of abuse will be trialled with data about children reported to Child, Youth and Family.

The Children's Commissioner wants a rethink of universal services so more public spending can go to the neediest families.

Police have asked welfare staff to look into the case of a mother who was allegedly drunk when she dropped her child at school.

More than 860 victims who were abused while in state care have been given the option of a fast-track settlement.

The petition comes as the Salvation Army said it fed 9.5 per cent more people last year in its Midland region than it did in the year before.

Lauren Knight recalls the night police visited her house after an anonymous bystander wrongly reported her for slapping her children.

A major shift to more voucher-type funding of social services, including health and education, is proposed in a new official report.

A controversial anti-vaccination organisation has come under fire for comparing compulsory vaccination to rape in a social media post.

The This Doesn't Mean Yes campaign is tackling the insidious myth of women 'asking for it' through clothing or behaviour.

New welfare benefit figures confirm that New Zealand is splitting into two: Auckland and Christchurch, and everywhere else.

A cafe owner in the US who was 'heartbroken' to discover a homeless person was searching her rubbish for food has put up a sign inviting them to come inside for a free meal.

Larger subsidies for first-home buyers and extended paid parental leave are among a raft of Government changes which kick in tomorrow.

The conservative Maxim Institute think-tank has joined the call for official targets to reduce child poverty.

Kelly Brown found a new "family" on the streets of Auckland after being removed from his biological family at the age of 7.

A tough new policy cracking down on beneficiaries with unresolved arrest warrants has resulted in the issuing of thousands of alerts.

Leading Maori tribes are lobbying to get first bidding rights for state houses when they start going up for sale this year.

It is difficult to erase the suspicion that the social housing policy is motivated by ideology as much as anything else, writes John Armstrong.

Why are we burdening some of the poorest mothers in the country with lifetime debts while writing off the tax debts of some of our richest citizens?

Latest figures show 309,145 people, or 11 per cent of the working-age population, were receiving a benefit at the end of December.

The ten largest amounts of wrongly acquired benefits totaled more than $2.14m last year - but advocates say most of the $23 billion paid out was genuinely needed.

The latest figures show nearly one quarter of our 1.1 million children under 18 live in households with very low incomes after housing costs.

The queues start about 3am each day, but the Auckland City Mission says just a third of the donations it needs this Christmas have been raised.

Hundreds of families from as far away as Hamilton are queuing at the Auckland City Mission for help to put food on the table this Christmas.