What future for Hamilton?

'The Tron, City of the Future.' It's a common response I give to people who are negative about Hamilton. Many of them have never visited here.

I am unrelenting in being positive about the city I call home. I have chosen to live here for 22 years, even though I have many other choices.

As Hamilton City Council consults on its 10-year plan, we all have a chance to say what that "city of the future" will look like.

Will it be run-down and dowdy because today's ratepayers have refused to pay for necessary maintenance? Will it lack parks and reserves because we have sold them all off to pay for debt accumulated by earlier bad decisions? Will we have more homeless people living on the streets because we have let the council sell off its social housing to pay off those debts?

Dealing with all of these issues requires us to have a long-term commitment and vision for our city, rather than a short-term cost-cutting approach. I'm in this for the long haul.

Of all the issues being dealt with in the 10-year plan, I am most passionately opposed to the sale of the council's pensioner housing.

Our society should be judged on how we treat our young and our elderly.

I want to live in a city that is compassionate about both, and that means the provision of housing for those who have fallen on hard times and can't afford market rentals in their twilight years.

After all, they are not the ones who convinced council to run the V8s, build the Waikato Stadium or take on any of the other ill-conceived projects that have put our council into debt. It was mainly 'business interests' which did that.

Some councillors are trying to feel better about their vote to sell social housing be saying they will sell to a 'sympathetic' read charitable - organisation. Those organisations have less resources and experience to provide social housing than our council, so how will they manage if our council is claiming that it can't?

I have seen this all before. Back in the 1980s, Government sold - virtually gave away - rest homes to charitable organisations. By the late 1990s almost all of those rest homes had been sold to the private sector which now requires a profit to be made on their investments. It is our frail elderly who pay the price for that profit.

For example, Trevellyn Home and Hospital, once owned and operated by Presbyterian Social Services, is now owned by an international corporate company called Oceania.

The point is history shows us that, no matter how well meaning, charitable organisations will struggle to provide services to the elderly and are able to then sell them to the private sector without any say from the community.

While pensioner housing is in the hands of our council we do get a say over them and now is the time that we must stand up and demand a compassionate and humane city.

Contact: Sue Moroney(07) 839 6803