Lord Mayor’s roll is a Servant Leader

The political roll in all aspects of public life should be one of a SERVANT LEADER and this is not often seen in our world where self-gratification has become the most popular motivation in so many people’s lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0f–B_rWUs&t=5s

In the link above I have tried to explain how a council needs to be focused on the real needs of the most vulnerable in our communities. We have a number of vulnerable groups of people in Newcastle and none are really recieving assistance that is needed to help them to become self-sufficent and self-sustaining.

The homeless:
The homeless need urgent assistance to find housing. Limited action by all levels of government but many pious platitudes concerning “affordable housing” while the mean cost of rent in Newcastle is $647 per week – $117 more than the amount that a single pensioner gets each week ($530.00). This is not good enough! Housing costs are increasing because of many ill-considered programs of successive governments since at least 1960, that all levels of government have put into place to appease some so as to woo their vote at elections – long term problems were not their concern as te problems were just “kicked down the road’ for another day to solve. Not Good enough!
There are many Housing Commision units that are vacant awaiting “repairs” before they can be made available. In one area, I understand that there are over 50 units vacant. Not good enough!
Approved developments of affordable housing actually mean that a development that has 15% of the units available at 10% lower costs than the rest is an affordable housing development. – Facts if 50 units are constructed with a prospect of $1,000.00 per week rent and 8 of those units were to be made available at $900.00 or lower then that is deemed affordable housing. A person on basic wages earns $914.00 per week which is $14.00 more than the claimed affordable rent. Not good enough!

All levels of government must begin to correct this staggering problem; at council level keeping rates as low as possible will be an assistance and yet more cna be done if council were to adopt a real target of what affordable housing actually is. I suggest that the “bullseye” should be $106.0 per week (20% of the single pension) and an outer ring should be about $265.00 per week (50% of the single pension). These seemingly impossible targets are not going to be reached easily but without a target we will never achieve any housing for the most vulnerable. To achieve this housing supply must be increased, government charges must be either removed of radically reduced, from the council we could offer discounted rates for those who significantly reduce their rents toward the target goals. Together we can achieve a lot if we remember that we are our our brother’s keeper and let compassion flow through out the whole community. Together we can achieve a lot – we can and we must achieve this!