Mastodawn

"NZers are fair-minded people, we're always focused on helping those in need. But we also need to reclaim our main streets and town centres for the enjoyment of people who live here, people who visit, people who work here, and want to be able to work and operate in a safe and welcoming environment."

#PaulGoldsmith, NZ Minister of inJustice, 2026

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=e5d39797-5bff-4381-96d5-9fbe3f883b83

This made me swear loudly at my longsuffering podcast app

(1/?)

#podcasts #RNZ #FocusOnPolitics #homelessness #MoveOnOrders

Focus on Politics podcast

The big political issues unpacked every week.

RNZ

Because it's a bald-faced fucking lie. If we, as a country, were ...

> always focused on helping those in need

... There wouldn't be people sleeping on the streets, or teenagers pushing their few possessions around in shopping carts. There weren't when I was a child, because back then we *were*.

(2/?)

Almost everything NatACT First have done in government - like the Key regime before them - has made life harder for those in need. They were warned by social service agencies that this would happen, and they did it all anyway. They've been focused on helping the most comfortable - like the landlords with their billions in tax loopholes - not our most vulnerable.

(3/?)

At every turn, NatACT First policy has been been based on a designed neglect of the social fabric, to make the beancounters happy.

Now the effects of all this are inconveniencing the comfortable, their policy is to scapegoat our most vulnerable citizens, with what I'm going to start calling VictimBlaming Orders. Designed purely to sweep the problem of homelessness under the rug, where those who own multiple homes don't have to see the consequences of their obscene wealth accumulation.

(4/?)

Normally I end a #NZPolitics rant like this with a policy suggestion. But I honestly cant see the point. Not when government policy is creating the problem (I believe strategically), and Labour's idea of a solution is probably to give each visibly homeless person 3 free sandwiches a week, and wait for our applause.

When electoral politics is failing us so completely, to continue to play that game is to be complicit in what politicians are doing. It's clearly time to try something else.

(5/?)

So I call for strictly nonviolent Direct Action in solidarity with our homeless whānau.

Eg for every person issued a VictimBlaming Order in the Auckland CBD, a large window belonging to a corporate chain store nearby should be smashed. Or some other easy, expensive and highly inconvenient damage. Same in any other main street and city centre where they try this shit.

Sometimes we just have to draw a line in the sand and say 'no further'. Whatever the consequences for us.

(6/?)

I specify corporate chains, because if there are any independent shops hanging on in the CBD, their owners may be as horrified by the VictimBlaming Orders as the rest of us. However, if the owners of non-chain shops have been in the media making dehumanising comments about our homeless whānau, and supporting VictimBlaming Orders, they're fair game. Fuck 'em.

If the only language these people understand is money, let's be good communicators, and speak to them in their preferred language.

(7/?)

Enough is enough, or as the Zapatistas say, "Ya Basta!";

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akLO_2hjMQM

Can't hear the lyrics?

https://deadvicious.bandcamp.com/track/ya-basta-enough

But although they weren't afraid to use Direct Action when it seemed strategic, it's important to note that it was only one plank of their meta-electoral politics.

Mutual Aid is equally important, and they also rallied their communities to collectively provide health care, and other services their people weren't getting from the Mexican colonial state.

(8/?)

Dead Vicious "Ya Basta"

YouTube

Satisfying as it is to break the windows of shops owned by victim-blaming, mega-rich sociopaths, Mutual Aid is of much more practical use to our homeless whānau in the short term. Let's do that too, ideally in coordinated ways.

We need to talk about what under-utilised resources we have in our communities. How we might gather and organise around them, to make life easier for those currently excluded from housing.

(9/?)

Some Mutual Aid ideas off the top of my head;

* Who has empty rooms - residential or otherwise - that could be used for community-based emergency shelter (squats?)? With built-in wrap-around services like what the Peoples Project do in Kirikiriroa, to help them find permanent homes.

* Who has trees dropping more fresh food than they can eat, or vege gardens doing the same? How can we coordinate gathering that, preparing fruit salads and cold meals, and delivering those on the streets?

(10/?)

Some Mutual Aid ideas off the top of my head (cont'd);

* Are there people with electrical skills willing to do their own quiet Direct Action? Vampire tapping into the electricity supplies of shops whose owners support VictimBlaming Orders, to create discrete USB charging stations for the devices our homeless whānau manage to keep working?

* Is there a way to create more gratis, surveillance-free wireless net connections (Meshtastic?), and help homeless whānau learn to use them?

(11/?)

Some Mutual Aid ideas off the top of my head (cont'd);

* are people with plumbing skills willing to follow the electrical example mentioned above, and that of the Water Pressure Group's Turn-On Squads? Tapping into the pipes of victim-blaming merchants to discretely improve access to clean drinking and washing water for our homeless whānau

* Could we collect seconds rejected by overloaded op shops and bound for landfill, to supply, clothing, blankets, etc, especially as it gets colder?

(12/?)

I could go on and on, covering laundry services, health triage with organised transport to public health facilities, etc, etc. But hopefully I've got the point across. People are living in heartbreaking deprivation in our country, not because there isn't enough to go round, but because it's poorly distributed. In the words of the P2P Foundation motto;

"Together we know everything, together we have everything"

(13/?)

Capitalists want us to think the commons are theirs. Just because they have the power to enclose them and charge us rents for access, and the failure of conscience to do so. But in the words of David Rovics;

"It’s the commons, our right of birth
And to you who would enclose the land all around the Earth
Our future is your downfall, when we cut this ball and chain
You who’d sacrifice the public good for your private gain"

https://www.davidrovics.com/songbook/the-commons/

(14/?)

#commons #DavidRovics

A few more thoughts that came to me as I subedited this thread, and made sure all typos weren't just moved on, but found good homes ; }

Squatting is a vastly underutilised strategy in Aotearoa. Especially given that so much of our built environment sits empty, even in cities with chronic and highly visible housing shortages. But being found in a squatted building comes with legal risks, that some of us are in a better position to handle than others.

(15/?)

Empty buildings we're pretty sure are landbanked and ignored could make excellent Mutual Aid night shelters, if they've got back or side entrances people can use to come and go discretely.

Obviously we'd need a well-organised legal support team ready to act 24/7, in case they got the book thrown at them for being there. But that's a good thing to set up for dealing with Victim-Blaming Orders anyway. As well as to support anyone arrested for solidarity-motivated window smashing.

(16/?)

Another tactic; staunch radicals in rentals opening up squats, and moving in themselves, taking on legal risks they're trained and prepared to deal with. While continuing to pay rent on their rentals, and letting people who find themselves blacklisted by landlords have rooms there.

This could be combined with the wraparound services mentioned upthread. Helping people struggling to get into rentals to get ID, get on adequate benefits, get bonds from WINZ and so on.

(17/?)

As with people who've been unemployed for a while, another common obstacle to getting into a rental is a lack of recent references. When I was at WINZ the other day I saw a poster for a workshop on creating a "housing CV".

As with references for jobs, there's absolutely no reason housing references can't be ... creative. Stretching the truth just enough to give people who've been without a secure home for a while a fair shot at fixing that.

(18/?)

#housing #RentalHousing #HousingCVs

There are things we can do as isolated individuals to support homeless people. But this is a lonely way to do social solidarity, and when we do it together, the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. As we say in the rainbow gatherings;

When we share, we create abundance.

That includes sharing the work of Mutual Aid and dismantling the support systems of tyranny.

(19/19)

#solidarity #sharing