Here's a good story for you. One from around here.
In 2017 the New Zealand Government agreed to pilot a programme to resettle refugees in addition to the official quota.
Four organisations were selected for the pilot, one of which is in Christchurch.
So, in a few weeks, three families will be arriving in Christchurch. In total, there will be 16 people - 10 children and their parents landing in our city. Each family will be looked after by a group of people who live near them. The families arrive with essentially nothing, and the groups of locals are essentially responsible for helping their new friends to settle, integrate and contribute to their neighbourhoods.
Imagine how a $20 per week increase in rent would affect these families, and how a stable financial basis would affect the capacity to attend to less basic matters of life.
Imagine if there was a clear property ownership pathway for them that meant they didn't spend the next decade making someone else rich while trying to pull together a mortgage.
Imagine a neighbourhood designed to encourage connection between people, rather than retreat from strangers, and populated with people accustomed to practicing hospitality with people not quite the same as them.
That's my kind of neighbourhood. My kind of resettlement program. My kind of property system.
That could be our neighbourhoods. Our resettlement program. Our property system.
If we make it happen.
*For a rough (and unflattering) numerical comparison: In 2018 to-date, the USA has accepted a total of 13 refugees from Syria, and 41 from Iraq (the countries where the three families coming to Christchurch are from).