Nearing the end

An Auckland landmark, this former convent now in use as a boarding house for the poor is for sale. It has been for more than a year. The asking price was $2 million a year ago, and is now over $5 million. Built in 1922, with splendid arches in the Spanish Mission style, it has been in private ownership for slightly more than 20 years, after the Catholic Church sold it. During that time it is has deteriorated until it is now described as nothing but a slum. So the building is not responsible for the increase in asking price. What is?
The Auckland Council has recently removed heritage protection on the building; apparently because the listing meant that the building could not be removed, and the land is more valuable to developers without the building. Following that decision, Council has now “investigated” what was apparently already well known, and found infestation by rats; that the kitchen is filthy and totally unhygienic; the bathrooms and lavatories are in “disrepair”, meaning that fittings are broken and rotten; food waste and general rubbish is piled up around the outside of the building. The owner has therefore been served notices requiring him to meet health and safety regulations. Failure to comply within a month will mean that the landlord will be required to pay a fine (a “mere” $200,000 maximum), and cease running a boarding house. The property will become even more saleable as there will be no tenants.
Current residents pay between $200 and $240 per week, to stay in a slum. They will be unable to get alternative rented accommodation in the central city. Anyway, while this is said to be the worst of such places, it is (shockingly) not unique.

I fear that local and central government politicians will find true homelessness more possible to ignore than the “homelessness” of living in such a slum.