Help Jono Keep the Tiny House He's Building!

Jono has been on sickness benefits for a while now. He is extremely talented and always willing to help others anyway he can.

I have known Jono for a while now through being a flatmate, builder, etc. on my property in the past.

It has been extremely hard for Jono over the years to get suitable accommodation on his own. I offered him the opportunity to build a tiny house at the back of my section as a way to give him some independence and something to work on. In 6 months, Jono designed and single handedly built the entire tiny house until Lower Hutt Council interfered and stopped him through a series of Notices to Fix and Abatement Notices.

The Hutt City, like many places in NZ, suffers from acute house shortage, which mostly affects the poor and unemployed like Jono.

HCC has developed a new Housing Strategy, which has been brewing in the bottom of the Council's Drawer of Good Intentions for three years now, while people suffer quietly and live in their cars, garages and under bridges.

Instead of going around begging, Jono decided to do something about his desperate situation; build his own house, the same way pioneers did in this country since 1858. Those independent, proud and dignified souls didn't wait for councils and charities to do it for them, they did it themselves - Resilience, self-sufficiency and helping others are the values that this country is built on. Let's keep them alive.

As of today and for the last quarter, Hutt City chewed over $1.8 million in emergency housing subsidies. Yes, SUBSIDIES. Money that could have been spent enabling people to own something -perhaps little - but durable to live in it with dignity. Something similar to the thousands of transportable homes, mobile homes, etc. you see around the world. But, that what happens when common sense fails and bureaucracy gets in the way in values stated above. instead, HCC adopts self defeatism, bureaucratic arrogance and Thou Shall Do What Told mantra. Shame really!

Now Jono has the chance of living in his own space if he can convince the District Judge on 29 October that the structure he has built is a vehicle and not a building.

Jono followed every article in the Building Code to ensure that what he built is in fact a vehicle. But that wasn't enough to assuage HCC's fears and loathing in Taita unfortunately. Now it's up for the judge to decide on the matter. And to win, Jono will need a good lawyer who knows his/her way around the court system and legal trenches and pitfalls.

Help Jono Keep the House He Built today!. Thank you.