I had a huge response on Facebook to the post I wrote last night about my dealings with Housing New Zealand. I appreciate the support from people who have commented and tweeted.

What has been interesting as a by-product are the other stories people have told about Housing NZ - admittedly they are hearsay but they give me cause for concern:

• "a tetraplegic woman with very high medical needs being kicked out of her fully customised modified home of 15yrs to give it up for a refuge family of 9 with no access requirements"
• "a person who had been asking for 7 years to be moved out of a Freemans Bay HNZ flat where drugs, prostitution and every other vice was going on...even though HNZ had 14 days to sort it out, get rid of the tenant who was terrorising everybody else they sat on their hands until [they were] threatened with public exposure"
• "someone being evicted with 18 hours' notice"
• "a HNZ worker asking why a client with a major anxiety disorder couldnt just get out and look for a house"

• "cases of highly unsafe and unsanitary environments not fit for animals to live in"

If these constitute the usual tip of the proverbial iceberg, what is going on in Housing NZ? Where is the consistency and communication of rational policy in a Government-run organisation established to ensure the shelter of those impacted by an inaccessible, over-priced, unstable housing market?

I've repeatedly contended with buck-passing, un-returned messages and emails and half-hearted displays of interest in my situation. Granted, as I said, both my neighbour and I have a need for secure housing. I don't want him kicked out on the streets. But he needs to be living somewhere where he is not provoked by and cannot bully someone whose lifestyle he disagrees with and who cannot defend themselves.

I think Housing NZ should have policy that restricts the placement of tenants known to be violent next to other tenants unable to self-defend — elders, women with children and those with unique function.

I also think people living in shared dwellings such as apartments and semi-detached dwellings like mine, should be consulted about new nextdoor neighbours. I've lived here 15 years and have had over seven neighbours in that time. I've been lucky until now; even so, not once have I been introduced to, let alone consulted about, new neighbours.

There is a decline of communication, responsibility, leadership and generosity by people employed in and managing bureaucracy. I see political leaders acting as if it is an inevitability. I think it's a lazy choice.

But what will it take to change it?

The hard part is time. It will take time. But the easy part is that it will only take a renewed commitment to that which is declining: communication, responsibility, leadership and generosity.