Housing Minister Chris Bishop said on Thursday the government's plans to make it easier to build in urban areas and city fringes will flood the country with new homes.

He has announced six changes, including improving intensification, scrapping minimum floor areas for apartments, requiring cities to allow expansion at the urban fringe, and establishing housing growth targets. Read more

Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod said while some parts of the country were catching up with longer-term underbuilding of homes, the pressure wouldn't go away in the wake of increasing population growth. Read more

The report, Nga Tukunga Iho - The Things We Inherit, offers an annual assessment of the country's social progress - this year especially -

• children and youth
• housing
• crime and punishment
• social hazards
• work and incomes

Lt-Colonel Ian Hutson, The Salvation Army's Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit director, notes the new government has inherited a mix of successes and obstacles from its predecessor.

He emphasises the impact current policies will have on future generations and the responsibility to foster a better living environment for all New Zealanders.

While the report acknowledges significant progress has been made in recent years - reductions in child poverty, an increase in social housing units, sustained low unemployment - it also points to worrying trends.

These trends include the deepening cost-of-living crisis hitting lower-income households hardest. Rising rental costs are outpacing inflation and there are overall increases in food insecurity and financial hardship.

The State of the Nation report is unequivocal in its call for the new Government to take decisive action.

Hutson stresses the need to build upon the progress achieved and to adopt successful strategies to navigate the challenges ahead.

Concerns for Maori wellbeing

One of the report's key findings pertains to Maori wellbeing.

Persistent inequities affecting Maori in education, housing, employment and the criminal justice system need to be addressed, it says.

To achieve this, the report advocates for the importance of resourcing kaupapa Maori approaches to enhance well-being for whanau, hapu and iwi.

Children and Youth

The report's Children and Youth section has both positive and negative news.

On the plus side, it rates child poverty reduction as a significant achievement.

However, it also notes poverty's disproportionate impact on Pasifika, Maori, and children living with disabilities. It stresses the need for targeted efforts to meet Government poverty reduction targets.

The report also states that young people continue to tell of high levels of mental distress.

Housing

The report's Housing section paints a grim picture of unaffordability and homelessness. This is exacerbated by a decline in new housing consents and a surge in inward migration, it says.

The report calls for an urgent increase in public housing supply to address the growing backlog.

Crime and Punishment

In terms of Crime and Punishment, the report indicates an overall increase in reported and unreported crime and notes that violent offences are increasing.

Enhancing access to housing, employment, education and social services would be more effective in reducing crime than implementing harsher punishments, the report suggests.

Social Hazards

The Social Hazards section notes a positive decline in alcohol and drug consumption.

At the same time, it points to rising gambling losses and signs of increased financial hardship. One such indicator is the increasing number of calls for early KiwiSaver withdrawals on the grounds of financial hardship.

Work and Incomes

Under the heading Work and Incomes, the Salvation Army State of the Nation report highlights the continued high levels of employment but raises concerns about the rising unemployment and the persistent wage inequality affecting women and ethnic minorities.

It says high inflation is putting pressure particularly on low-income households. Furthermore, food insecurity for households with children has increased.

Source

• Supplied: The Salvation Army
• The full report is available from the Salvation Army.

Yet in many, rents keep going up.

While rent hikes can reflect the costs landlords face, there are standards that must be maintained, according to Wellington Property Investors Association president Peter Ambrose.

Passing those costs onto tenants was how landlords kept their rentals to a high standard, he explains. Conversely, landlords also need to do whatever maintenance is required.

It's unacceptable for landlords to rent properties which should not be lived in, Ambrose says. In fact, maintaining them was ultimately a basic human right.

Successive governments have failed New Zealand's renters, the Green Party says.

It has recently conducted a survey which confirms New Zealand 2023 is not a good place for many of the country's 1.4 million renters.

If it were part of the next Government, the Greens promise a Renters' Rights Bill.

Rental survey findings

Many landlords are quick to hike rents but slow to fix homes, the Green Party survey found. Renters are living in damp, mouldy houses, coping with rent rises and accepting insecure tenancies.

In Wellington, one in five renting households pay over 50 percent of their weekly income on rent, the Greens discovered.

One tenant told RNZ the state of one Wellington house she rented was so bad she and her partner moved out.

Parts of the house were unstable, damaged and damp.

Among the long list of problems she mentioned were the fireplace with cracks so big you could fit your fingers in them, and a deck that was falling apart.

Complaints dismissed

The woman who spoke to RNZ said she informed her landlord the bedroom leaked.

The landlord decided to do nothing as the leak happened only intermittently. Ditto to problems with the neglected bathroom which had mushrooms growing in it. A variety of mushrooms.

Landlords with multiple properties make big profits, the woman said. In her view, they should treat their rentals like a business and invest.

For some of them "it's quite apparent that rather than investing in repairing or maintaining these properties, they're just kind of degrading them," she added.

Tenants health at risk

The Government's new Healthy Homes Standards for heating, insulation and ventilation came into effect in July 2021.

Landlords with existing tenancies, however, needn't comply until 2025. Negligent landlords ignoring evidence of substandard accommodation are driving many tenants out of their rentals.

The mental health issues that follow are manifold.

One tenant says he is offered only annual leases. At renewal, there's a rent increase. He can't afford any more of those, he says. If there are, he'll be driven to return to his family home.

Then there's the fear a landlord won't renew a lease. This leads to tenants tiptoeing around their homes, so there's no "just cause" to be kicked out.

"That can be extremely anxiety-inducing and debilitating, and I feel quite powerless at the end of the lease cycle," the tenant says.

Futhermore, few landlords allow pets, which adds stress to pet owners, he says.

Source

• RNZ

It's a problem that needs urgent attention, the Retirement Commission says.

The Commission should know. It's just completed a survey about older people's housing status.

Today, 20 percent of those over 65 are in rental accommodation. In 25 years - by 2048 - that proportion's predicted to rip up to 40 percent. That accounts for over half a million retirees - about 600,000 people.

Given this prediction, New Zealand must rethink how it supports older people's housing needs, the Commission stresses.

Survey findings

The survey found a third of Kiwis aged 55-64 do not own their own homes. A fifth, aged over 65, are in the same situation.

Commission director of policy and research, Dr Suzy Morrissey, says the figure relating to retirees renting is expected to jump to 40 percent. Put differently, by 2048, 600,000 over 65-year olds won't own their homes.

She said that "staggering projection" would change New Zealand's housing landscape. It needs urgent attention, she said.

A look at housing requirements for older renters suggests a need for smaller-sized and accessible houses with wider doorways and no steps.

What next?

The Commission's picture of the future could require some kind of incentive for developers, Morrissey said. They tend to focus on building bigger homes because those were more profitable, she explained.

Pension rates (e.g National Superannuation) currently assume retirees own their homes outright and don't have rent or a mortgage to pay.

Therefore New Zealand needs to consider how it will support older people with their housing costs, Morrissey said.

This is especially true in urban centres where rents were highest and home ownership rates were lowest.

"We know that home ownership is a key contributor to well-being in retirement and, if we know we're going to have fewer and fewer people in that position, it does mean we're going to need to start thinking about what we're doing for them," she said.

Source

• RNZ

Starting with only $10 in the bank, the transformed Housing Trust now manages 31 rental spaces, housing 110 individuals across 41 households.

It also owns its first property.

Emboldened by their mission, the Trust rented a property privately and subleased it to a tenant in need, all with the owner's knowledge.

The success of the Trust is attributed to high-quality tenancy management, an efficient maintenance team, cost-effective operations and a dedicated volunteer board, all committed to the belief that housing is a basic human right, reports NZ Catholic.

"The Trust offers a financial and emotional cushion for tenants during difficult times, preventing them from falling back into homelessness," a Trust spokesperson told NZ Catholic.

According to NZ Catholic, the Trust excels at transitioning people from temporary to permanent housing while minimising the financial burden for its tenants, who typically struggle with low incomes and historical debt.

With its well-established reputation, the Trust has garnered more opportunities to manage rental properties and has secured a contract with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, providing transitional housing and enabling it to hire staff to manage the properties.

While the Upper Hutt Housing Trust's approach centres on the principle of 'housing first' followed by continued support services to maintain secure, affordable and sustainable housing, it now also assists its tenants with job opportunities and work experiences.

As part of a comprehensive range of wrap-around services, the Trust offers and encourages independence and assists tenants with job opportunities, work experiences and chances to move into paid work.

As the Trust continues to provide housing services successfully, it aims to become a community housing provider and is considering managing a seven-day emergency shelter for the most vulnerable.

Trust membership has also expanded to include neighbouring Catholic and other Christian parishes and groups, and currently includes:

Source

• NZ Catholic
• Upper Hutt Housing Trust

Men seem particularly vulnerable to housing insecurity, says Greg, a peer support worker with Lifewise, who works with men experiencing homelessness.

He told RNZ's The Detail they're often facing a web of other personal challenges.

Thinking of the people he works with now, Greg says there are a lot of reasons men find themselves without a stable home.

"Some grew up in boys' homes; some hospitals, through mental health.

"Others have had such bad home lives that they just came straight out on the streets when they were young and never left.

"Some have just been in and out of prison their whole lives because they didn't know any other way, and that's what they saw around them, so that's what they did.

"There's not one reason. There are all sorts of different reasons...and trying to unpack that is the hard part," he says.

HomeGround, the Auckland City Mission's Hobson Street facility, aims to accommodate those in acute need of housing while also tackling the drivers of homelessness through wraparound support.

Auckland City Missioner, Helen Robinson reinforces men's housing insecurity saying around 70% of the people coming through the doors at HomeGround are men.

However, Robinson says the tragedy at Loafers Lodge is symptomatic of a broader problem.

It's about having the means to help.

"Despite there being a large number of community groups across the country designed to provide care and services for vulnerable people, the funding and coordination of services isn't there," Robinson says.

"I think what something like Loafers Lodge is showing is that that support is not rocket science, we just have to acknowledge that people need it.

"New Zealand is learning how possible it is to support people, but actually that it's difficult, and it's time-consuming, and it does require resource to do it."

Robinson says the tragedy is symptomatic of a broader problem.

"It's important to acknowledge the failure of New Zealand for 40 years to actually create enough good housing that's appropriate, that's affordable, for us all," she says.

She lists poverty, trauma, violence and relationship breakdown as causing homelessness.

Source

• RNZ

The diocese's Justice and Peace Commission's submission particularly focuses on housing and child poverty, Maori children and the youth justice system.

Housing affordability

Acknowledging the ‘10,688 homes added to the public housing stock since 2017″, the Commission said:

"It would be helpful to know the net gain in public housing and how this could be increased given the large number of families waiting for housing.

"The importance of affordable and sustainable housing is the key to addressing social and economic inequalities, and ensuring that children have a secure start in life," says Commission member Jan Rutledge of De Paul House.

"Government cannot do this alone and should focus on working with community housing providers ... Not everyone wants to live in 2 or 1 bedroom housing which is what is being built by Kainga Ora."

The Commission's submission continued:

"The number of households on the Register for public housing continues to rise.

"We urge the Government to be prepared to put large resources of land and money towards tackling this pressing societal problem.

"A specific major allocation of funding to provide more public housing should be a priority in the Budget."

The Commission acknowledged the Government's attempts to reign in the private housing market. It supports the upcoming Budget's intention to top up the 2020 Progressive Home Ownership Fund.

It asked for additional funds to be allocated to continue and extend the established schemes.

Child poverty

The Commission commended the Government's May 2021 and 2022 Budgets and their efforts to redress the 1991 Budget's cuts to base rates of Social Welfare payments. Those cuts led to decades of intergenerational poverty, the Social Welfare Expert Advisory Report says.

"We ask that child poverty be addressed by including in the 2023 Budget sufficient funds to lift the wellbeing of families in need by enabling them to have a decent income to support themselves by -

• substantially increasing the base benefit for families in line with accumulated inflation
• continuing to increase the minimum wage
• establishing a Social Welfare Commission to ensure all families access the assistance they are entitled to.

"What is needed now is substantive action to address this massive injustice that prevents the poorest and most vulnerable in society being able to genuinely participate in building a decent society for all.

Maori and Pacific wellbeing

Maori and Pacific families' wellbeing is a pressing concern.

"Their children's wellbeing would be immediately improved if the recommendation to increase the base benefit for families by between 12 and 47 percent were implemented. This would have a significant effect on lifting Maori and Pacific incomes, skills and opportunities, the Commission wrote.

The United Nations is concerned about Maori children's over-representation in the youth justice system and suicides in closed institutions.

It recommends

• developing an action plan to reduce disparity in detained Maori children's sentencing, incarceration and survival rates
• a child rights-based approach measure to end child poverty
• addressing the connections between offending and neurodisability, alienation from whanau, school and community, substance abuse and family violence.

Source

• Waatea News

The Fale mo Aiga: Pacific Housing Strategy and Action Plan 2030 was launched on Monday by the Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio in south Auckland. Read more

Called HomeGround, Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson (pictured at the new facility) says its new one-stop health and social services space for the city's most vulnerable people realises a long-held dream for Te Tapui Atawhai.

Purpose-built to Te Tapui Atawhai's specifications, the nine-storey building has a health centre, a pharmacy, a community dining room, specialist detox services and 80 apartments.

"We can begin to do what we have longed to do, in the manner in which we have longed to do it, with the resources to support us" Robinson says.

"HomeGround makes so much more possible, we can do more and better".

For many people moving into HomeGround, this will be their first permanent home for a long time, Robinson says.

Residents will pay rent for their accommodation to the City Mission which is a community housing provider.

Besides providing a safe, private, secure place to live and sleep, the apartments include a fridge, washing machine, dryer, shower and kitchen.

"When there is that deep sense of safety, we can rest as human beings and begin to be our best selves, we can begin to address the challenges in front of us and even begin to thrive".

Residents will also have access to a communal lounge and a rooftop garden, which Robinson hopes will help build a real sense of community.

Robinson says that people who are going through medical or social detox at HomeGround can easily access its on-site health centre and pharmacy. These amenities, along with other support Te Tapui Atawhai offers, ensure they benefit from a much more integrated service.

In addition to general residential accommodation, HomeGround has 25 beds available for addiction withdrawal services.

Demand for the Auckland City Mission's services has ramped up dramatically since the pandemic began.

"The increase in the demand for food in the time I've been at the mission, which is just on nine years, is extraordinary" Robinson says.

"It's deeply, deeply distressing the numbers of people [coming in] for food".

She says there are "hundreds of thousands" of people without money "to buy enough good kai for their families.

"It is reprehensible and should never, ever be occurring - certainly not in Aotearoa".

Robinson worries about Omicron's impact on those in the most desperate need - on their jobs, access to good food and increasing numbers of sick people.

"People who are vulnerably housed, in boarding houses or motels are of particular concern, especially if they become ill" she says.

Being unwell for them is "incredibly difficult".

Despite the negatives, Robinson remains optimistic - and the Auckland City Mission is better placed than ever to help the people coming through its doors, she says.

Source

• RNZ
• Image: Stuff

On October 19, Housing Minister Megan Woods and National leader Judith Collins jointly declared their support for the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

This bill, they said, would allow "at least 48,200 and as many as 105,500 new homes" to be built in the next five to eight years. It was so important, they'd get it passed by Christmas.

A breakthrough housing accord: It was a rare example of bipartisan support, and for such a good cause, too.

An approving John Tookey, professor of construction management at AUT, marked the occasion by quoting Shakespeare: "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."

There was a man - Environment Minister David Parker, a principal architect of the bill - but it was mainly women at the podium that day.

Woods, Collins and National's Nicola Willis all looked very pleased with themselves.

The new law will eliminate the single housing zone in our larger cities and allow three homes of up to three storeys on almost any site, without the need for a resource consent. There will be no large-scale "character overlay" to limit development in older suburbs.

The bill will also cut other "red tape", making property development easier.

The New Zealand Initiative (NZI), a centre-right think tank, called it "a superb first step" while noting the need for better infrastructure financing "to truly unlock the potential" of the bill.

The Coalition for More Homes (CMH) said the bill was "a major step forward in allowing more housing to be built, in existing urban areas close to public transport, services and amenities".

CMH is a fairly broad church: NZI is a member, along with Generation Zero, Greater Auckland and social housing providers like Habitat for Humanity.

Te Waihanga, the Infrastructure Commission, called the news a "win-win".

"When we allow for greater density around existing infrastructure, we reduce the need for the extra roads that would be necessary if we were to continue regulating for low-density in our major cities."

The bill is touted as giving speedy effect to the 2020 National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD), which puts a clear focus on density and integrated development, where housing, transport and other services are planned together.

The NPS-UD, in my view, for its capacity to make Aotearoa New Zealand a better country to live in, is quite possibly the most important policy to have come out of this government.

But by my reckoning, this new bill subverts the NPS-UD in at least nine ways.

Julie Stout, a leading architect, spokesperson for Urban Auckland and member of the Urban Design Forum (UDF), a coalition of design professionals, calls it "a slum enabling act". Continue reading

Housing Minister Richard Wynne says the state government's $66-million investment will go towards supporting 250 families, including 400 children.

They will be able to stay in hotels after next February's cut-off point until permanent homes that fit their needs are found.

He says the state government is planning to work with community housing organisations to acquire accommodation for families currently living in hotels.

Victoria's most recent (sixth) lockdown at the beginning of August seemingly its last, the program will be gradually wound back.

Council to Homeless Persons chief executive Jenny Smith is welcoming the $66 million commitment to homeless families. She is concerned some people would still fall through the cracks, however.

These will include homeless singles and couples, who aren't included in the new state government investment. They will need to work with support agencies to find new accommodation by February.

Smith says it's inevitable some singles and couples will need to move into "substandard and unacceptable" accommodation such as rooming houses once the hotels programme concludes.

"Until more social housing exists or the federal government increases its support to the homeless to an acceptable level, that's just the situation at the moment," she says.

She wants the state government to extend the permanent housing support to highly vulnerable individuals in the short and medium-term.

"We were concerned as a sector that we'd just be turfing people out of hotels. This is a fantastic outcome for those families, who can now enjoy a full-time home and build a trajectory towards a bright future," she says.

Somewhat further down the track next year, the state government's $5.3 billion housing build plans will create 12,000 new properties. The first of these won't open until the second half of next year at the earliest.

Wynne says the state government will support all residents in emergency hotels to develop a housing exit plan over the coming months.

"We are continuing to work with the community sector to provide the support needed, including transitional housing and private rental assistance," he says.

Peter Ruzyla, chief executive of social and community health organisation EACH, is welcoming the sharpened focus on homelessness and pragmatic about what can be achieved initially.

"It is a reality check that not everybody can be perfectly assisted at all times. The existing system is working at full stretch to absorb this amount of additional work, money and people in a very short period of time," he said.

Source

• The Age
• Image: Housing Vic

It was true in the 19th century, and as Covid-19 stubbornly continues to spread through the community in our biggest city, it is true here and now.

An adequate standard of living has never been available for everyone in Aotearoa.

A Maori Women's Welfare League survey in 1952 reported that poverty, overcrowding, damp and unaffordable rental housing were key issues in Auckland. Seven decades on, the same is true.

In the middle of the last century, there were not enough state houses to meet the need.

Until the late 1940s, Maori had been excluded from state housing.

Due to sound government policies being put in place from the 50s to the mid-1980s things improved a lot, with proportionately more state houses, better incomes and the family benefit.

It was a period of greater stability in people's lives - having enough and reaching your potential was more likely to be achievable, although less likely for Maori than Pakeha.

Fast forward to September 2021 and we see the results of three decades of neglectful policy: fewer statehouses to meet the increasing needs.

At the same time, large numbers of people in private rentals face unaffordable rents and insecure tenancies.

The overall impact of current government policy is increasing the need for emergency housing, with more people homeless.

A low-wage economy leaves increasing numbers of people in paid work struggling or failing, to make ends meet.

It is even harder for those striving to live on inadequate benefits.

The result is many leading desperate lives; eyebrows no longer rise in surprise when we read about people, more commonly with disabled family members, living in garages or unsafe emergency accommodation, or young people dying from rheumatic fever.

To our shame, it has become familiar.

The Working for Families package is meant to be the primary source of income support for children in low-income families.

However, when parents receive benefits they are denied a crucial payment for their children ($72.50 per week or more for larger families).

This stark discrimination in favour of children of parents who were not on any benefit was introduced in 1996 and remains.

New Zealand is an outlier among similar countries; in Australia for example, children's income support is not tied to parents' source of income.

It is a tragic indicator that food banks provided by charities - some subsidised by the government - are now a routine feature in our country.

This is a result of decades of market-driven policies that prohibit many families from receiving adequate incomes to cover basic needs (including housing, power, transport, shoes, doctors' visits, and nutritious food); let alone enough to pay for school uniforms, sports gear and school trips.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Is it any wonder that delta should prove so difficult to eliminate among people left struggling to survive?

Lack of online access to news and information as well as language barriers for many, mean public health messages may not be seen by people who are already feeling isolated from their community.

For others, dire living conditions can bring on anxiety as well as mistrust of the government brought about by years of bitter experience.

Who can blame people on the margins if they prioritise finding access to food supplies for hungry children ahead of finding a way to get to a Covid centre for testing or vaccination?

Overcrowding and temporary housing make social distancing at home difficult.

Aaron Hendry, who works with homeless youth, puts it this way: "If we treated housing as a human right, we wouldn't be in this situation. Blaming whanau living in third world conditions, with shared facilities and unable to isolate misses the bigger issue that is contributing to this problem." Continue reading

• Innes Asher FRACP ONZM is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Paediatrics: Child and Youth Health, University of Auckland, was a member of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, and is a spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group

We have a shortfall of more than 100,000 dwellings, all urban housing markets are considered severely unaffordable by international standards.

• 500,000 Kiwis are in overcrowded housing situations
• 350,000 households are on accommodation supplements
• Maori home ownership sits at just over 30%
• less than 50% of people in our largest city (Auckland) own their own homes, and
• 1 in 100 people — that's 50,000 people — are living in ‘severe housing deprivation (sleeping on the streets or in cars, in emergency housing, temporarily staying at relatives or friends, etc).

Our housing situation is driving inequality and it's dangerous.

The Fall of Rome, the French Revolution, the Arab Spring and Brexit, were all, in part, driven by inequality.

Inequality is a key contributor to crime, violence, abuse in its many forms, and mental illness. It destroys social cohesion by eroding the bonds that make us feel like we're all in the same boat.

As it stands, the current housing system is growing the divide.

It is creating conditions where those who own homes are witnessing their wealth grow — without having to exert any effort, and in many cases faster than their incomes ever will — while those who do not, watch the prospect of obtaining one become more and more prohibitive.

Some people will choose to take on large and unprecedented sums of debt; many more will acknowledge that homeownership is out of their reach.

At the same time, a growing number of hard-working people in this country are in unsuitable living situations, staying in cars, sheds, garages and overcrowded houses.

Every week an article is written examining the various drivers of expensive housing in New Zealand:

• lack of supply,
• easy access to finance,
• low-interest rates,
• investors,
• speculators,
• red tape,
• restrictive building codes and council rules,
• material costs and so on.

And every other week an article is written with solutions to these issues: a tax, a change in regulation or policy, a homeownership scheme or a building programme.

Why is it that despite our best efforts — that is, knowing the problems, having the technical expertise needed to address them, and making efforts to do so — the trajectory for quality affordable housing is only getting worse?

Could it be that we are not addressing the heart of the problem?

I believe it is time to reexamine and update our values and beliefs that lie at the heart of both the issues and the solutions to our housing crisis.

We are all in the same boat

We do not get to choose the circumstances into which we are born.

We don't choose our race, our gender or our economic position, and yet these circumstances have far-reaching implications on our lives.

We need to design our housing system so that every member of society, no matter who they are or where they are born, has equitable access to good quality affordable housing, along with fundamentals such as quality education, healthcare, and food, in order to lay the foundations for a strong future society.

Our current system perpetuates unaffordable housing as the status quo, and isn't good for the millions of individuals who are not in homes which they own or have unprecedented amounts of debt in their names.

We have to be fair

An expensive house or no house isn't much of a choice.

Why should future homebuyers, who are entitled to the basic human right of adequate shelter, be forced to pay ever-higher prices for property that hasn't necessarily had any real value (such as habitable space) added to it?

Is it fair that those who have been on the receiving end of property sales have accumulated large sums of money at the expense of buyers?

If large sums of money have found their way into the hands of current and previous property owners without any real value being added, wouldn't it be only fair to look at how that money could be redirected and redistributed towards things that add real value to our society?

Given our current state of crisis, we could begin by looking at how such money could be directed towards solutions to the housing crisis.

No pain, no gain

It is not possible for the average house to be both unaffordable and affordable at the same time.

In order to move towards affordability, we're going to have to give up our expensive housing. This will mean a sacrifice for some individuals who, relatively speaking, have more than others.

It is not easy to give up something that we enjoy, even when we know the outcome of giving it up is better for us.

Whether it's giving up or reducing smoking, alcohol, or sugary drinks for a healthier lifestyle, or forgoing a social outing or sports activity to spend more time with the kids, all of these require some sort of sacrifice on one level in order to achieve a greater objective.

The same is true when it comes to expensive housing.

We will need to find and develop the strength within ourselves to overcome our self-interest for the benefit of all.

The media

The tone of the conversation about housing and especially housing as ‘an investment' needs to change, and our media industry needs to lead this charge.

We need to critically examine whether it's appropriate to talk about rising house prices as if it's a good thing when in reality, rising house prices also plays out as rising inequality, crime, mental illness and violence.

Newspaper stories with headlines "Major urban centres continue to show strong gains" and "Cheaper suburbs leap ahead" could accurately be rewritten to headline "Major urban centres witness inequality and child poverty grow" and "Rents increase for already struggling families in cheaper suburbs".

Just substitute any reference to ‘rising house prices' with ‘rising inequality' and you have a fuller picture of what is going on.

Some hard choices

We have some choices to make.

We can allow our house prices to rise.

We can watch as our homeless population grows, more people sleep in cars, and the prospect of homeownership slip away from more Maori and Pasifika families.

We can build taller fences and put up barbed wire to keep thieves out as we further isolate ourselves from ‘the other' — people in different socio-economic circles than us.

We can witness our society become more and more divided.

Or we can design our housing system to ensure that everyone, no matter who they are, has access to quality affordable homes, homes that they can own should they wish.

We can make the price of property commensurate with the real value of property.

We can stop concentrating wealth via property into the hands of a minority at the expense of the majority, and we can think about how wealth that has been obtained without creating any real value can be redistributed in a sensible fashion.

Redesigning the housing system to be more fair and equitable means we are going to have to make some changes in our thoughts, attitudes, policies and practices.

We are going to have to give up a system that is helping an increasingly small segment of society get ahead economically for one that is more holistic and considers the wellbeing of all over the wellbeing of only some.

It may be hard in the short term but a more equitable society, a society where we all feel more connected and safer, one in which all human potential is given the chance to develop, is surely a society that we'd rather live in.

Be sure, however, that if we fail to make the necessary sacrifices soon, it is our future generations that we are sacrificing.

• Zane Sabour retrofits garages, runs youth empowerment programmes is often with his children. He is interested in broadening and deepening the conversation on affordable housing in Aotearoa, and is the founder of the web platform Low-Cost Housing Aotearoa where he showcases practical examples of completed projects in New Zealand communities.

The report by UN special rapporteur Leilani Farha on adequate housing was tabled at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday, following her visit to New Zealand in February last year.

Housing speculation, a lack of affordable housing options, limited protection for tenants, substandard housing, the absence of an overarching Te Tiriti (treaty) and human rights based housing strategy, and a lack of adequate social housing or state subsidised housing are the main causes of the crisis, the report says.

Farha said housing had become a "speculative asset" in New Zealand rather than a "home", citing low interest rates coupled with an underdeveloped rental housing system with inadequate tenant protections. Read more

In particular, I would argue that many Maori whanau in Auckland do not enjoy the benefits of this supposed "liveability".

This is important, given Maori comprised 11.5% of the Auckland population in the 2018 Census. Roughly one in four Maori in Aotearoa New Zealand are living in the greater Auckland region.

The survey was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sister company of The Economist, and looked at 140 world cities. Auckland was ranked 12th in 2019, but took top spot this year for one obvious reason:

Alternative liveability criteria

Each city in the survey was rated on "relative comfort for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure".

Overall rankings depended on how those factors were rated on a sliding scale: acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, undesirable, intolerable. Quantitative measurements relied on "external data points", but the qualitative ratings were "based on the judgment of our team of expert analysts and in-city contributors".

The methodology, particularly around culture and environment, seems somewhat subjective. It's predicated on the judgement of unnamed experts and contributors, and based on similarly undefined "cultural indicators".

To better understand the living conditions of Maori in Auckland, therefore, we might use more robust "liveability" criteria. The New Zealand Treasury's Living Standards Framework offers a useful model.

This sets out 12 domains of well-being: civic engagement and governance, cultural identity, environment, health, housing, income and consumption, jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, time use, safety and security, social connections and subjective well-being.

The Maori experience

Applying a small handful of these measures to Maori, we find the following.

Housing: According to recent reports, Auckland house prices increased by about NZ$140,00 on average in the past year. That contributed to Auckland being the fourth-least-affordable housing market, across New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, the US, UK, Ireland, Canada and Hong Kong.

Next to that sobering fact, we can point to estimates that Maori made up more than 40% of the homeless in Auckland in 2019. We can only assume this rapid increase in house prices has made homelessness worse.

Poverty: Alongside housing affordability is the growing concern about poverty in New Zealand, and particularly child poverty. While there has been an overall decline in child poverty, Maori and Pacific poverty rates remain "profoundly disturbing".

Employment: As of March 2021, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment recorded a Maori unemployment rate of 10.8%, well above the national rate (4.9%). This is particularly high for Maori youth (20.4%) and women (12.0%).

Health: Maori life expectancy is considerably lower than for non-Maori, and mortality rates are higher for Maori than non-Maori across nearly all age groups. Maori are also over-represented across a wide range of chronic and infectious diseases, injuries and suicide.

The digital divide: The Digital Government initiative has found Maori and Pasifika are among those less likely to have internet access, thus creating a level of digital poverty that may affect jobs and earnings, knowledge and skills, safety and security, and social connections.

Making Auckland liveable for all

Taken together, these factors show a different and darker picture for far too many Maori than "liveable city" headlines might suggest.

I say this as someone who has lived in Auckland for the majority of the past 60 years. It is a city I love, and I acknowledge the grace and generosity of the mana whenua of Tamaki Makaurau, with whom I share this beautiful whenua and moana.

I am also part of a privileged group of Maori who enjoy job security, a decent income, a secure whanau and strong social networks.

But, until we address and ameliorate the inequities and disadvantages some of our whanau face, we cannot truly celebrate being the "most liveable city in the world".

• Ella Henry Associate Professor, Auckland University of Technology
• First published in The Conversation. Republished with permission.
• Photo by Dan Freeman on Unsplash

What you may not have heard about is the recent UMR poll in February showing seven in 10 New Zealanders support this measure.

That number came as a bit of a shock to me.

It's not often you get 70 per cent of people behind… well, almost anything really.

So why the overwhelming support?

I certainly know why I support it - the team at Monte Cecilia are at the coalface of New Zealand's poverty issues every day.

We encounter parents afraid to send their children to school because they can't afford to give them lunches and we meet with single mothers living in the garages of overcrowded houses with no way to self-isolate in the event of another Covid outbreak.

But these are stories of quiet desperation which are seldom told in the news.

These problems have become so widespread and so obvious that they're impossible to ignore.

But I also think if there has been one indisputable benefit of Covid to balance the terrible cost it has extracted, it's that it showed us how powerful we were when we came together as a team of five million.

The plight of the poor in New Zealand is certainly a large-scale problem and it's getting worse.

In more than 40 years of working in this sector, I don't remember ever seeing this level of unmet need.

A few years ago, Monte Cecilia staff would field 10 to 15 calls a week from families in need, over the past year that number has jumped to 20 to 30 a day.

It illustrates the story of New Zealand's K-shaped Covid recovery: the well-off have bounced back by remote working and increasing their savings, while those on low incomes have faced increased job instability and rising rental prices.

We're seeing people living in two different worlds in New Zealand, and Covid has only exacerbated this trend.

Current levels of income support simply aren't enough and they're becoming even more insufficient as time goes on.

For reasons that utterly elude me, the poor seem to be hit the hardest by inflation, with the highest rental price increases last year being in South Auckland (averaging 3.5 per cent) according to the Barfoot and Thompson Rental Report for 2020.

In that report, the average rental for an Auckland three-bedroom house hit $595 a week at the start of 2021.

If you're working full time on minimum wage with 3 per cent KiwiSaver and no student loan, you'll be earning just $653 after tax.

How in the world is anyone supposed to better their own life under those circumstances?

Where can they find the resources to do additional study?

How are they supposed to afford school uniforms and stationery for their children's schooling while also somehow putting food on the table and keeping the lights on?

The Government desperately needs to apply the same kind of common sense, no-nonsense approach it did during our battle with Covid, instead of providing just enough support for the problem to limp on.

We need to ensure that everyone, whether they are working, caring for children, living with a disability or illness, studying, or have lost their jobs before or because of Covid-19 has a liveable income, and we need to do it now.

There is a Budget approaching on May 20.

This is the Government's chance to have a transformational impact on generations of New Zealanders. I hope they take it.

• Bernie Smith is the CEO of the Monte Cecilia Housing Trust.
• First published in The Weekend Herald. Republished with permission.

As reported recently by CathNews, church leaders met, March 11, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni and Housing Minister Megan Woods to discuss issues of mutual concern.

The churches' position papers have just been released.

"We seek tika me pono (truth and justice) to right wrongs in our history that continue to lead to disparities which see poorer health outcomes for Maori and Pasifika. We cannot be healthy unless all are healthy", the church leaders said.

Acknowledging the impact of COVID-19, the church leaders said the virus has exposed new forms of inequality and thrown new light on old and ongoing injustices.

"Many want to get back to ‘normal', but we don't want a ‘normality' that returns to an everyday life which is indifferent to the poor and to the environment, and just exposes us again to the next pandemic."

During the pandemic, church and state cooperation has ensured wide-ranging support - from connecting with kaumatua/isolated elderly people, finding accommodation, providing necessities, supporting migrant workers and temporary visa holders.

"We seek ongoing engagement in this regard," New Zealand's church leaders said.

Two issues — housing and welfare — "have been priorities for decades in these meetings of Church Leaders and Government, but remain urgent and pressing issues in the context of the pandemic."

COVID vaccinations

Confirming their support for vaccinations, the church leaders offered to:

• Contribute to public messaging about Covid-19 as an ethical choice for the common good.
• Support and encourage church members to be vaccinated.
• Provide access to church facilities as vaccination centres.

They asked for:

• Information about the vaccination priority settings for church workers like hospital chaplains.
• Clarity around the process of setting priorities for border entry for non-citizens and residents.
• Recognition that there are circumstances in which church workers are essential workers for immigration purposes.
• Recognition of family reunification as a priority when border restrictions can be relaxed.

Welfare, Income and Wellbeing

The church leaders said they want:

• To provide input into policy and programmes that support New Zealanders making significant permanent changes to work and careers because of Covid-19 outcomes, including retraining and psychosocial support.
• To work with Government and other agencies to provide access to psychosocial services for those affected by COVID-19 health or economic effects.
• Government to recognise the benefit levels do not meet basic needs and should be lifted.
• To continue the dialogue about addressing food insecurity.
• To encourage the Government to continue to push a wellbeing approach to better integrate social, economic and environmental dimensions to grow inter-generational wellbeing and resilience.

Housing

The church leaders would like to see:

• A long-term balanced policy approach to the housing crisis is needed. The pressure is building as homeownership reduces, and rent increases.
• The Government partnering more and sharing development investments with community housing providers.
• The Government committing to a balanced tenure policy of social housing, secure renting and affordable homeownership, with access for lower-income households.
• Priority access for Maori and Pasifika households.
• Housing support assistance reviewed so lower-income households are realistically better off and can afford essential housing costs.

Source

• Church Leaders meet with PM and Ministers (PDF)
• Image: BBC

Off-site building manufacturer Concision and house building company Versatile Pukekohe have announced they recently built a four bedroom, two bathroom house, in just 10 weeks from start to finish.

The house was built from 43 prefabricated panels manufactured in Concision's Rolleston factory over two days. They were then delivered to the Franklin site and installed in a single day. Read more

But does a speculative bubble matter? The cryptocurrency bubble can be left to itself (tax evasion and criminal transactions aside).

Why shouldn't we do the same for housing?

There are two general reasons why we should be concerned with a house price bubble.

The first is that, dangerously, housing is currently in the middle of a Minsky speculative bubble.

How close we are to the ‘Minsky Moment' and the crash which follows one can never tell. But when a market goes into the downer it is likely to cause great distress to people and to the financial system. (Recall what happened in the US in 2008.)

The second Stein's law is the longer it goes on the more people who suffer when it stops.

The sooner we ease out of the bubble, the less distressing it will be in the long run.

The second is that rising house prices compound economic inequality, especially against those who do not own their own homes.

This column deals only with the dangers of a speculative bubble. The distributional issue belongs to another column, although it is kept in mind here.

Perhaps there is a third reason.

Should public policy actively promote a speculative bubble in housing? It does in at least two ways.

First, the tax system favours speculation in housing over other sorts of investments.

The story is complicated and various powerful resolutions, such as a comprehensive capital gains tax, have been ruled out.

Recall that the Key-English Government tightened up on some of the loopholes in housing-investor tax avoidance in its first term and later introduced a limited ‘brightline' capital gains tax for rapid housing turnover.

Do not be surprised if this government removes more loopholes.

The second promotion of the speculative bubble is the way we report house price changes.

Understandably real estate agents choose the statistic which encourages speculation. Thus, the current focus on the national median selling price up by 19.8% in October compared to a year earlier.

However, the Real Estate Institute (REINZ) also publishes a House Price Index (HPI), which covers the price of all houses and not just those sold. It increased by 13.5% in the same period, less - but still high.

The selection of houses being sold is different from the total housing stock and, not surprisingly, what is sold experiences bigger price increases than average

We need an official House Price Index.

A decade ago the government turned down a proposal for Statistics New Zealand to construct one. (As usual, the government showed little foresight of impending policy challenges. We also need an official Housing Affordability Index which recognises that the cost of unit debt servicing has fallen with lower interest rates.)

It would still show sharply rising house prices but be authoritative.

In the interim, we need to focus on the REINZ HPI.

The difference will become critical as housing prices stabilise.

Perhaps there should be a specific reference to housing price stability in the next Policy Targets Agreement between the Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Reserve Bank.

But how to stabilise them?

Removing tax loopholes and reducing the hyping of the market is a start.

But the key mechanism in a Minsky bubble is leveraged borrowing for speculation.

That causes the greatest havoc when the bubble pops.

On the other hand, borrowing for own-homing against one's future earnings makes sense.

So the new LVR restrictions need to reduce the amount of highly leveraged borrowing within the housing market by requiring an increasing share of homeowner equity for mortgages beyond particular thresholds: for instance, 20% equity required for borrowing up to $800,000 (that is, for houses below $1m), and 40% equity for any borrowing beyond $800,000.

The immediate effect would be to continue to assist first home buyers while reducing overall leverage in the housing market. The longer-term effect would have price rises at the top of the market curbed (and that would reduce them in the middle of the market, again favouring first-time purchasers).

Meanwhile, we need to increase housing supply. Continue reading

• Brian Easton, an independent scholar, is an economist, social statistician, public policy analyst and historian. He holds positions in six New Zealand universities and has held them in overseas ones in Australia, Britain and the United States.