Wealth tells in spread of state housing
One of Christchurch’s poorest suburbs has 469 state-owned homes while a 3-square kilometre area covering some of the city’s wealthiest suburbs has none, data shows.
Government agencies say social housing is evenly distributed across the city, but some experts say ‘‘clusters’’ within that spread have led to underresourced communities, some resembling slums.
Residents in Aranui, where the bulk are clustered, agree social housing should be more spaced out.
Two serious crimes in the city’s social housing complexes in as many weeks have heightened fears for some residents.
On May 1, a person was seriously injured in a shooting at an Aranui social housing unit. A week earlier, ex-gang member Kenneth Hawkins was stabbed to death at a social housing complex in Sydenham.
The murder left many other residents in the complex feeling uneasy. One told The Press they believed it was only a matter of time before it happened again.
Aranui is home to about 4000 people. A recent city council report noted the wider area was ‘‘predominantly characterised by a high level of socioeconomic disadvantage’’.
About 27 per cent of residents lived in the highest level of deprivation, the report said, and anti-social behaviour and gang activity affected community wellbeing.
Zhane Neho, a mother to two daughters aged three and five, said it could be a harsh place to live. On one occasion she heard gunshots while she was in the kitchen.
Tim Baker, a 52-year-old real estate agent who has lived in Aranui his entire life, said it was a great community.
‘‘Most people are very nice, down to earth and help each other.’’
There were some ‘‘ratbags’’. ‘‘That’s life, and I’m sure most communities have that.’’
In his view, too much social housing was built in the suburb back in the 1950s.
Ka¯ inga Ora, the government’s housing agency, is responsible for about twothirds of social housing in Christchurch – about 6200 homes.
Most of the ¯remaining third is managed by Otautahi Community Housing Trust (O¯ CHT), and a few by other providers.
The Press has obtained data showing the locations of Ka¯ inga Ora and O¯ CHT homes in Christchurch.
Ka¯inga Ora’s data shows it owns more than 100 homes in 21 city suburbs. Eleven of those are in east Christchurch, including Aranui, which has by far the most (469) and second-placed West Shirley (285).
Several Christchurch suburbs in the west – Jellie Park, Broomfield, West Riccarton, and Hillmorton – each have more than 200 state-owned homes too. However, there is no state ownership in a 3sqkm area covering parts of Merivale, Fendalton and Deans Bush.
O¯ CHT’s data is broken down slightly differently – by city council wards, each spanning multiple suburbs. Still, some of the 16 wards have far more council-owned social housing than others.
Of the 1900 properties owned by the city council, nearly a third (610) are in one ward – Burwood – which covers suburbs such as Aranui, Wainoni, Avonside, and the eastern side of Marshland.
As of January 2021, three council wards – Papanui, Riccarton and Waimairi – had no council or O¯ CHT-owned homes.
Robert Hardie, general manager at OCHT ¯ who also previously worked for Housing New Zealand, said both Ka¯ inga Ora and O¯ CHT had evenly spread their homes across the city.
‘‘[The residents are] all Christchurch citizens,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re all normal people living in a normal society, and so you don’t choose to segregate people.’’
For Ka¯ inga Ora, the agency’s Canterbury director Liz Krause said its customers ‘‘live in and are a part of all of our communities’’.
Some concentrations of statehousing in areas such as Aranui and Riccarton were down to extensive building in the 1950s and 1980s, she said.
Dr Te Kani Kingi, a researcher in Ma¯ori health and development, said there had always been a perspective that clustering social housing in a particular area led to some slums developing and a community not getting the resources it needs.