IS IT A CLUSTER OR A SLUM?
New data has laid bare clusters of social housing across Christchurch. Some suburbs have none, while Aranui has 469 state-owned homes. In the second of three investigations, Steven Walton talks to residents and decision-makers about where social housing is built and why.
Zhane Neho, a mother to two daughters aged 3 and 5, says Aranui can be a harsh place to live. A lot of ‘‘random stuff’’ happens. ‘‘You can hear yelling out on the street,’’ she says.
‘‘Or one time we’ve had gunshots out here and I was in the kitchen cooking.’’
Life is easier in Aranui if you have family in the area, Neho says. Knowing people helps.
‘‘If you didn’t already know people here, then you’re kind of just stuck in your own house and you wouldn’t really want to go out much because it’s quite harsh out here sometimes.’’
Neho and her daughters live in a social housing unit owned by Ka¯ inga Ora, the Government’s housing agency. Data shows that, at the end of 2020, the agency owned 469 such homes in Aranui – 184 more than the suburb with the second-highest number. By contrast, some wealthier neighbourhoods in Christchurch have a fraction of that number. One 3-square-kilometre area has no state-owned homes.
Public housing agencies say social housing is well spread out across Christchurch, but not everyone agrees. Some Aranui locals say it could be spaced out more. ‘‘So it’s not ‘that’s a state-house area’ and ‘nah, they pay normal rent’,’’ one says.
Experts say the clustering of social housing is a legacy of 20th century urban planning, when homes were in short supply after World War II and whole suburbs were developed at once. The result, they say, is under-resourced communities, some resembling ‘‘slums’’.
Some Aranui residents have long championed the suburb’s community spirit.
Tim Baker, 52, is a real estate agent who has lived in Aranui his entire life. He says most people are very nice, down to earth and help each other. Grocery shopping can take a long time, he says. Sometimes you can stop and chat to half a dozen people. There are some ‘‘ratbags . . . [but] that’s life, and I’m sure most communities have that’’.
Baker thinks intensified social housing in Aranui is a mistake. He thinks some developments will become slums in another 10 years. A walk around Aranui reveals several complexes built after the earthquakes have put multiple units on a single section. Some share a single driveway. Ka¯ inga Ora says the majority of homes in Aranui are single or duplex dwellings, and the largest complex only has 16 units, fewer than other places in Christchurch.
Still, Baker says of the units,‘‘you don’t want people living on top of each other . . . We’re not Auckland’’.
The city council summary of the Burwood ward, which includes Aranui, notes the strong sense of community and belonging.
Decisions that dictated where social housing was built in Christchurch can be traced back to last century.
Aranui is an enduring example of the post-war approach by the Government to not just build entire streets, but whole suburbs, says Ben Schrader, a historian who wrote a 2005 book about the history of state houses. ‘‘This is the first time any attempt was made to build a whole community or a whole suburb at one time,’’ he says.
Before the war, there was another approach to state housing, which was to ‘‘pepper-pot’’ and spread it out. One such example in Christchurch is in Bryndwr, Schrader says. But this policy had a marked effect on Ma¯ ori, as it urbanised them and forced assimilation with Pa¯ keha¯ . There are ‘‘mixed views’’ on pepper-potting today, he says.
In Aranui, Baker says too much social housing was built to start with. ‘‘It should’ve been spread throughout Christchurch,’’ he says. ‘‘People in the same boat can’t help each other’’.
Christchurch has about 8900 homes providing social housing. About 6200, mostly two or threebedroom, are provided by government agency Ka¯ inga Ora, formerly known as Housing New Zealand. Another 1900 are owned by the city council, but operated by the O¯ tautahi Community Housing Trust (O¯ CHT). The trust also owns (or leases) another 500. About 90 per cent of the total are single-bedroom, reflecting how they were historically built for pensioners. Several other providers, including the Methodist Mission and Salvation Army, operate about 300 homes across Canterbury.
Robert Hardie, general manager at O¯ CHT who previously worked for Housing New Zealand, says both Ka¯ inga Ora and O¯ CHT have spread their homes evenly across the city. ‘‘[The residents are] all Christchurch citizens, they’re all normal people living in a normal society, and so you don’t choose to segregate people,’’ he says.
Still, some wards have more 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.
For Ka¯ inga Ora, the agency’s Canterbury director, Liz Krause, says its customers ‘‘live in and are a part of all of our communities’’. Some concentrations of state housing in areas such as Aranui and Riccarton are down to extensive building in the 1950s and 1980s.
There are 21 suburbs in Christchurch with more than 100 Ka¯ inga Ora-owned homes – according to data based on census boundaries, which covers smaller areas than council wards. Eleven of those suburbs are in east Christchurch – including the two with the most social housing: Aranui with 469 and West Shirley with 285. Several suburbs in the west of the city – 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.
The social housing waiting list in Canterbury hit 1500 people at the end of last year. The Christchurch City Council estimates about 6700 social houses need to be built in the city by 2048. Experts say the best practice is to spread social housing throughout a city.
Cate Kearney, the chief executive of O¯ CHT, says social housing in all suburbs works well for tenants, as they normally want to stay close to their own connections.
The trust, however, does not yet make major decisions on where to build its homes, as it tends to develop on land previously owned by the city council. Using up all of that land will take years, Kearney says. The trust has a goal of building 100 homes each year. In the earthquakes, about 400 councilowned homes were lost, and O¯ CHT is still trying to get back to that number.
Hardie says the question of whether to spread out or cluster social housing was asked constantly when he was with Housing New Zealand. ‘‘People have got a lot of opinion on it,’’ he says. While some want to put all housing for elderly people in one area, others believe mixing residents of different ages is better, he explains. Right now,
O¯ CHT cannot keep a unit vacant to wait for the right person.
Dr Te Kani Kingi, a researcher in Ma¯ ori development, says there has always been a perspective that clustering social housing in a particular area has led to some slums developing and a community not getting the resources it needs.
He says future social housing developments need to benefit communities socioeconomically, educationally, and culturally.
Ka¯ inga Ora has a stated ‘‘approach and ambition’’ to grow communities and Krause says they will build where the need is. Although there are no plans to add to the supply in Aranui, the agency will respond to ‘‘the changing needs of our communities’’.