Study finds ‘massive’ housing gap
A Government-commissioned stocktake of housing shows massive failings across the sector that particularly affect children, Pasifika, and renters.
The report indicates New Zealand is ‘‘quickly becoming a society divided by the ownership of housing and its related wealth’’ where ‘‘recent housing and tax policy settings appear to have exacerbated this division’’.
In one of the findings, the report indicates that up to nine in 10 homeless people who turn up at community housing providers are turned away. This ‘‘floating population’’ of homelessness is hidden from official data around state house waiting lists as many of them have been excluded from state housing.
Much of the homelessness crisis can be blamed on a long-term decline in state housing. Between
1991 and 2013 the proportion of renters renting privately rather than in state housing rose from 60 per cent to 83 per cent. This was particularly acute for Ma¯ ori and Pasifika people.
The authors blame this move on a decrease in state housing stock and policies aimed to move people out of state housing.
‘‘Terminating a state tenancy can have serious consequences and these former tenants are at risk of becoming homeless because they are likely to find it difficult to rent in the private sector,’’ the authors said.
The Salvation Army’s Alan Johnson, one of the authors, put some of the blame on the previous Government. He said the social housing agenda which saw many state homes sold to community housing providers was in part necessary but was ‘‘poorly funded and poorly executed’’.
House price and rent inflation was also at fault. ‘‘Between 2012 and 2017, population estimated growth outstripped estimated housing stock growth by 2.1 per cent. This difference is the root cause of the present housing shortage – essentially, we have not built enough houses for our growing, but ageing population,’’ the authors note.
Between 2012 and 2017, rents for a three-bedroom house rose 25 per cent while wages rose 14 per cent.
Report author Phillipa HowdenChapman emphasised a widening gap between homeowners and renters, one that particularly hurt Pasifika people. ‘‘If you own a house, as half of New Zealand adults do, then you’ve done very well over the last decade. If you don’t you haven’t.’’
Just 19 per cent of Pasifika people owned their home in 2013, a decline of 35 per cent since 1986. The proportion of older people living in a mortgage-free house has fallen from 86 per cent to 72 per cent – but Maori and Pasifika children were the worst affected. Part of this was because rentals were of much lower quality.
Diseases labelled ‘‘housing sensitive’’ by the Ministry of Health result in 6000 children being hospitalised ever year. These children are 10 times more likely to die than other children within the next decade.
Currently roughly half of all adults live in a rental, with about 581,000 households in the private market.
The complicated Accommodation Supplement is estimated to subsidise about 40 per cent of the private market at some level.
Author Shamubeel Eaqub said the most important step would be rewriting tenancy law, which Housing Minister Phil Twyford is planning to do. ‘‘We need to move to a much more institutional model where it’s the business to look after tenants and provide housing, not simply to go after the capital gains.’’
Eaqub said the new Government was lacking ambition in the area – they needed to double the number of state houses and build 500,000 homes over the next 10 years instead of 100,000.
Private renters generally spend more of their disposable income on housing than owner-occupiers or state house tenants. Private renters made up almost two-thirds of the households who spent more than 40 per cent of their income on housing costs, but just 36 per cent of the overall population.
While making home ownership more affordable via schemes like KiwiBuild would help, private rentals would continue to be a major part of the market.
The report was commissioned by Twyford. The authors had access to data that was not available to the public before.