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Opinion
Right to adequate housing
Adequate housing is critical if we are going to realise the human rights to health, to an adequate standard of living and to education says Human Rights Commissioner David Rutherford.
THERE ARE THREE key human rights concerns about adequate housing in New Zealand – a ordability, habitability and security of tenure.
No agreed political solution yet
New Zealand has signed a number of international agreements where our govern- ment promises to progressively realise the human right to adequate housing for all people in New Zealand. Successive govern- ments have not done so. Any government can withdraw its endorsement of these international agreements. None have chosen to.
The Human Rights Commission and others are calling for a national accord on adequate housing. So far, the minor parties agree with us, but neither of the major parties do yet.
For years, housing policy has been used for political branding purposes. All the while the situation worsens. We now seem to have agreement that there is a problem but not on the solution. We acknowledge that steps are being taken, but there needs to be an overall strategy that has cross- party support.
Thousands of rentals substandard
There are 180,000 homes that do not meet current habitability requirements. Of these homes, 90,000 are inhabited by some of our poorest people. Most are children already living in deprived circumstances compared to most New Zealanders.
We know rented households are more likely to be headed by women, Māori and Paci c people. The health outcomes for poor people, particularly poor Māori and Paci c people, lag behind other New Zealanders.
Mum and dad landlords the cause
Most of the inadequate houses are not state houses, or houses owned by social housing providers or landlords that own a number of properties. Most of them are owned by those of us who own one or two ‘investment properties’.
The data indicates these investment property homes are the least likely to have been insulated and most likely to have no major maintenance, if any maintenance, carried out on them.
Landlords have an obligation
Public sector landlords have a binding obligation to protect the human rights of their tenants.
Many private sector landlords are already the responsible businesspeople the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights requires them to be.
The challenge is those New Zealand landlords who are not. They see them- selves solely as investors, not as being in the business of renting houses and homes. They see an income stream to cover the cost of their investment, not a family needing a warm, dry home close to where their children go to school.
Cross-party accord needed
The state pays accommodation supple- ments and picks up the cost to our health system caused by inadequate houses. This is billions of dollars of cost. Sixty percent of all people who rent their homes are supported by the accommodation supplement.
There are some welcome steps being taken by the government. More needs to be done.
It is a problem we have created in decades, and it will take decades to x. That is all the more reason to seek a cross- party accord now.
For more To nd out more, read Home Truths: Confronting New Zealand’s Housing Crisis by Philippa Howden-Chapman.
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