Government’s crime stance conflicts with housing cuts - expert

New research indicates that stable housing is crucial for reducing youth offending, while emergency motels do not provide the same benefits.

The University of Otago study, titled The Importance of Housing Assistance on Reducing Youth Offending in New Zealand, uses data collected from 2016 to 2022. This period marks the introduction of the Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant, allowing researchers to analyse how different types of housing support influence youth interaction with the justice system.

The study compares outcomes for young people aged 16 to 24 who accessed emergency housing, public housing, or the accommodation supplement. Speaking with Khalia Strong on Pacific Mornings, lead researcher Dr Chang Yu says the findings show how stable housing options like public housing and the accommodation supplement significantly lower youth crime rates.

However, Yu points out that emergency housing lacks the same effect. “Specifically for Pacific communities, our results reveal that reducing youth offending is most effective when individuals have access to stable housing. So increased availability of stable housing gives an opportunity to reduce the systematic disadvantage Pacific people face across both the housing and justice sector.”

The research indicates a higher proportion of Māori and Pacific people in the emergency and public housing categories, likely due to their poor justice outcomes. This suggests that addressing youth offending in Pacific communities cannot be separated from the need for housing assistance.

The Government recently reinforced its tough-on-crime stance by reinstating the Three Strikes law, which aims to deter repeat offenders by imposing increasingly harsher penalties, including mandatory minimum sentences for serious and sexual offences.

The law operates on a three-stage process, where a third conviction for a qualifying offence results in the maximum penalty without parole, unless deemed manifestly unjust by the court. Yu says this policy contradicts the Government’s justice agenda.

He says the Government’s announcement of a decline in the number of people living in emergency housing is misleading as many applicants are being denied assistance. Yu says if more people are inadequately housed, there will likely be an increase in homelessness.

Yu criticises the government for restricting the supply of public housing. He questions where these people are expected to go, saying that while the Government claims to be “cracking down on crime”, it fails to address the underlying issue of unstable housing.

Watch Dr Chang Yu’s full interview below.

“The Government should focus not only on the symptoms of the crimes, but also the structural drivers of these crimes.” He says current cuts to public housing supply threatens to reverse the progress achieved through stable housing options.

Yu adds that reducing resources will impact New Zealand’s unique “infrastructure of care” within public housing, including wrap-around support services that are not typically available in many countries.

He says this reduction is particularly concerning for Māori and Pacific people, who already “face systematic disadvantages” across the housing and justice sectors.

“Interestingly, we do not find they are overrepresented in the accommodation supplement cohort because in order to qualify for the accommodation supplement, the individual must have an existing tendency. But we know that Māori and Pacific people usually have difficulties to secure a tendency,” Yu says.

“So that's the reason they heavily rely on emergency housing and public housing. But unfortunately, in New Zealand, there is limited supply of public housing. So the difficulty of securing a tenancy exposes too many young people to the risk factors that are associated with offending.

“Emergency housing is just temporary accommodation. So it does not build as a community support, and it does not have the wraparound support that the public housing offers.”