Pacific housing crisis stagnates despite growing demand

For over six years, Pacific families have continued to struggle with overcrowded housing, a reality that the Salvation Army finds unsurprising.

According to Census data from Statistics New Zealand, more than 100,000 people are estimated to be severely housing deprived, an increase from 99,462 people in 2018.

This figure includes those living without shelter, in temporary accommodation, sharing private dwellings, or uninhabitable housing.

Among the severely deprived, 38.5 per cent of Pacific people, or about four in 10 individuals, live in overcrowded conditions. Over 28,000 Pacific people in New Zealand are in extremely bad housing conditions.

The overcrowding rate among Pacific homes significantly exceeds the national average of around 12 per cent. However, the overall statistics have remained unchanged in the last six years.

The many barriers Pacific families face

Ana Ika, a Social Policy Analyst at the Salvation Army, says the data reflects the ongoing housing crisis in New Zealand.

She says Pacific families struggle to move into home ownership due to unaffordability, and private rentals pose their own challenges since they are often unsuitable for larger families.

Salvation Army Social Policy Analyst Ana Ika. Photo /Supplied.

“There are not enough big houses and private rentals, and if there are big houses, they're often unaffordable for our families.

“So there's a myriad of issues there around housing, home ownership for Pacific, income levels, and education that necessarily since 2018 hasn't changed.”

While some Pacific people are moving into higher-paid roles and managing to purchase homes, this group remains a small percentage compared to the rest of the Pacific community.

“So the housing space is really complex. I can't really put my finger on one thing, but affordability of housing and availability of bigger housing can often contribute to why the numbers have stayed the same.”

Ika says many Pacific families living in overcrowded conditions are directed towards transitional housing, which Ika describes as “a step between emergency or homelessness towards getting into Kāinga Ora property or social housing”.

“[Overcrowded homes] not only creates a lot of health challenges or issues in regards to respiratory issues, but it also creates challenging dynamics in regards to the family well-being.

Pacific learners struggle to find quiet spaces for studying. Photo/Unsplash.

“And so the best option, both health-wise, family-wise and financially-wise, is for them to be able to move out.”

While it is discouraging that the number of overcrowded Pacific homes has stagnated, Ika finds it is encouraging that the situation has not worsened.

Ika also said that the definition of overcrowding, often defined as “two people in a room”, is important to understand. This norm is common among Pacific families, but it becomes concerning when the number of occupants grows.

Over 11,000 children impacted

The report shows that children bear the brunt of these overcrowded living conditions, where 38.6 per cent (11,115) of severely housing-deprived Pacific people are under 15 years old.

Ika said overcrowding made it difficult for children to find quiet spaces to study, which can lead to poorer educational outcomes and negative long-term outcomes and negative long-term consequences for younger generations.

She referenced a study by the Education Review Office’s study that looked into Covid-19’s impacts on Pacific learners, finding that these students experienced disproportionately negative effects, including large isolation bubbles, access to devices, and job loss.

Photo /RNZ.

“It was often around the house [being] too noisy - there was no space for them to study,” Ika said.

“They had to share devices in between so many siblings and so there are repercussions for us living in these homes of lots of people.”

Severe crowding hits Tongan homes hardest

StatsNZ’s Principal Analyst, Rosemary Goodyear, said Tongan households experienced the highest rates of overcrowding among Pacific groups, with around 46 per cent living in severely crowded conditions.

This is followed by Tokelauan households at nearly 40 per cent and Sāmoan households at 37.3 per cent.

“Around a quarter of people with Tongan ethnicity are living in a severely crowded home,” Goodyear said.

“It’s severe crowding that's really kind of more related to the sort of risk of infectious disease.

Watch Ana Ika's full interview via 531pi’s FB below.

“Generally, we know that from the kind of research that’s done on infectious disease, that that's got the worst kind of health outcomes.”

Otago University research also found that crowded living environments increase the risk of contracting infectious diseases, such as rheumatic fever, which can have lifelong health consequences.

Balancing culture and housing market realities

Despite new housing developments, policies and interventions, Ika said that the fundamental challenge lay in balancing cultural preferences for larger households with a market geared towards smaller, more profitable dwellings.

“I think there needs to be a discussion around how we acclimatise to the current housing market and the properties that are available.

“Unfortunately, because the majority of us live in Auckland, they're shoebox houses, and they're not fit for how we live as Pacific.

“How do we still protect the social connections that we have as a family, but splitting across multiple houses so that we address these health issues, we're not overcrowded so that we can move into homes of our own?

“There’s no simple answer to it.”