Kia ora from Minette and Ellen,
A home should be a safe haven. Homes are where our children grow up and we grow older; where we put down roots to branch outwards; where we rest and regroup so we can participate in our communities.
We’re very happy to launch our report ‘Homes that meet our real needs: How people think and reason about housing performance in Aotearoa NZ.’ It shares the findings of a collaboration with BRANZ that gave us the opportunity to dig into how people think and reason about the way our homes are built and operate, and how this impacts our lives as individuals and as communities.
Our research shows that decent homes are what people across the motu expect and aspire to — those of us who live in homes, as well as those of us who build them. However, we’re surrounded by stories that tell us that homes are assets rather than the places where we live out our lives, and that the purpose of a home is to build wealth rather than to meet our real needs for health, safety, community, and stability.
This means that homes that perform really well are seen as a luxury choice for a lucky few, rather than the norm for us all. We’re making decisions based on individual financial return, rather than on the long-term, collective goal of laying down the foundations for good lives.
The consequence? Access to safe, healthy, and well-performing housing is elusive for many of us, with people in our communities struggling to find decent homes for themselves and their families. People who rent don’t have reliable access to warm and dry homes, and even those who own the homes they live in don’t experience homes that consistently function as they should. The people who build our homes see that many of us are ill-served by our current housing system. We are made ill by the homes that should be keeping us safe, and we waste precious resources rigging short-term fixes for systemic problems.
To make sure that homes that meet our real needs are the normal, most accessible type of housing for everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand, we need a housing system that is empowered to put wellbeing first, and driven forward by the understanding that the homes we build and live in contribute to a long-term, collective infrastructure for public good.
This means:
setting consistently, unapologetically high standards for warmth and comfort that are joined-up, and easy to understand and apply
reliable support for industry to adapt, upskill, and apply new building practices
expecting that all of us will live in homes that provide the foundation for a good life, now and in the future.
We’re grateful to BRANZ for the opportunity to collaborate on this interesting and important work, and hope to keep building on it (pun intended) for even more usable insights. For specific advice on things you can try now, including terms to use and avoid and potential future work in this area, see our report which is available on our website now.