Affordable and Healthy Housing
Home is where I feel safe and warm enough to build my future

For children to thrive, lead healthy lives and reach their potential they need an affordable, safe and healthy home.

However, too many of our children are living in precarious situations such as emergency or transitional housing directly impacted by the lack of healthy and affordable housing options. Accessible and suitable housing for disabled whanau is even more scarce.

The Healthy Homes Standards have been introduced to lift the quality of rental accommodation to help ensure our housing stock is warm and healthy.  However, much is still be done to ensure all rental homes meet the Healthy Homes Standards.

The Emergency Housing Waitlist remains unacceptably high at over 24,000 (March 2023) fuelled by people unable to afford the high cost of housing. Urgent action is needed to make sure every child, family and individual's right is met to live in a healthy and affordable home. 

Youth homelessness has been estimated as being possibly as high as 30,000 youth (under 25 years). It is unacceptable that any child or young person is without a place to call home.  A home provides stability, safety and is essential to being able to attend school or take part in the workforce.  Experts in the sector have identified youth homelessness as, “A huge crisis, an invisible issue that is in plain sight.”

We are calling on government to take leadership and ensure that every young person in Aotearoa New Zealand has a safe and affordable home to live in. 

This election, we encourage all New Zealanders to engage candidates with the following questions,

Then vote for those that answer YES!

1. Does your party have a longterm housing strategy with affordable, culturally appropriate solutions for families on low incomes, Māori and Pacific whānau, migrant families, people with disabilities, and/or with needs for assisted living, whether renting or buying a home?
2. Will your party continue to implement and enforce the Healthy Homes Standards to ensure social housing and rental homes are healthy places to live.
3. Does your party commit to continuing to upgrade the existing social housing stock and to build more social housing homes to meet the housing needs of whanau on low incomes?
4. Will your party commit to developing, implementing and resourcing a specific regional and national strategy to address youth homelessness?
5. Will your party commit to engaging and working with Rangatahi and community providers in the sector to improve and redevelop the system to be rangatahi and sector led?