We are about to experience an Accessible Housing Crisis,
And no one even know's its happening!!
For so many people, the house or home that they live in, and the community that house sits within, is a crucial part to their identity,
Recent reporting from RNZ highlights the sheer scale of the problems faced by disabled people to simply get into a home
With many disabled people waiting for months and years on waiting lists, despite what the government is saying, to the contrary to get into a home that meets their needs
Kainga ora’s recently released ‘turnaround plan’ means that less homes will be built going forward:
“Kāinga Ora will stop growing the stock of state homes under a ‘turnaround plan’ aimed at cutting the agency’s fiscal costs, announced by Housing Minister Chris Bishop on Tuesday.
A Cabinet paper released alongside the plan shows the agency will be expected to build or buy 1500 new homes, fully offset by demolishing 700 and selling another 800. This contrasts with a net increase of 3,600 homes in the year ending June 2024, and 8,600 over a six-year period”.1
This is concerning enough for the building of State housing but even more concerning for the large percentage of Kainga Ora tenants who require, not only a State house to be built, but one to be built with Accessible modifications.
Data on the demographics of Kaīnga Ora tenants reveals the actual extent of the needs of the tenants themselves, and underscores the need for Kāinga Ora Homes to build more homes with Accessible features to meet the needs of their own tenants.
40-45% of state housing tenants report having a disability or health condition that affects their daily lives. This is substantially higher than the general New Zealand population, which recently reported through the 2023 Household Disability Survey that 17% of the adult population as having a disability.
Our ageing population, Housing and Universal Design
New Zealand has an aging population, Stats NZ estimates that by 2050 our population of people over the aged of 65 will reach 1.5m or 1 in 5 people.2
This will have a significant impact upon a range of policy settings, from Retirement Savings, to Tax, to Housing design.
Focusing on Housing Design, we just need to build more houses. Even the NZ Initiative is clear about that!!
“We are simply not building enough to meet the looming demographic changes and demands”.3
I use this as an example to demonstrate that both sides of politics are in agreement that more houses must be built. And to contrast this with the decision to stop the build program and actually start to sell houses!!
We have a limited window of opportunity to start building houses! because one thing is certain, we cannot win a race against population demographics.
I challenge anyone to go and take a look at any Retirement village and see what an apartment looks like, where Universal Design features are seamlessly designed into the builds. These are built for private paying customers, paying top dollar for them4.
With a rapidly aging population over the age of 65, many of whom will not have the income to go into Retirement villages, where Universal Design is standard, we are left with little choice but to build our social housing stock to meet the needs of this ‘Silver Tsunami’, we cannot have Seniors living in Motels permanently or even worse in the streets!!
Our current and future Social housing options must have Accessibility features installed within the house builds.
Why shouldn’t All people expect to live in a home that meets their needs now and into the future, not just the lucky few, who can afford a Villa at a Retirement community.
The big question is Why haven’t we more readily adopted Universal Design into our building industry so that the Retirement village experience can happen for everyone?
I remember asking David Seymour a question a few years ago about Accessible homes.
I asked him when can we expect Accessibility to become standard within the building industry? His response to that question was ‘The market will decide’
My reflection on that interaction is that clearly hasn’t happened and we need to have a look into Why that happened, Why the Market has delivered Accessible housing in the case of Retirement villages but not in other contexts at scale?
Research carried out by Industry body BRANZ on how to integrate Universal Design into the building industry made several key findings:
Despite costing analysis around universal design and accessible housing undertaken in the past showing minimum costs around these features in new builds, over two thirds of these builders perceived LifeMark homes as more expensive to build.
Nevertheless, the builders experienced in delivering accessible homes using LifeMark noted that LifeMark dwellings were only a little more expensive and additional costs could be minimal if they were planned at the first stage of build.
Typically, builders/developers have little concern with universal design and accessibility although (as for sustainability) there is a tendency to claim that they do and that the primary inhibitor to supply is the lack of householder or property investor demand.
Householders struggle to get accessibility embedded in design and builds even when they are knowledgeable and explicit about their requirements.
Householders who do achieve accessible design dwellings report considerable satisfaction across a number of functional and comfort dimensions.
So what we have is both a perception and an information challenge
LifeMark, which is the NZ Universal Design standard, is perceived by builders as being more expensive, when actually it is cost competitive when implemented from the first stage of a build.
Builders / developers claim to have knowledge of universal design when it is not there and that results in a lack of supply of Universal design projects being delivered.
Homeowners who actually get a home built to universal design standards report increased satisfaction
Maybe what is needed is a greater investment into BRANZ to establish an Industry information campaign on with the support of other stakeholders about LifeMark and its benefits, in terms of the economic case to the industry for greater use of LifeMark by the building Industry and to customers?
My response to David Seymour and others is that the market has responded with imperfect information and pre conceived ideas about Universal Design and we haven’t seen the results that our population needs.
People need more accessible homes right now and into the Future,
The case for building a lot more Accessible homes
Kaīnga Ora has adopted a build target of 15% and the target has stayed at that level for some time.
Kāinga Ora stated in their latest BIM that it has a target to provide at least 15 per cent of their redeveloped homes to include Full Universal Design.
The BIM goes on to state:
‘Underpinning our work in the accessible housing sector is the Kāinga Ora Accessibility Policy, approved by our Board in 2019’.
This policy outlines Kainga Ora’s commitments and guides the work it does to improve accessibility for it’s customers. The policy aims to achieve three key outcomes:
Increase the number of homes that meet Full Universal Design standards
Meet the individual needs of customers
Improve information about customers’ needs and the accessibility of our properties.
There have been calls from within the disability community to raise the target to 100%, which were pushed back on by Kaīnga Ora at the time with the response that a 100% target was not achievable.
This target of 15% is clearly not enough to meet the policy outcome contained within Kainga Ora own Accessibility Policy to meet the needs of their own customers, which as I said above is 40-45%.
The disability community is on very solid ground in its calls for Kaīnga Ora to the disability community’s calls to raise its own target.
There is another aspect to this discussion that often gets missed out on, or glossed over.
Housing is a Right guaranteed under several international instruments including the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic Social & Political Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD Article 9 Accessibility)
In relation to Accessible housing the Government must uphold this Right through the Disability Action Plan of which the Accessibility Policy from Kaīnga Ora is a key deliverable.
In 2021 I was privileged to be part of the meetings that were organised by the Human Rights Commission with the disability community when the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing made a State Visit to Aotearoa.
The following comments from the Final Report are especially relevant to this discussion:
“… I also met with a number of persons with disabilities who indicated that public and private accommodation is rarely accessible. According to the 2013 Census, persons with disabilities make up 24 per cent of New Zealand’s population. However, it is estimated only 2 per cent of New Zealand’s housing stock is accessible – even though one in six people require home modifications”5.
If Kaīnga Ora is to meet two of the goals of its own Accessibility Strategy which state:
Increase the number of homes that meet Full Universal Design standards
Meet the individual needs of customers
Then the build program must increase the target from the current one of 15% to between 40-45% to meet the current demographic of its customers who state they have some form of disability or health condition.
This target should be benchmarked against StatsNZ population estimations and actual customer data that Kaīnga Ora holds to ensure the organisation is both creating enough fit for purpose homes for the current population of its tenants but also future proofing its building stock for its future tenants.
We have an actual housing crisis on our hands today, there are disabled people living in situations that are unacceptable by the standards that we set for ourselves.
As a country we need to roll our sleeves up and get on with the job of building more Homes that are Accessible, Today, not in 10 years, or 20 years.
By restructuring Kaīnga Ora,6 and implementing the so called turnaround Program which means stopping the build program, investigating selling State houses, the government is refusing to deal with this Crisis in State Housing.7
Disabled people need Action on Accessible Housing, and not the sort of Action this government is delivering / not delivering!
Building Accessible Homes is not a charity project, or a nice thing to do for disabled people because you feel sorry for them.
If think building Accessible homes is not profitable, then consider that Accessible Properties, made a 10m surplus in FY 2024. And take a look at the share price of Summerset .
There are hard economics and population demographics that sit behind Summerset’s decisions to build Accessible Unit’s within Retirement Villages, the private sector has figured this out and is already well on top of this opportunity.
It’s time for the Government to start catching on, but most importantly, start building!!
Kaīnga Ora must start building immediately, setting itself a stretch target of 50% of all its new builds meeting the Universal Design standard.
Both Kaīnga Ora and Community Housing providers build homes for a segment of the market that the private sector will never deliver for, Emergency / Transitional housing and Public Housing.
Both must be incentivised to build Fully and partially Accessible homes.
But they need to start building immediately, our future homes depend upon it!!
https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/131771/government’s-plan-cut-kāinga-ora’s-debt-18-billion-will-halt-construction-new
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/one-million-people-aged-65-by-2028/#:~:text=“The%20number%20of%20people%20aged,1.5%20million%20by%20the%202050s.
https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-media/reports/the-need-to-build/ Note: I agree with the definition of the problem, To build more Houses. I do not endorse the solution put forward in this research note. I am using this as an example to demonstrate that the Left & Right are unified on the need to Build more houses.
While specific numbers will vary by location and unit type, entry costs into a Ryman Retirement Village can range from approximately NZ$350,000 for the lowest cost one-bedroom apartment to over NZ$1,900,000 for premium accommodation options with additional space or enhanced views. silverware.org.nz
https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2020/02/end-mission-statement-visit-special-rapporteur-right-adequate These data references are now outdated, for current disability data should be referred to the latest 2023 Census HDS data
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/04/04/kainga-ora-staff-in-tears-over-horrendous-restructure-process/
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/540903/kainga-ora-turnaround-plan-govt-looking-into-sale-of-200-homes-worth-about-2m-each