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Background: Six thousand children are hospitalized each year in New Zealand with housing sensitive conditions, and 86.2% of these children are rehospitalized during childhood. The Healthy Homes Initiative, set up by the Ministry of Health, and implemented in Wellington through Well Homes, carries out housing assessments and delivers a range of housing interventions. Method: Housing assessments were carried out by trained community workers. Philanthropic funding was received for the interventions through a local charitable trust. Results: Well Homes saw 895 families. Mold in the home was the most commonly recorded area of poor housing quality, in 836 homes (93%). Partial or complete lack of insulation was also common, with 452 records (51%) having a documented need for further assessment and either an upgrade or full installation. Eighty-three percent of homes had insufficient sources of heating. A total of 5,537 interventions were delivered. Bedding, heaters, and draft stopping were delivered over 90% of the time. In contrast, insulation and carpets were only delivered 40% of the time. Interventions were least likely to be delivered in private rental housing. Discussion: Targeted interventions using social partnerships can deliver housing improvements for relatively little health spending. Well Homes provides immediate and practical interventions, education, connection with social agencies, and advocacy for more substantial structural home improvements to help families keep their home warmer, drier, and healthier. This approach will be strengthened when combined with a new regulatory framework to raise the standards of private rental housing.

Background: A robust evidence base is needed to develop sustainable cross-party solutions for public housing to promote well-being. The provision of public housing is politically contentious in New Zealand, as in many liberal democracies. Depending on the government, policies oscillate between encouraging sales of public housing stock and reducing investment and maintenance, and large-scale investment, provision, and regeneration of public housing. Aim: We aimed to develop frameworks to evaluate the impact of public housing regeneration on tenant well-being at the apartment, complex, and community levels, and to inform future policies. Method: Based on a systems approach and theory of change models, we developed a mixed methods quasi-experimental before-and-after outcomes evaluation frameworks, with control groups, for three public housing sites. This evaluation design had flexibility to accommodate real-world complexities, inherent in evaluating large-scale public health interventions, while maintaining scientific rigor to realize the full effects of interventions. Results: Three evaluation frameworks for housing were developed. The evaluation at the apartment level confirmed proof of concept and viability of the framework and approach. This also showed that minor draught-stopping measures had a relatively big impact on indoor temperature and thermal comfort, which subsequently informed healthy housing standards. The complex and community-level evaluations are ongoing due to longer regeneration timeframes. Conclusion: Public housing is one of central government's larger social sector interventions, with Kainga Ora -- Homes and Communities the largest Crown entity. Evaluating public housing policies is important to develop an evidence base to inform best practice, rational, decision-making policy for the public as well as the private sector.

This article examines the international literature on placemaking – practices or initiatives that encourage a sense of place – in public housing communities. Placemaking is likely to be particularly beneficial to public housing tenants, and is a current priority for public housing providers; yet reviews of placemaking research have failed to consider public housing. Our systematic quantitative review of 63 English-language journal articles reveals that the field is dominated by qualitative cross-sectional studies conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, in the context of regeneration, and published in social science journals. Our thematic analysis of this literature shows that placemaking is supported by forming relationships and participating in community activities, by access to quality public space and amenities, and by spending time and forming memories in a place. The review therefore provides guidance to public housing providers and reveals the need for particular research, including longitudinal studies, and studies conducted in both redeveloped and existing communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Takatāpui/LGBTIQ + people's experiences of homelessness remain poorly understood in Aotearoa New Zealand. Using data from semi-structured interviews with eight people who identified as Takatāpui/LGBTIQ + and had experienced homelessness, this paper explores their experiences while homeless. The analysis showed the necessity of strength of character, how Takatāpui/LGBTIQ + people presented a different self in order to be accepted, the different strategies used to survive, the importance of implementing boundaries for self-protection, and missed points of intervention and support. Our findings show how participants were failed by the housing support system, and had to rely on themselves and their communities during periods of homelessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the influences and outcomes of He Kāinga Oranga/Housing and Health Research Programme over 25 years, and their impact on housing and health policy in Aotearoa and internationally. Working in partnership particularly with Māori and Pasifika communities, we have conducted randomised control trials which have shown the health and broad co-benefits of retrofitted insulation, heating and remediation of home hazards, which have underpinned government policy in the Warm Up NZ-Heat Smart programme and the Healthy Homes Standards for rental housing. These trials have been included as evidence in the WHO Housing and Health Guidelines and led to our designation as a WHO Collaborating Centre on Housing and Wellbeing. We are increasingly explicitly weaving Māori frameworks, values and processes with traditional Western science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In New Zealand, mixed communities are developed on green fields or to replace existing public housing as a way of increasing housing supply, and, in some views, improving outcomes for low-income residents. This paper identifies the effects of developing mixed communities as perceived by implementers of these projects – politicians, officials, developers, and housing providers – and places these in the context of the international evidence. The range of perspectives on potential benefits and risks of mixed-income development for public tenants, the mixed evidence base, and uncertainty about the applicability of research evidence across different urban contexts should inform a research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unsafe and unhealthy housing is a major problem in the private rental sector in a number of countries, despite the existence of regulations intended to protect people from such housing. Rental housing quality regulation often relies on tenants reporting problems with their housing, but this fails to take account of power dynamics in the tenant-landlord relationship that make it difficult for tenants to do so. Drawing on Lukes' three-dimensional view of power, we build a new framework for analysing power at the "micro" level of the relationship between tenant and landlord. We apply this to a review of qualitative research on tenants' responses to housing quality problems in Australia, England, New Zealand and the United States. We find that the interactions of visible, hidden, and invisible dimensions of power work to prevent the effective airing and resolution of grievances about housing quality and render current forms of regulation inadequate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]