Philippa Howden-Chapman

Queer communities—used here as an inclusive umbrella encompassing Takatāpui and LGBTIQ+ identities—continue to face significant and often overlooked challenges in accessing safe, secure and affirming housing in Aotearoa New Zealand. Although 2023 Census data indicate that one in 20 adults identify as queer, there remains a critical lack of research and policy engagement with their specific housing and wellbeing needs. These inequities are compounded by systemic discrimination, social marginalisation and the ongoing absence of queer perspectives in mainstream housing and health discourse. This study responds to these gaps through a qualitative open‐text survey distributed via Rainbow Housing NZ, a private online forum administered by Gender Minorities Aotearoa. With over 5000 members, the platform functions as a peer‐led network for queer individuals seeking housing or offering queer‐affirming spaces. The survey investigates participants’ lived experiences navigating the housing system, the barriers encountered and the strategies employed to create safety, stability and belonging. Preliminary findings reveal persistent concerns around affordability, discrimination and safety, alongside innovative, community‐based practices of care, resilience and mutual support. The study calls for equity‐focused housing supports and policy reform as fundamental to inclusive public health, social justice and human wellbeing.

Public rental housing in Aotearoa New Zealand is a safety net in a pressured housing market with often unaffordable rents. The needs and behaviours of public housing tenants may differ from more prosperous New Zealanders’. The present paper focuses on transport behaviours and preferences of this group, as part of a wider research programme (‘Public Housing and Urban Regeneration’) addressing tenant wellbeing and behaviour. Particular ways in which such tenants use transport are identified in Keall et al. [1]. To dig deeper on tenants’ transport patterns and access, and understand their willingness to reduce emissions, we surveyed 160 public housing tenants, via a mail-back questionnaire in mid-2023. The responses represented 66% of those approached. Key findings are that public housing tenants, while often using cars, especially as passengers, frequently use public transport (PT) (40% of respondents) and active transport (walking 68%; cycling 17%). However, tenants’ transport preferences are often unmet. For example, for everyday needs, 36% of respondents would prefer to use a car less; 42% said easily walkable access to shops or facilities would help in taking fewer car trips. Such findings from our survey suggest that housing providers, council planners and public transport operators should collaborate to make public rental housing as accessible as possible, locating new housing close to public and active transport facilities and shops; and recognising that tenants overwhelmingly see local easy access, including better PT, footpaths and cycle paths in their neighbourhood as making it easier to travel car-free, thereby reducing emissions.

Since 2010 the widespread availability of smartphones has lowered barriers to collecting experienced wellbeing (EWB) data through ecological momentary assessment (EMA). This paper reports on two New Zealand studies that explore the impact of social context, activity, and the diurnal cycle on the EWB of social housing tenants. The two studies adopt different approaches to implementing EMA via a smartphone. The first uses a smartphone app to collect information on EWB, while the second adopts an instant messaging approach. Despite differences in the EMA approach used and sample characteristics, both studies produce very similar results. Social contact is associated with higher experienced wellbeing, as is travelling when compared to other activities. Both studies also effectively replicate findings from the wider literature on the relationship between the diurnal cycle and experienced happiness. Because the studies both took place in New Zealand in the second half of 2023 and focus on similar target populations, a comparison between them has useful lessons for the impact of the different approaches to EMA on data collection. We find that the instant messaging approach achieved better compliance with the EMA protocol, suggesting that the familiarity of instant messaging may be beneficial for data quality for some respondents. However, the instant messaging approach requires more researcher time per interview and cannot collect GPS information on the respondent’s location, sacrificing a major strength of EMA measures.

Public housing tenants in many countries have multiple challenges, often including socioeconomic disadvantage, family health and disability limitations, and compromised potential to earn income. An understanding of this group’s travel behaviours is particularly salient when policies to limit carbon emissions are being considered because such policies can exacerbate transport inequities. The current study makes use of an ongoing national travel survey in New Zealand that uses in-person interviews. We studied travel behaviours from neighbourhoods with mostly public housing tenants compared to other areas with no, or low numbers of, public housing tenants. Respondents from public-housing-intensive areas tended to be younger, have lower incomes, have more dependent children, have fewer household vehicles, and reside in areas with the highest levels of socioeconomic deprivation, all features that are known to affect travel patterns. The public-housing-intensive areas had a much higher proportion of trips made as passengers and hence higher levels of car occupancy than people living in other areas. The distance driven per person was less than half that of other areas, as were carbon emissions per person arising from private vehicle travel. Public housing providers and transport planners need to collaborate so that public housing is close to public transport and active transport facilities to allow tenants ready access. Public housing tenants are likely to suffer aspects of transport poverty, and where policies designed to limit carbon emissions increase the price of fossil-fuelled private car travel, other affordable and accessible transport options need to be available.

This paper explores the complexities of measuring impact from placemaking in the context of public and community housing (sometimes known as social or subsidised housing) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Placemaking refers to a range of practices and interventions—including the provision or facilitation of access to community infrastructure—that seek to cultivate a positive sense of place through everyday experiences, spaces, relationships, and rituals. Drawing on interviews with four community housing providers (CHPs), analysis of their documentation, and tenant survey and interview data from two of those CHPs, this research examines providers’ change theories about placemaking in relation to tenants’ experiences of safety, belonging and connectedness, including access to local amenities, ease of getting around, and a sense of neighbourhood and community affiliation. Based on the importance of these variables to wellbeing outcomes, the study highlights the potential of placemaking to support tenant wellbeing, while also recognising that providers must navigate trade-offs and co-benefits, limited resources, and varying levels of tenant engagement. While placemaking can help to foster feelings of connection, belonging and safety, its impact depends on providers’ capacity to initiate and sustain such efforts amidst competing demands and constraints. The study offers indicative findings and recommendations for future research. Although the impacts of placemaking and community infrastructure provision are difficult to quantify, research findings are synthesised into a prototype framework to support housing providers in their decision-making and housing development processes. The framework, which should be adapted and evaluated in situ, potentially also informs other actors in the built environment—including architects, landscape architects, urban designers, planners, developers and government agencies. In Aotearoa New Zealand, where housing provision occurs within a colonial context, government agencies have obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi to actively protect Māori rights and to work in partnership with Māori in housing policy and delivery. This underscores the importance of placemaking practices and interventions that are culturally and contextually responsive.

Insulating homes has been shown to provide health benefits, but benefits for home safety have not been studied. The current study analyses hospitalised falls rates, making use of a large New Zealand cohort initially set up to study health benefits. This cohort consists of just under half a million people (n = 469,666; 53.3% female; mean age 35.7), half in an intervention group (n = 236,040; 53.6% female; mean age 36.2) who had their homes retrofitted with insulation early in the study period and half in a control group (n = 233,626; 52.9% female; mean age 35.3) with homes retrofitted later. We found that retrofitting programme was associated with changes in fall rates that varied in a non-linear way with age. Cubic splines were used to estimate a non-linear but continuous relationship between age and changes in fall rates. Although other research has indicated that home insulation and heating have a positive influence on older people’s wellbeing and ability to live independently, the current analysis indicated a safety benefit only for under-70-year-olds, not for older people; the population-wide change in fall hospitalisation rates associated with the programme estimated was null. The study highlights the importance of considering the benefits of home improvements, particularly for older people, in a holistic way that encompasses wellbeing as well as health and safety outcomes.

The role of public housing in improving wellbeing for tenants and society is an important public policy issue. Public housing tenants in Aotearoa New Zealand have constrained incomes and their mode of transport has implications for their budgets, their wellbeing, and carbon emissions. Tenants’ daily life choices and wellbeing are influenced by the set of transport options available to them and the constraints and opportunities these options entail. What is important for wellbeing is also dependent on culture. Little is known, however, about the specific influences of transport on the wellbeing of public housing tenants and how that is mediated by the culture of particular groups, particularly Māori and Pacific people, who make up the majority of people in public housing in Aotearoa. In this article we review the literature on public housing, transport, and wellbeing, to establish what is known about how transport, and the access it affords, influence the wellbeing of public housing tenants. We searched Scopus and Web of Science for academic journal articles, published in English and available online, about public housing tenant wellbeing with regard to the transportation and location characteristics of public housing. We found that creating highly accessible public housing developments with options of various modes of travel is important for the wellbeing of tenants. We also found that understanding the specific needs and preferences of tenants, ensuring tenants have agency over how they travel, and engaging with tenants during transport decision-making are particularly important and often under-recognised for people in public housing. Finally, we identified substantial gaps in the literature around understanding transport needs and experiences from Māori and Pacific perspectives, emphasising the importance of including indigenous and ethnic minority views in future research.

Complex problems are rarely solved on their own. One such problem facing Aotearoa New Zealand is the provision of affordable housing that enhances the wellbeing of tenants and local communities. Using qualitative methodology, this study examines the various ways in which public and community housing providers work together with external organisations to improve wellbeing. This research is the first of its kind in New Zealand to examine the different ways that housing providers collaborate with external organisations. It is also the first of its kind to explore the extent to which the Treaty of Waitangi (the founding document of New Zealand between Māori and the Crown) influences collaboration. To assist our understanding of collaboration typology, a focused literature review was undertaken, where a collaboration continuum was developed. The literature findings were utilised to strengthen our interrogation of the data by observing activities, rather than relying on commonly used terms. All housing providers were identified as investing heavily in collaboration. Those engaged in large complex projects exhibited higher levels of inter-organisational intensity. The Treaty of Waitangi was identified as influencing collaboration between housing providers and Māori, including non-Crown agencies. As the affordable housing sector undergoes changes, further research is recommended.