Abstract
Background – Adequate housing is a basic human right. Despite this, much of New Zealand’s housing stock is in poor condition. Notably, there has been a substantial underinvestment in renewing New Zealand’s social housing infrastructure. In part this is because the contribution of good quality social housing to tenants’ wellbeing has been undervalued. There is a need to remediate the social housing stock in New Zealand and address inequalities in quality housing.
Against a general trend, internationally and nationally, Wellington City Council and Tāmaki Regeneration Company invested in their social housing stock. Evaluating the impact of these initiatives on tenants’ wellbeing is important, to build a robust evidence base and improve knowledge about the benefits of social housing.
Wellbeing refers to a person’s welfare, quality of life, or utility, at the individual, community and societal level. It encapsulates elements of life that people value and the degree to which people can live consistently with their desires and aspirations. Various domains influence wellbeing, as outlined in wellbeing frameworks developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and New Zealand Treasury. This thesis focuses on a subset of domains: housing, health, social connections and safety.
Aim – The aim of this thesis was to provide a framework for measuring the impact of social housing remediation on tenants’ wellbeing at three levels:
1. Housing level: interventions made to the indoor environment of discrete units, e.g. draft stopping intervention at Marshall Court, an already upgraded Wellington City Council housing complex with 27 units
2. Complex level: interventions include changes to the physical fabric/infrastructure of units and/or environment, e.g. rebuild of a section of Arlington, Wellington City Council’s largest social housing complex, with 269 units
3. Community level: interventions include changes to the environment/urban landscape of the neighbourhood, social services for general use and social systems, e.g. remediation of 2,500 social units in three suburbs of Tāmaki, Auckland, by Tāmaki Regeneration Company.
This thesis also aimed to test the application of the frameworks and inform the debate around the New Zealand Healthy Homes Guarantee Act 2017, which proposed a minimum temperature for rental properties. Therefore, indoor temperature was a particular focus.
Methods – This thesis developed robust evaluation frameworks, informed by literature, which can be generalised and utilised across the three levels of intervention. To evaluate the natural experiment at each level and promote causal attribution, I proposed a quasi-experimental before-and-after approach using control groups.
The housing level evaluation provided a field test of the initial framework, which proved the viability of the approach. The framework was expanded for the complex level evaluation and baseline data were collected. An even larger framework was developed for the community level intervention, which has a 15–25 year construction estimate; baseline data collection is ongoing at present. Frameworks were refined and contextualised in consultation with stakeholders. Follow-up, post-intervention data collection and analysis of the complex and community levels are anticipated to be undertaken as part of a future research programme.
As the level of intervention increases in scale, an expanding range of methods and tools are recommended to evaluate the impact. At a minimum this includes surveying tenants and monitoring the physical performance of housing including temperature, humidity and energy use. Administrative data are useful to obtain health and safety information on health care utilisation, victimisation and injuries. Site specific reports such as crime prevention through environmental design, urban design and maintenance reports are also useful sources to provide context, especially with respect to understanding social connections and safety.
Results – A literature review was conducted on evaluations of physical social housing interventions. This indicated that interventions generally led to tenants having increased satisfaction with their home, improved indoor conditions, health, social connections and safety. However, it was difficult to compare project evaluations. While they had a common goal, there was no consistent framework utilised.
For this thesis, cohesive evaluation frameworks and methodologies are presented across all three levels of intervention of interest at the housing, complex and community level. In practice a number of challenges were confronted when undertaking the evaluations, particularly at the complex and community level. This thesis also addresses how these were handled.
Key results from the housing level intervention showed meaningful indoor temperature increase was possible through minor interventions. Units were 1.36°C warmer on average after the draught stopping intervention, adjusting for outdoor temperature. Tenants’ diary entries also claimed units were warmer and more comfortable post-intervention.
Baseline results from the complex and community level showed a real need for warmer units, as pre-intervention units were on average 14.9°C and 16.7°C respectively; colder than the World Health Organization recommended minimum indoor temperature of 18°C.
Conclusion – The frameworks developed in this thesis can be applied when evaluating social housing interventions with respect to tenants’ wellbeing. The importance of housing interventions, with particular regard to indoor temperature, was demonstrated, and evidence developed was used in the development of the guidelines under the Healthy Homes Guarantee Act 2017. This will ideally be used to identify effective interventions, improve wellbeing and address inequalities going forward.