Abstract
Successive governments in Aotearoa New Zealand have implemented different forms of housing support, which have received commendation and criticism over the years. This study examines the demographic characteristics and government service interactions of those living in public housing and compares these with those receiving Accommodation Supplement (a form of housing voucher) over five years before they started receiving housing support, to assess the severity of their needs. We accessed and analyzed data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure, a large research database which holds linked de-identified microdata about people and households. We identified 90,474 public housing tenants and 1,680,084 Accommodation Supplement beneficiaries from 2016 to 2020. We found that children, Māori (Indigenous people of New Zealand), Pacific Peoples, and single parents were overrepresented in the public housing cohort. Public housing tenants had more interactions with the health system (hospital, pharmacy, mental health service), judicial system (police, courts), and social welfare system (benefits) compared to those receiving Accommodation Supplement. Our study shows that public housing serves those most in need of support in Aotearoa New Zealand. The government must continue to fund and upscale the building of public homes as the most vulnerable people in Aotearoa New Zealand depend on them.