Our homes are killing us. Every year, thousands of Kiwis are admitted to hospital and many die as a direct result of living in cold, damp, unhealthy homes. Even brand-new homes often don’t meet internationally recognised standards for healthy homes.
The issue of healthy homes is a much broader concept than simply increasing insulation, adequate ventilation and heating and reducing injury hazards, says Philippa Howden-Chapman, professor of public health at the University of Otago, Wellington.
Howden-Chapman and fellow authors of the 2018: Stocktake of New Zealand’s Housing report found that many factors contributed to the issue.
For example, the lack of secure tenure for tenants means that they are often rushed into choosing a home with insufficient space for occupants to live healthily. Crowding increases the risks of the spread of infectious diseases.
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A lack of affordable heating means many Kiwis are living and sleeping in rooms that are not insulated or adequately heated and therefore colder than World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations. Tenants inhabit homes that are statistically less likely to be healthy and are more likely to use unflued heaters.
One of the big problems, say both Howden-Chapman and housing and urban development minister Phil Twyford, is that there is no independent system of evaluating the health of our homes as there is overseas. This means the evidence is anecdotal and may not necessarily identify the full scale of the problem.
The consequences of our unhealthy homes can however be documented well through health statistics.
Every winter mortality rates rise compared to the warmer months, with 1600 mostly older New Zealanders dying premature deaths.
Still not insulated
Despite previous government-led insulation programmes, only 300,000 New Zealand homes have upgraded to adequate insulation, says Twyford. “There remains something in the order of 800,000 that are still not insulated.”
In order to move forward and make our housing stock healthier, says Howden-Chapman, a whole host of co-ordinated changes need to happen, such as updating the Residential Tenancies Act and the Building Code, as well as strengthening regulatory action and accountability.
The new government’s first step towards improving the health of our homes was the Healthy Homes Guarantee Act (HHG), which brings in higher standards for rental properties. Twyford says the HHG is the single most important public health reform his government can make.
Landlords will be asked to guarantee that any new tenancy from July 1, 2019 is either properly insulated or contain a heating source able to make the home warm and dry. This is instead of requiring individual landlords to have three-yearly WOF inspections.
Investigations will be “risk based” and run the by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), says Twyford.
The move may not be popular with landlords but Twyford likened it in parliament to the butcher who isn't allowed to sell meat that will make their customers sick. Yet in New Zealand, he said, a landlord is allowed to rent out a house that damages the health of its occupants.
When the HHG is fully operational, tenants who believe their landlord is breaching the rules will be able to take a case to the Tenancy Tribunal. Although the details have yet to be nutted out, Twyford says the tribunal could send out an inspector in disputed cases.
The HHG will have minimum standards, but these will be implemented through supplementary regulations that will be developed after public consultation.
Building Code beneath standard
New houses often aren’t up to standard in New Zealand. Howden would also like to see changes made to the Building Code to ensure new homes and renovations provide for healthy living and meet a certain standard of thermal efficiency and heating.
According to the New Zealand Green Building Council, the Building Code is the equivalent of a 4 Homestar rating on a scale from 1 to 10. A 6 Homestar rating is about the equivalent of standard of new homes in other OECD countries.
Twyford says the Building Code will be reviewed but says he hasn’t committed to a date. “It is something [that] in time we will do.”
Filling our hospitals
Healthy homes aren’t just of concern to the wider housing industry. The Ministry of Health is also very concerned and launched Healthy Homes Initiatives (HHIs) between 2013 and 2015 in 11 District Health Boards (DHBs) that recorded a high incidence of rheumatic fever.
The initiatives began in the Auckland region and more than 9600 families have been referred to HHIs, collectively receiving over 24,000 housing-related interventions to make homes warmer, drier and less crowded.
Interventions given to these families include help them get insulation, curtains, beds, bedding, minor repairs, floor coverings, ventilation, heating sources, Full And Correct Entitlement assessments through Work and Income, support with power bills, and finding alternative accommodation as needed.
Training the salespeople
One of the many issues New Zealand is facing is a lack of training of salespeople who advise how to make our homes healthier, says Vicki Cowan of Beacon Pathway, an incorporated society committed to transforming New Zealand's homes and neighbourhoods.
“[It] is quite well recognised there is aggressive marketing of some products to households. “For example a house may have damp issues caused by something such as a broken pipe, but the private companies will attempt to sell products that don’t address the problem, she says.
As a result, Beacon Pathway, Toimata Foundation and Community Energy Network, have launched a Home Performance Advisors initiative to ensure that practitioners giving households advice on how to improve home performance have robust training and an ongoing professional development pathway. So far, 87 practitioners have passed the training.
Good news
It’s not all bad news on the healthy-home front. Howden-Chapman sees some improvements. In the case of Housing New Zealand, the government is providing additional funding to ensure that new social housing is healthy and older properties can be retrofitted to an acceptable standard.
The government has also announced $2000 subsidies (details to be announced) for insulating, ventilating and heating homes. It has also announced a $140 monthly winter power payment for all NZ Superannuation recipients and beneficiaries.
- New Zealand Herald
