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Executive Summary This submission on Building the Future: Towards a New Zealand Housing Strategy is presented on behalf of the Human Rights Foundation of Aotearoa New Zealand and Just Housing Trust. The submission continues a dialogue begun when the above two organisations contributed to a parallel report on the occasion of the submission of the New Zealand Government's Second Periodic Report to the Committee of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). In this submission we take up the opportunity to contribute to shaping a New Zealand housing strategy and to assist the Government and its housing agency to fulfil the obligation to progressively promote and protect human rights in general and the right to adequate housing in particular. It is desirable that a NZ housing strategy will be developed in consultation with the community, to allow dialogue about the relative importance of different rights and to ensure that a variety of perspectives and options are included in the final strategic plan. Our priority in this submission is to draw attention to the often neglected potential contribution of civil society housing organizations. We wish to emphasise their relevance, both to the future New Zealand housing strategy and to the better realisation of the State's housing responsibilities. The present housing affordability crisis challenges New Zealanders to develop a "partnership approach" to shape a housing strategy that makes the best use of scarce government and non-government resources. Answering that challenge is key to realising other fundamental human rights in NZ society. Our submission is in two parts. Part 1 responds directly to the 'Areas for Action' identified in Building the Future. Part 2 outlines an alternative framework, detailing our recommendations. Part 1: Comments on Building the Future We agree with the vision for the housing strategy - "that all New Zealanders have access to affordable, sustainable good quality housing appropriate to their needs" - and with the nine basic principles to guide and influence future housing policy and activity in NZ. We think the vision and principles are consistent with a strategy to implement measures to realise a fundamental human right. However, questions arise about the quality of planning. Will the six areas of action deliver the goal of more affordable housing? What is achievable and how soon? What strategies within these areas of action will effectively lower the cost-structure of house production and make the strategic goals realisable? Do the selected areas of action exhaust all the measures to address the housing affordability crisis? We argue that a pattern emerges in the proposals - a vagueness about the suggestions for action and a distinct lack of definition about any achievable goals for an affordable housing strategy. Ultimately, since what is planned does not purport to, and cannot, deliver adequate housing for all in New Zealand, the country remains in breach of its international obligations. Overall the approach to action suggested in the six areas and in response to the specific housing problems of the disadvantaged is one of increasing support for more social spending when it becomes available. Although alternative approaches do exist, there has been an unwillingness - particularly by HNZC - to pilot alternative approaches. Instead, the measures taken place renewed reliance on the mainstream mortgage market; on incremental increases in welfare subsidies; and a plan to modestly increase the State rental stock (with one third of the intended acquisitions leased from private investors). There are proposals to gain more leverage with existing State resources, by working in partnership with non-government agencies. In reality, the State's development of partnership has progressed very little beyond extending existing partnerships with private sector mainstream construction and financing agencies. Partnership with non-profit agencies has gone little beyond the level of rhetoric. The steps taken, since the announcement of the Housing Innovation Fund (HIF) and the Local Government Fund in the 2003 budget, have been very modest ones. We believe the State's concept of social housing "partnerships" is flawed, and is the reason for the delay in getting significant action in the non-market, not-for-profit housing area. We believe there is a need for the State to better appreciate the strengths that civil-society housing organizations can bring to partnership. Civil society housing organisations offer potentially significant savings on social costs. They need support in more realistic ways so that they can overcome their identified weaknesses. Part 2: An Alternative Framework We argue that the usual measure of poverty in NZ is income-based. Income-poverty is currently a huge problem affecting one household in five. But a more complete picture - and a more disheartening one - is the measure of the assets of the poor. Lack of income means a family doesn't get by - but lack of assets means a family doesn't get ahead. We suggest a reframing of housing concerns in terms of asset poverty, rather than income poverty, thus requiring a reframing of the remedial actions to be incorporated into the housing strategy through a social Charter in housing. Key to any asset accumulation policy would be a housing Charter's new legislative and other practical measures to stimulate the supply of adequate housing while avoiding additions to the level of debt. The inclusive society, mentioned in Building The Future's vision statement, requires an urgent, new, solution-focused, action plan into the future. While acknowledging that current housing problems cannot be solved quickly, we suggest and detail an alternative framework for the New Zealand Housing Strategy in this part of the submission. In its housing policies and practice, the State holds to the belief that existing legislation, administrative measures and the common law is enough to ensure rights protection. But the persistence of seemingly intractable housing problems gives lie to that supposition. Where steps are being taken which are clearly insufficient to remedy the situation, the State stands in breach of its legal obligation under the ESCR Covenant. In the recommendations that follow, we urge a more comprehensive set of statutory obligations than currently exist. They are required to exert the sort of moral and legal pressure necessary to gain the resources with which to transcend the short-termism of the electoral and financial cycles. Short-termism plagues current housing policy. RECOMMENDATIONS That the State incorporate housing rights under the international ESCR Covenant into a Housing Charter such that the principle of full realisation of the right to adequate housing is posited as the Charter's main policy objective. That a rights-based approach is taken to the delivery of adequate housing to all New Zealanders. That the State and Civil Society partners, in implementing the NZ Housing Strategy, adopt the Housing Charter as the framework to develop the following new measures to realise the right to adequate housing: A revolving building fund A land bank A flexible concept of shared-equity Community capitalisation of the accommodation supplement. That the State and the Civil Society partners establish a new and independent Housing Authority - to promote the NZ Housing Strategy as the means of fulfilling the objective of the Housing Charter. That the NZ Human Rights Commission identifies a Housing or ESC Commissioner or focal point - to inform, educate and better protect ESC Covenant rights and standards in housing. That the NZ Human Rights Commission incorporate the right to adequate housing and these other recommendations for a NZ Housing Strategy, into the NZ Human Rights Plan of Action - to better protect and promote all human rights in NZ. That the State include a statutory obligation on the new Building Industry Regulatory Authority, to respect and protect ESC Covenant rights and values in its application of science and technology to the building industry. That the State collect adequate housing indicator statistics and report the findings to the United Nations Settlements Commission every two years, as a way of gauging the effectiveness of the measures taken to progressively realise the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to adequate housing. That the State incorporate the right to adequate housing into NZ domestic law.   For the full submission:   Building the Future (PDF Format)

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