Community Housing Aotearoa says the government needs to look outside its own departments to find a solution to the housing crisis
Community Housing Aotearoa (CHA) has endorsed the United Nation’s report into affordable housing shortages in New Zealand, backing a human rights-based approach to housing strategy.
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has said that the government needs to “redouble its efforts to regulate the private housing market”, calling on the government follow a strategy of ensuring ‘affordable, habitable, accessible and secure’ housing.
According to CHA chief executive Scott Figenshow, the government now needs to stop relying purely on its own departments to produce a housing strategy and to involve all parts of the community. “It’s about ensuring that all affected groups and their representatives are involved in identifying what needs to be done, with the government responding accordingly,” he said in a statement.
“We’ll fail if this becomes a strategy produced by government departments from a government perspective,” Figenshow went on. “We’ll miss the huge opportunity to shift our systems forward and positively resolve the housing crisis once and for all.”
CHA has backed UN Chief Commissioner Rutherford’s call for a strategy similar to Canada’s National Housing Strategy, which was “developed in collaboration with all levels of government, businesses, indigenous groups and civil society to ensure involvement and commitment from all partners.”
