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Housing in Wellington

There's no Place Like Home

More than half of the people interviewed in a housing survey, conducted in central Wellington, want to leave the houses they are now living in.

This is revealed in the first section of preliminary results of a survey commissioned by the Wellington Citizens Committee on Accommodation. The survey covered 512 dwellings. About 75 percent of them were located in the Newtown, Mount Victoria West, Thorndon, and Wellington Polytechnic areas. The remainder were in Berhampore Brooklyn, and Haitaitai.

Mr R.T. Bradley, a Victoria University sociologist who conducted the survey in co-operation with the WCCA, said that those interviewed, almost 53 percent wanted to move out of their present housing. Sixty-six percent of this group gave a financial reason as that which prevented them obtaining the kind of housing they wanted, an exception to this general pattern were those over 65. Since a high proportion of them own their dwellings, almost 60 percent preferred to remain in their present accommodation".

(For the survey, a dwelling or household was defined as a residential building in which the inhabitants shared common cooking facilities.)

While nearly a quarter of the dwellings studied had at least one basic household amenity missing (such as a hand basin, hot water, or laundry facilities), almost as many have to share such facilities with another dwelling. Dwellings containing the aged were the worst on this aspect.

Of the total sample of 512 dwellings, 321 (or 62.7 percent) were rented. Of the 321 renters, 48 percent said they were dissatisfied with the physical conditions of their dwelling.

With over 90 percent of their dwellings having structural faults (such as dry rot, a leaking roof, or broken windows), and/or basic household services and amenities in need of repair, almost half of the 321 renters were dissatisfied with the physical conditions. Those living in semi-furnished and unfurn-ished flats reported the greatest proportion of faults with the physical structures of their dwellings.

Few positive reasons were given by the respondents for selecting their accommodation It was hardly a matter of choice for just under 30 percent - either because there was nothing else available, or because they could not afford anything better.