housing

The State steps in (and out)

'I never feel sorry for myself. When you are on the breadline, you just get on and do it.'

Val Wilson, 58-year old state tenant, Dixon Street Flats, Wellington, 1992

Val Wilson's words, to an Evening Post reporter, reveal both resignation and dogged resilience following news that the government's introduction of full market rents would see her pay nearly 300 percent more for her tiny, one-bedroom state flat. Even after a new accommodation supplement, Val was left with precious little to live on. But if strength of character was able to help people like Val come to terms with their new situation, it was not enough, as the rent rises came into effect, to prevent hundreds of others falling below the breadline into poverty.

Nathan Levin's residence

Our first premiers had to find their own digs. Before Parliament moved from Auckland to Wellington in 1865, they had to hunt for housing before taking their seats.

Families after the Second World War

As a consequence of the post-war economic boom there was increasing demand for consumer goods. The 1956 census revealed that more than half of New Zealand homes possessed washing machines, refrigerators and electric ovens. For those families who could afford these time- and labour-saving luxuries, so-called 'women's work' became easier. In addition, women who had been mobilised during the war had a taste of life outside the home.

Although many relinquished their jobs at the end of the war in favour of returning soldiers, some chose to remain, if only part-time, in the paid workforce.

Building community

Community has many different meanings. People might live in a particular community, but have little contact with their neighbours, preferring instead to pursue their social life elsewhere. Others in the same street might be best friends and spend hours 'chewing the fat' over a back fence. Planners of state housing communities encouraged the second model, in which neighbours would become friends and where locals would look out for one another.

Links

• Bodgies and widgies in Dunedin. All about bodgies and widgies in 1950s Dunedin, including a link to an article on the 'Beau Monde' written by Richard Kilgour of Otago University.

• The Parker-Hulme case.The Christchurch City Libraries resource pack for the Parker-Hulme case
• Exhibition on Wellington Cafe culture on this site

Accommodation and shelter

New Zealanders have called many structures home. Some have been solid and permanent: kauri villas set in lawns and gardens, row houses on cramped Dunedin sections, sprawling state house communities in Otara. Many homes were wrought from the bush, especially in the early part of the century when raupo whare, canvas huts and roughly-hewn timber cottages dotted the landscape in remote or rural areas. For some, home was a room in an institution, a boarding house or an old people's home. Later in the century, retirement villages or rest homes catered for New Zealand's growing elderly population. Temporary shelter has also housed large numbers of New Zealanders at different times: tents in wartime, huts on tramping tracks, caravans in camping grounds, motels and hotels, transit camps, night shelters, time-share apartments.