Affordable housing is a hot topic for many these days with a strong focus at government level and many stories locally of people finding it tough to find affordable housing.
The Whaingaroa Raglan Affordable Housing Project (WRAP) was formed late last year to look at the issue in Raglan with the view to trying to come up with some solutions.
The first stage of the project was to understand the problem in depth. Two pieces of research have been completed – the first, a study conducted by professional research company StrategEase using various large central and regional databases to rank housing and rent costs versus local income levels. The second was the householder survey that was made available over August and September to gather data on how many people are affected by housing affordability, how many are under stress about housing and how many people are feeling pressured to leave town due to housing costs or lack of availability.
The results that have been collated so far will be shared on Saturday the 3rd of November at the inaugural Whaingaroa Affordable Housing Forum. The day also includes speakers from Habitat for Humanity, Landshare, our local Maori housing initiative, tiny house builders and expert advice on how to make your existing house more affordable to ‘run’. Landshare is an online meeting platform for those wanting to lease or rent land for relocatable housing and those who have land to share started a few years ago by Nathan Orr in response to his own journey building a tiny home and needing somewhere to locate it.
At the end of the day there will be a panel discussion and the ‘next steps’ for WRAP shared.
WRAP
