Mapping New Zealand’s Housing System: understanding how housing shapes wellbeing

Abstract

Housing outcomes in Aotearoa New Zealand are deeply intertwined with wellbeing, yet public discussion often focuses on isolated issues, rather than the housing system as a whole. This article offers a transdisciplinary, plain-language systems model to make visible the interconnections and trade-offs that complicate housing policy. Our Housing Outcomes and Multi-system Effects (HOME) model begins with a wellbeing lens by identifying how housing affordability, agency, place and house quality affect wellbeing, and progressively builds outwards to show how economic, social and regulatory systems shape these foundations. By emphasising system-wide relationships rather than single-lever fixes, the model provides a tool for those working across housing, social policy, urban development and infrastructure seeking deeper insight into how New Zealand’s housing system operates and where opportunities for more effective policy and practice may lie.