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Housing New Zealand Corporation proud sponsor of the 17th International Safe Communities Conference
17 October 2008Housing New Zealand is pleased to be a principal sponsor of the 17th International Safe Communities Conference to be held in Christchurch from 20 - 23 October 2008. The conference focuses on ways to strengthen community safety as an integral part of violence and crime prevention policy, research and evaluation, and best-practice models.
- Conference Logo.
The four day programme will see international and domestic speakers which include Leif Svanstrom, chair of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion, and Assistant Commissioner Jon White, New Zealand Police, sharing their expertise with conference delegates.
Workshops being run will provide rich opportunities for participants to build networks; share knowledge of what works and also what doesn't work; being inspired to refocus efforts; being reminded that we all have an important part to play in community safety; learning of the cost-benefit of improved community safety efforts; and learnings from international experience.
Stephen McArthur, Chief Operating Officer for Housing New Zealand will address conference delegates on the opening day. Annette Baker from Housing New Zealand's Community Renewal Team will be running a workshop on qualitative and quantitative methodologies for effectively measuring community safety.
The conference is being hosted by the Safe Communities Foundation of New Zealand, Christchurch City Council and supported by the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion.
For a complete list of speakers, workshops and conference programme, visit the conference website: www.safecom2008.co.nz
Stephen McArthur's speech for 17th Safer Communities Conference
Good afternoon. I'm Housing New Zealand's Chief Operating Officer, and it is great to be here today to talk about a subject that Housing New Zealand regards as critically important to its role as a crown agency - fostering safer communities.
When people think of safety they think of crime and injury prevention, but community safety spans a far broader spectrum of community development activities. A safe community is a community people feel part of, a community where residents know and watch out for their neighbours, a community connected to services, where people can live without worry and are proud to call home.
These are the communities Housing New Zealand is striving to achieve, and I want to spend a little time today illustrating how.
While some of you are from New Zealand, there are many from overseas, so I thought I'd start with a bit of background about Housing New Zealand - who we are and what we do.
We are the country's largest residential landlord. On the taxpayer's behalf, we manage a portfolio of 68,000 properties worth more than $15 billion, the New Zealand government's second largest physical asset.
More than 200,000 New Zealanders call our homes their home, and more than 400 community groups rent properties from Housing New Zealand to house those who need extra assistance in the community. Each day, we place more than 25 households into state homes in cities, in provincial towns, and in the farthest corners of rural New Zealand. Each day, we help more than two households into home ownership and we educate 14 others on how to achieve home ownership.
On one level, we are a government advisor. We lead the development of the New Zealand government's housing and home ownership policies, capturing the best ideas from around the world, and developing new ones.
On another level we are a business. We earn revenue from the rent we charge for our homes, and we generate a surplus. But we are a business with a purpose; we prioritise social objectives over commercial ones.
We house those in greatest need - those who may be down on their luck, they may be elderly, or they may be people who need help to live in the community.
Housing New Zealand is a landlord, but in the very broadest sense of the word.
Yes, we provide homes, but we also use the strategic opportunities our network of homes provides, our knowledge and expertise, and the relationships we have with families, community organisations and government, to enhance communities.
We form partnerships, we fund them, and we reach across communities to connect families to each other, and to important services that can improve their circumstances.
We use our relationships to prevent and reduce crime, improve tenants' health, tackle family violence, child abuse and unemployment.
By providing secure, good quality, affordable homes from which families can flourish and succeed, Housing New Zealand can create opportunities for people to make a difference in their own lives and their communities.
Our Community Renewal programme, aims to reduce social exclusion and foster strong, sustainable communities in areas of very high deprivation and high concentrations of state housing.
The programme began in 2001, combining large scale improvements to housing and the physical environment with programmes to strengthen social networks, build residential pride and ownership, create links to employment and business growth programmes, and improve neighbourhood safety and crime.
In other words, Community Renewal has helped to transform areas which people have previously avoided, to places where people want to live, where there is a sense of community empowerment and ownership where there is a strong sense of social cohesion, safety and security, where the physical environment and housing reflects residents' needs, and where an integrated range of appropriate services are available.
Community Renewal uses a community development approach which means communities take the lead, and social agencies support, mentor and encourage. Strong and sustainable communities are only possible when it is the communities themselves which are empowered to chose which path they will take to prosperity.
It is also about grass-roots assistance that enables people to come together, build trust and begin the process of working towards finding their own solutions for community wellbeing. These are powerful and holistic tools for community change, they are about empowerment, sustainability and with a significant focus on capacity building
To date, the initiative has been highly successful; so much so that rather than being a programme of work it will soon become the WAY we work. Housing New Zealand is looking at mainstreaming Community Renewal in the core of our business.
There are now eight community renewal projects underway around New Zealand. Aranui, here in Christchurch, was the flagship project - the first to begin and the first to be owned by the community again - while the newest, and by far the biggest project, the Tamaki Transformation Programme in Auckland, has just begun.
There is much to do, but there is also much to look forward to. And it is conferences like this which help ensure the work we are doing to make communities safer is on track, and informed by the experiences of others. It also serves as a reminder that community safety is a joint responsibility.
Housing New Zealand is proud to be a major conference sponsor and I hope you enjoy the next four days. It's a fantastic opportunity to network, reflect and learn and all the very best for the future.
