New social housing complex designed for austistic adults
A new social housing complex in Auckland’s Orewa will soon be home to five autistic adults whose apartments have been designed to reduce sensory overload and provide long term accommodation.
It’s the first development of its kind for Autism NZ’s charitable property trust Equity House, driven by a shortage of suitable housing for those on the spectrum.
In New Zealand, an estimated 4000 autistic adults are not living where they want to, either in care homes or with elderly parents, and more than half of those live in Auckland.
Helena Wisnieski is a support worker for an autistic man in his 20s who is among the five people moving in this December.
“He’s a man of few words but I can see absolutely that relief and I think a little bit of excitement as well to looking forward to the future for him to really have something that is his own.”
For a few hours each week, she helps him with tasks such as supermarket shopping and planning for appointments.
He has to move out of his current rental soon, and for months he has been trying to find a unit to rent.
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“We were just finding complete dead ends, lots of granny flats and units they want working professionals. My client, he doesn’t work – [there were] just lots of barriers to finding him his own property.”
The complex looks like the other large homes in the area, in the hills above Orewa with views of the beach.
There’s a shared lounge and each tenant has their own bathroom, kitchen, lounge and bedroom with storage.
All five apartments have been designed to reduce sensory overload, with added insulation for soundproofing, dimmable lights and blackout blinds. They also have extra exits.
Equity House is Autism NZ’s community housing provider – it bought the land in Orewa from Sentinel Homes, which built the housing complex.
Ray Finch is on the board of Equity House and said it is hard for adults with autism to find suitable housing in the rental market.
“We understand our audience, we know that someone might want to paint their apartment purple and that’s fine we’ll help them paint it purple.
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“We know that sound is a real challenge for people so with Sentinel’s help we’ve put sound buffering and insulation inside and out so when you’re inside you’re home it’s as quiet as possible.”
He said the trust offers long term rental and tenants pay a percentage of their income, for example someone on disability support would pay $75 weekly rent.
“It will allow people that are eligible to only pay a percentage of their income … our goal is to help these people find work, meaningful engagement with employment,” Finch said.
“There’s no expectation that they have to move out. We’d like to think that we get somebody employment and we break that poverty cycle that they’re in that they one day might be able to afford their own apartment.”
Equity House director Ray Finch at the new social housing complex for autistic adults in Orewa.
RNZ
He said thousands of adults with autism need housing like this.
“Families have been talking to us for years now about the need for in community housing that is autistic and neurodiverse specific but is not seen to be a disability development,” Finch said.
“We wanted to build this home and other homes that we’ve got plans for that look like any other home in the neighbourhood, there just happen to be four or five neurodiverse adults that live here and they can thrive in the community.”
He said many young adults with autism do not need full time care but often ended up in supported living homes and become institutionalised.
“In most instances people are referred to disability group homes not because they need the care but because there’s no housing options for them and then what ends up happening is you get too much care and too much care equals a reduction in independence and then a reliance on care,” Finch said.
“The stats are quite alarming. When you have people with a moderate level of support needs, just a couple of hours a day of redirection or someone to check in with to help with the activities of daily living, the housing options are almost non existent.”
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Equity House is planning to build more homes like this but missed out on the latest round of government funding for community housing providers.
“Within a couple of months there’s another window for applications for us to place more homes onto the social housing register. We want to do the likes of this all over New Zealand. We’re applying to do this in Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, Tauranga and Auckland and we’ll do them as fast as the ministry allows us to do them.”
Autism NZ chief executive Dane Dougan said their social housing model is different – once the mortgage is paid, they plan to share the equity they generate with their disabled tenants.
“We don’t want to just create a massive property portfolio on the back of disabled people we actually want to give back to them … they’re the ones that will help us get to a point where we can make this successful so they should benefit in that success as well.”
There were 40 applications for the five apartments, from people aged between 19 and 72.
Although it was hard to choose just five, Dougan said being able to offer the housing is a good feeling.
“Meeting them in the last couple of weeks has been so heartening. For us it just reminds you why you do this, it’s life changing for these people and for us to be able to offer that to them is just so special.”
Today, they hosted an official blessing of the house in Orewa.