By MONIQUE DEVEREUX
Squeezing six adults, two teenagers, a 10-year-old and a newborn baby into a two-bedroom house is not the ideal living arrangement.
But for the Vahai family, of Onehunga, it has been a reality until now.
On Wednesday, the family will move next door, to a four bedroom home, complete with two bathrooms, a larger living room and kitchen and a deck.
The Nissan Place home is the first to be renovated under an innovative housing project, which aims to reduce South Auckland's high rates of infectious disease and overcrowding within 18 months.
Housing New Zealand will renovate 1000 of its properties in Mangere, Otara and Onehunga to try to reduce cases of meningococcal disease, tuberculosis and rheumatic fever.
In most homes, rooms will be added and the general design improved, making them healthier and more practical for the tenants.
Public health officials from two of Auckland's main district health boards - Counties Manukau and Auckland - will work with Housing New Zealand to ensure the renovations lead to a healthier living environment.
That will mean making sure the houses have better airflow and more natural light, to try to prevent the spread of disease, and safer, larger kitchen areas, in an attempt to curb the number of injury cases ending up in hospital emergency departments.
Many of the tenants are Pacific Islanders.
To cater for their communal style of living, larger living areas will be added to many homes.
The $16 million project - the first of its kind in New Zealand - stems from a report linking the current meningococcal epidemic and overcrowding. The report, released last year, followed a three-year study.
The investigation looked at the risk factors for meningococcal disease, which has killed 150 New Zealanders in the past 10 years.
It was completed by researchers from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, Auckland Health Protection Service and University of Auckland.
The research team found that social conditions such as household overcrowding had intensified the effect of the B-strain meningococcal epidemic.
The presence of an extra two adults or adolescents in a six-room, average-sized house increased by 50 per cent the risk of children contracting meningococcal disease.
The risk was 10 times greater if three families were living in one home.
New Zealand is battling the highest rates of the disease in the developed world.
Ajit Arulambalam, Housing New Zealand's project manager of the Healthy Housing Development Programme, said the priority sites for renovation were plotted from the health study into meningococcal disease.
Cases of the disease were found in areas that had Housing New Zealand homes, many in homes that were grossly overcrowded.
Mr Arulambalam's team compiled a list of the 1000 homes where tenants were most urgently in need of more space or a healthier environment.
In the worst 10 homes, large families were living in two or three bedrooms.
That included one family of three adults and seven children crammed into a three-bedroom home.
Five of the worst 10 cases of overcrowding were identified in Otara's Gilbert Rd.
The Vahai family's situation also featured on the top 10 priority list.
But last month, their elderly neighbour died and the home - also belonging to Housing New Zealand - was identified as ideal to become the Healthy Housing programme's flagship.
The move will be pretty good, says Minga Vahai.
She said living with her six children, plus one son's wife and their newborn child, had often meant space was extremely limited.
"It's all right though. We're a happy family and we get along, so that helps."
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Tenants who move into larger houses will not have to pay more because of the income-related rental structure for state housing.
Under the previous Government, state-house rents were pushed up because they were linked to market rates. Now they are set at a maximum of 25 per cent of a tenant's income.
The success of the project will be measured by the improved health of the people living in Mangere, Otara and Onehunga.
The official launch of the programme will be on March 5 in Nissan Place.
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