Overcrowding of houses in New Zealand's Pacific communities is likely to be worse than the latest research suggests, according to an expert.
Auckland University Associate Professor of Pacific Studies Damon Salesa told TVNZ1's Breakfast that research which showed around four in 10 Pasifika people in this country live in crowded homes was based on statistics from 2006.
"It's important to emphasise that this set of numbers came out from 2006, so it was describing overcrowding 12 years ago and since then we've had a global financial crisis, we've had a housing crisis. This will be worse," he said.
"These statistics count a garage, a sleep out, or a caravan, as a bedroom, so it's overcrowded in that sort of context."
"I think most New Zealanders don't want six-year-old children sleeping in garage, it's not who we are."
Professor Salesa said Pasifika were overrepresented in these statistics because they are more likely to be poor, to be renters and to have bigger families.
"The houses we have in New Zealand aren't properly sized for the people we have," he said.
"Often Pacific people live in multi-generational homes, so they have grandparents as well as grandchildren and parents, they are also more likely to have a second family, relatives of the first family.
"In Samoa or Tonga you live in a complex of houses, but in New Zealand you are pushed into a three bedroom, one bath house."
Living in overcrowded houses was bad for people's health, Professor Salesa said.
"People who live in overcrowded houses are more likely to get sick, more likely to get skin diseases, respiratory diseases because crowded houses don't tend to be well insulated or the newest homes," he said.
Professor Salesa said one solution was to build homes capable of housing bigger families.
“One thing, is when we build houses, we have to build them to fit the families we get,” he said.
“The overcrowded families are more likely to be Maori, Pacific, or Asian.”
SHARE ME