Community Engagement With HLC

See how Housing New Zealand subsidiary HLC used our product to gain the trust of the community and facilitate social and economic growth.

The problem they faced.

Eastern Porirua has one of the highest concentrations of public housing in NZ, with most of these houses built in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of these houses are old, damp and not the size and type that Porirua families most need now, and in the future. Many private rentals are in worse condition, and in both public and private housing in Eastern Porirua there are high levels of housing needs and overcrowding. Compared to the rest of New Zealand or the Wellington area, Eastern Porirua is very ethnically diverse — with high numbers of people from Pacific and Maori communities alongside Middle Eastern, Latin American and Asian groups as well.

In a project of this scope involving so many different people, there can be a perception that the voice of the individual is lost and not counted, and the community of Eastern Porirua had already shown some concern. By this stage, however, HLC had already reached out to us and we had begun formulating an engagement strategy. HLC felt that this was important to capture as they wanted to start a conversation with the Eastern Porirua community about how to unlock the potential for social and economic growth, making it an even better place to live, work and raise a family.

The solution we provided.

HLC worked with Horizon State to assist with its residents’ engagement program of work, by providing the tools necessary for research, polling, and web-based community engagement. The polling tools developed for HLC were used by HLC staff; capturing residents’ comments, ideas, and concerns using a tablet computer out in public.

Because of our emphasis on ensuring an intuitive user interface on Horizon State platform, HLC were able to reduce the friction between what residents want and what HLC were able to deliver in terms of their development plans. Furthermore, the concerns of residents were allayed due to the inherent transparency and auditability of the software.

How did it turn out?

The solution we provided allowed for truly meaningful input from the community and in-turn allowed HLC to structure it’s development plans based on the feedback they were provided by the community.

This helped HLC gain the trust of the community, knowing that HLC would be working to develop in their best interests and in a way that would increase the social and economic growth for the area. This style of engagement has shown that the lack of transparency and engagement between organisations and communities can easily be solved with the right technology.