‘I think life changed for everybody from the first lockdown’: public housing tenants’ experiences of COVID-19 public health and social measures in Aotearoa New Zealand

The COVID-19 pandemic placed unprecedented restrictions on people’s lives and usual behaviours, restricting movement in public spaces and interpersonal contact to immediate households. As a key social determinant of health, housing is a critical infrastructure for resilience to health threats such as pandemics. Presenting data from seven in-depth interviews with public housing tenants in the Greater Wellington Region, we explore how tenants’ dwellings interacted with COVID-19 public health and social measures to affect tenant wellbeing. To date, this is an understudied area with few articles addressing the specific pandemic concerns of this community. Overall, participants described increased feelings of uncertainty about ‘what’s around the corner’ in terms of future pandemic scenarios and the escalating cost of living. They understood wellbeing both individually and relationally, reflecting on how the pandemic had impacted those around them, particularly children and young people. These findings reinforce the importance of good quality housing and urban green spaces for pandemic preparedness, while also introducing new concerns such as the need for tailored systems to address tenant food insecurity, and the need for interior spaces to be flexible to changing uses.