Availability and affordability - Overcrowding 91. Insecure housing exacerbates ill health, and is associated with poorer educational outcomes for children, as they may have to shift schools frequently, have more days off school, and lack an appropriate space in which to do homework. Overcrowding is disproportionately spread across age, ethnic and socio-economic lines. Data from the 2013 Census indicated that over half of New Zealand’s 72,124 crowded households (representing about 10 percent of the population) have two or more children (at least one child aged between 5 and 14 years) living in them.115 Specific housing challenges also remain in the Canterbury region following the earthquakes that occurred in 2010 and 2011.116 92. The 2013 Census data also indicated that 38% of Pasifika people, 20% of Māori and 18% of Asian people live in crowded households, compared to 4% of Europeans.117 Furthermore, of those New Zealanders who live in crowded households, approximately 35,000 (9%) live in households that do not use any form of heating in their houses.118 The highest percentage (16%) is in the Counties Manukau DHB region, where 14,103 people living in crowded households use no heating. This region, home to many of New Zealand’s most economically deprived urban communities, also experienced a 9% increase in overcrowding in the period between the 2006 and 2013 Census surveys.119 Habitability - Housing quality 93. The Government has taken some action to improve housing quality, which has led to improvements in health outcomes. The Warm Up New Zealand home insulation funding programmes has been found to correlate with reduced hospitalisation rates for children in low income households.120 Furthermore, amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act will require mandatory insulation standards for all social housing and rental accommodation by 2019. However, despite these developments, significant numbers of New Zealand homes are inadequately insulated. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) estimates that at least 600,000 houses still have no or inadequate ceiling or underfloor insulation, of which 300,000 are low income households. 30