Final comment regarding our findings and government’s ongoing obligation to progressively realise the right to a decent home As well as the four immediate obligations in relation to homelessness we have just addressed, government also has an obligation to progressively realise the right to a decent home over time. Government must take concrete action to address and remedy other housing system factors that contribute to homelessness. Emergency housing is one part of a deeply interconnected housing continuum. Reducing homelessness cannot be delivered through the provision of temporary emergency housing alone. We recognise the current Government is tasked with responding to a situation largely created by decades of institutional neglect. Aotearoa New Zealand suffers from years of undersupply in housing, including a policy of previous governments to sell off state housing stock. This undersupply has been compounded by drastic house price increases and an increasing lack of affordable rental supply. The Government is also faced with other complicating factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic and response, serious building industry supply issues, and a very challenging global economic environment. We accept that wider fixes to these issues and to the housing market will take some time to deliver. As acknowledged by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing in her end of mission statement following her visit to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2020: protect and fulfill the right to adequate housing, there is insufficient expression of this right in law, in related policy and programmes, and in their implementation. [The housing and human rights crisis] would never have arisen to this extent had housing been fully understood, recognized and implemented by Governments as a human right and a social good rather than as an asset for wealth accumulation and growth over the last decades. If successive Governments of New Zealand had ensured over the last several decades that every housing related legislative and policy decision had as its aim the promotion of the right to housing, it is clear that the country would not be confronting a housing crisis.89 These wider housing system issues are outside the scope of this report. However, we emphasise that government has a binding human rights obligation to progressively realise the right to a decent home, including by taking deliberate, concrete, and targeted steps to reduce homelessness and achieve decent, sustainable housing for everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand. As highlighted by the Special Rapporteur: It is clear that ending homelessness and resolving the housing crisis is a commitment that is less about the Government of the day, and more about the health of the nation. This must remain a priority regardless of political agendas.90 We urge all political parties to consider how they can support cross-partisan solutions to the country’s housing and human rights crisis. While New Zealand has ratified various international human rights treaties obliging all bodies exercising government authority to respect, 59