Charity House in its final year

After 18 years and $1.7million donated to local Otago charities, we’re pressing the pause button on the Charity House initiative…but our trades students will still get to build houses!  

You may see something on the Otago Polytechnic website about this or in local media, so we wanted to keep you in the loop with what this means and why we’re doing it.  

What is the Charity House?  

• The Charity House is an initiative that was set up by Otago Polytechnic nearly two decades ago.  
• Every year, our trades students build three houses and one of these is sold at an auction in November to the general public (after being “dressed” with interior materials by local companies).  
• Any profit that is made on this house is then gifted to the Catalytic Foundation who distribute the money to local charities throughout Otago.  
• The other two houses are sold “at cost” to community organisations.  

Why is this initiative ending?  

• The rising costs of materials are making this initiative financially unsustainable – any other polytechnic offering similar initiatives stopped doing this a while ago.   
• Post Covid-19, suppliers have been unable to offer the same level of discounts on building materials.  
• Houses are also harder to sell due to the instability of the economy and the housing market.  
• More compliance is needed which is inserting further cost.  
• Unfortunately, this all adds up to mean we are no longer making any surplus profit to donate.  

What will stay the same?  

• The opportunity for our trades and He Toki students to gain hands-on experience building these houses will continue.  
• They will still build three houses every year onsite at the Dunedin Campus.  
• These houses will be sold at cost to the community, and we will continue to actively work with community organisations that we can support through this mahi.  
• We will still be able to work alongside most of the suppliers we worked with on the Charity House - they will continue to supply materials for our three onsite houses.  

We will continue to review this situation and may be able to restart this initiative down the track given the right economic conditions.