Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
Revealed: How Britain’s squalid housing crisis hits Black and Asian tenants hardest
Nadine White The Independent (No paywall)Black and Asian tenants are being forced to bear the brunt of Britain's squalid housing from mould and disrepair to forced evictions, The Independent can reveal in a special investigation that lays bare the racial disparities facing renters.
The death of a Black toddler, Awaab Ishak, caused by mould in his family's one-bedroom flat in Rochdale highlighted the health risks faced by families left in uninhabitable conditions by their landlords.
Exclusive research shows that Black and minority ethnic tenants are far more likely to be the victims of illegal behaviour from their landlords.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mould-asthma-hou…
# Hot topic International, Health, International, Mould.Evictions Are Violent: Interview with Tenants’ Rights Attorney Leah Goodridge
Zack Ward Invisible People (No paywall)Evictions are violent.
That’s a statement you read a lot when you follow Invisible People, and it is true. So much of our work is about housing people who are currently homeless. But it is just as important to prevent more people from becoming homeless.
And what many people don’t realize is how many housed people are in danger of becoming homeless.
https://invisiblepeople.tv/evictions-are-violent-interview-with-…
# Hot topic International, Homelessness, Housing affordability, International.How Our Narratives About Ending Homelessness Are Backfiring
Tiffany Manuel and Ann Oliva Governing (USA) (No paywall)Simply rehashing the problem does more harm than good. Instead, state and local leaders must help citizens see how solutions to homelessness benefit all of us.
State and local officials across the country continue to grapple with how to solve homelessness and deal with highly visible issues like public encampments in a humane way. But their efforts to make the case for ending homelessness are backfiring.
The heated debates that have followed Jordan Neely’s death in a New York City subway car at the hands of another passenger, while bystanders watched, underscore the point. Negative narratives about the people who, like Neely, experience homelessness too often broad-brush them as irresponsible, violent, deranged and unstable, rather than what they are: people in desperate situations who urgently need our help. Even those appalled by the way Neely died remain at the sidelines, unsure how we could possibly change things.
https://www.governing.com/housing/how-our-narratives-about-endin…
# Hot topic International, Homelessness, Housing affordability, International.Average monthly rent outside London now more than £1,000, says agency
Rupert Jones The Guardian (No paywall)The average new monthly rent outside London has passed £1,000 for the first time, figures show, with tenants in Great Britain now typically paying 25% more than they were at the start of the Covid pandemic.
The estate agent Hamptons, which issued the data, warned that the rate of rent rises was “unlikely to slow considerably due to the number of landlords looking to pass on their rising costs” and this may force some tenants to downsize or relocate to a cheaper area.
Many landlords with buy-to-let mortgages have seen their costs rise sharply after 12 consecutive interest rate rises and the chaos of last autumn’s Truss government mini-budget.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/may/15/rent-outside-londo…
# Hot topic International, Housing affordability, Housing market, International.How to tackle affordable housing? This Hawaii nonprofit wants to start a movement
Emily Cristobal Hawaii News Now (No paywall)It’s a turn of phrase that has almost become synonymous with living in Hawaii.
The cost of living — from housing, groceries, gas and more — is causing droves of locals and Native Hawaiians to leave the place they grew up and where their ancestors are from.
While there are lots of advocates who have been working on creating affordable housing for decades, there’s a group that believes the key to solving this crisis lies in Hawaii’s next generation.
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/05/11/amid-housing-exodus-loc…
# Hot topic International, Campaigns and law reform, Housing affordability, International.Anarchist squatters in Spain post video in masks demanding to ‘hand over the keys to all properties’
Imran Khan EuroWeekly (No paywall)The Bonanova squatters have demanded SAREB to stop the eviction while describing themselves as ‘the anarchist resistance of the bourgeois heart of Barcelona’.
La Ruina in Barcelona, which is a social centre that has been taken over by squatters in Plaça Bonanova, has published a video on Twitter, with two of its members making several demands.
https://euroweeklynews.com/2023/05/11/anarchist-squatters-in-spa…
# Hot topic International, Housing affordability, International, Squatting.‘Pouring fuel on the fire’: fear NSW’s move to ban secret rental bidding will drive prices up
Tamsin Rose The Guardian (No paywall)Already struggling renters could be subjected to “rental auctions” that would push soaring prices even higher if the New South Wales government’s reform package is passed, experts say.
While moves towards a portable bonds scheme have been welcomed, the plan to end “secret” rent bidding has caused alarm among tenants advocates who say the measure designed to protect the state’s 2 million renters would cause problems.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/11/pouring-f…
# Must read, Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Campaigns and law reform, Housing affordability, State Government.'Exhausted' low-income earners finding fewer ways to cut back look to budget for cost-of-living relief
Norman Hermant and Mary Lloyd ABC (No paywall)Martin Bongiorno has been a careful budgeter for many years.
He knows how to hunt a bargain and only buys the groceries he absolutely needs.
The single dad sets aside $15 a day for food and $20 a week for his energy bill.
That doesn't leave him with much once he pays rent.
So when his rent increased by $40 a fortnight, he cut back on the only other things he could: food and power.
"It's ... a constant trade-off," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-07/cost-of-living-low-income…
# Hot topic NSW, Families, Personal stories, Welfare.