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.
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Archive
Australia has taken a ‘light touch’ with Airbnb. Could stronger regulations ease the housing crisis?
Nicole Gurran and Peter Phibbs The Conversation (No paywall)The current housing crisis has renewed debates about how to regulate short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb. The international research on the impact of these rentals is clear: when landlords “host” tourists rather than residents, housing supply is depleted, rents rise and neighbourhoods change.
Given Australia’s dire shortage of rental housing, restricting short-term rentals seems like a no-brainer. New research published this week showed the share of rental properties under $400 per week has fallen to 15% in most capital cities – half of what it was a year ago.
https://theconversation.com/australia-has-taken-a-light-touch-wi…
# Hot topic Australia, Planning and development, Short-term holiday letting, State Government.Rental properties: Soaring rents and limited leases make for tenant anxiety
Maida Pineda The Age (No paywall)I have an email alert for rental properties in my neighbourhood. Each day I get sent a listing of all the available apartments that fit within my ceiling price. I usually get a list of several places nearby within my budget.
In the past few weeks, however, the only thing available is a car park rental. Ouch! I live in Southbank, a short skip away from the CBD.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/soaring-rents-and-li…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market, State Government.‘Now you’re evicting them?’: Victorians in ‘life-changing’ housing scheme face homelessness again
Stephanie Convery and Benita Kolovos The Guardian (No paywall)Hundreds of participants in a “life-changing” Victorian housing program designed to permanently end rough sleeping face the prospect of returning to homelessness after being served with eviction notices.
From Homelessness to a Home (H2H) was launched by the state government in July 2020 to widespread acclaim from the housing sector. An extension of emergency measures to accommodate Melbourne’s rough sleepers in hotels during the city’s Covid-19 lockdowns, the program was allocated $202m to help move about 1,845 households and families out of homelessness.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/06/now-youre…
# Australia, Eviction, Homelessness, State Government.The Growing Risk of Eviction in the Suburbs
Devin Q. Rutan, Peter Hepburn, and Matthew Desmond Eviction Lab (No paywall)American suburbs have changed dramatically over the last several decades. Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, suburbs were largely white, middle-class spaces. Over time, they’ve become poorer, more diverse, and—as we show in a new study published in RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences—the site of a growing share of eviction cases.
We used millions of court records from across the country to track how common eviction cases are in cities and their suburbs, and how that has changed over time. Building on previous work, we focused on 74 of the largest metro areas in the U.S.—cities and their surrounding suburbs—where we had reliable data covering the years 2000 to 2016. Our sample included metro areas across the country, from Boston to Phoenix, Pensacola, FL to Olympia, WA.
https://evictionlab.org/growing-risk-of-suburban-eviction/?s=31
# Research alert International, Eviction, Tribunal NCAT.US teachers grapple with a growing housing crisis: ‘We can’t afford rent’
Edwin Rios The Guardian (No paywall)In her first year as a student teacher, Gina Gray also delivered groceries for Instacart. She was driven to give back to the city that raised her, but also needed help with the bills and rent.
Now Gray, a Black English teacher at Middle College high school in Los Angeles, takes on additional work in the district such as teaching summer and Saturday schooling and commutes one hour each day from her rental in Norwalk-La Mirada, a district near Los Angeles.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/02/us-teachers-cali…
# International, Housing affordability, Work, employment, Young people.Eviction applications spike in Ontario as rents soar, vacancies dwindle
Matt Lundy Globe and Mail (No paywall)As Ontario faces a chronic shortage of housing and rapidly climbing rents, landlords in the province are increasingly trying to evict their tenants and take possession of those rental units.
In 2022, the Landlord and Tenant Board, which adjudicates rental-housing disputes in the province, received more than 5,550 eviction applications in which landlords sought units for themselves, family members or new buyers. That was an increase of 41 per cent from 2019, according to numbers provided by the province to The Globe and Mail.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-housing-evictio…
# International, Eviction, Landlords and agents.‘Extending the eviction ban is a doomsday scenario for me’: Renters and landlords on the ban
Nathan Jones Irish Times (No paywall)Renters have cited fears of homelessness in calling on the Government to extend the ban on evictions in advance of its expiration at the end of this month.
In response to an Irish Times reader call-out on experiences of the winter stay on evictions, several Dublin tenants spoke of there being “nowhere to go” if they lose their current accommodation.
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2023/03/06/i…
# International, Eviction, Personal stories.First-of-its-kind workers' co-op offers housing to low-income earners in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
Lori Culbert Vancouver Sun (No paywall)Wendy Tredger lived for seven years on the first floor of the historic Keefer Rooms SRO in Chinatown, where her sleep was routinely interrupted by responding to the increasing number of overdoses caused by the toxic drug crisis.
“There was nobody on the front desk, so the paramedics would pull up below my window and yell, and I would run down (to the ground floor) to let them in. I don’t think that in the last year there was ever one night that there wasn’t at least one ambulance call,” said Tredger, 69.
https://vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/first-of-its-kind-…
# International, Co-operatives and resident-led housing, Housing affordability, Work, employment.