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
Our Corporate Landlord Tried To Push Us Out. We Saved Our Homes Through A Community Land Trust.
Guadalupe and Ixchel Hernandez Next City (No paywall)For Los Angeles renters like us, rents are skyrocketing, homeownership is a pipe dream, and bad luck in the form of a medical emergency, a lost job, or a landlord’s whim can push us right into homelessness.
A year ago, a corporate property owner bought the rent-controlled building where we’ve lived for 20 years. They started trying to push us and other longtime tenants out, in an effort to jack up the rents and rake in fatter profits. Like so many of our Koreatown neighbors before us, we expected to be forced out of our homes, out of our neighborhood, even out of Los Angeles entirely.
But we’re still here. In fact, we’ll soon be cooperative owners of the property.
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/corporate-landlord-los-angele…
# Must read International, Campaigns and law reform, Co-operatives and resident-led housing, Landlords and agents, Strong communities.Will Progressives Ever Make Housing a Top Priority?
Patrick Range McDonald Housing is a human right (No paywall)Housing justice activists have been increasingly pushing for the passage of rent control and the repeal of rent control bans in states and cities all over the country. Rents have skyrocketed the most out of any household expense. The rise of corporate landlords have turned tenants’ lives upside and down. And Big Real Estate has become the most powerful special interest in the United States, with Donald Trump as a prime example. Yet housing still isn’t a top priority for too many progressives. What’s going on here?
https://www.housingisahumanright.org/will-progressives-ever-make…
# International, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development.Do Large Landlords’ Eviction Practices Differ from Small Landlords’?
Housing Matters Housing Matters (No paywall)In an average year between 2000 and 2016, more than 2 million households faced eviction. Evictions have a wide range of negative consequences for individual households and the broader community. Though much of the research on evictions has focused on renters, landlords have a critical role in housing stability. In this study, the author focuses on how different types of landlords respond to social and institutional pressures and put tenants at risk of eviction.
https://housingmatters.urban.org/research-summary/do-large-landl…
# Research alert International, Eviction, Landlords and agents.The Politics and Practice of Tenant Organizing
Daniel Denvir The Dig (No paywall)Featuring Shanti Singh, Tracy Rosenthal, René Moya, and Cea Weaver on the politics and practice of organizing tenants.
https://thedigradio.com/podcast/the-politics-and-practice-of-ten…
# Audio International, Campaigns and law reform, Renting culture, Strong communities.Evictions on the rise in the Midwest put public health at risk
Natalie Krebs KBIA (No paywall)The trouble for Rolland Carroll started last fall.
That’s when the 61-year-old said his apartment complex in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, informed him that his federal housing aid for his one-bedroom apartment had been reduced months ago.
He owed more than $2,000 in back rent.
“I was in shock,” Carroll said. “Like, how the heck could I owe this amount of money without you guys saying something months ago?”
https://www.kbia.org/2023-02-01/evictions-on-the-rise-in-the-mid…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Health, Housing affordability, Landlords and agents.Top Five Flaws of Stanford University Study on Rent Control
Patrick Range McDonald Housing is a human right (No paywall)For more than five years, reporters and the real estate industry continue to cite a seriously flawed and misleading study on rent control by Stanford University researchers. At the same time, reporters almost never mention studies by experts at USC, UCLA, and UC Berkeley that found rent control is a key tool to stabilize the housing affordability crisis. What’s going on here? To set the record straight, here are the top five flaws of the Stanford paper, along with key points from the USC, UCLA, and UC Berkeley studies.
https://www.housingisahumanright.org/top-five-flaws-of-stanford-…
# Research alert International, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Housing affordability.Portland, Maine Passed Rent Control. Here’s How.
Sandra Larson Next City (No paywall)When voters in St. Paul, Minnesota, approved rent stabilization in 2021, it garnered national attention, not least for the measure’s notably low 3 percent cap on rent hikes. Rent stabilization efforts are underway now in at least six U.S. cities and states, including Boston, where advocates and the city’s new mayor face a steep uphill climb.
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/portland-maine-passed-rent-co…
# International, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents.The crown owns no land
Claire G. Coleman The Saturday Paper (Paywall)It’s that special time of the year again, when people talk about reconciliation, treaty, land rights, invasion, colonisation and Australia. The time of the year when racists fume and rant, when anti-racists and post-colonialists tell us they care and want us to be happy; the time of year when many Aboriginal people face the choice: fight or hide. January can be toxic, mostly because it’s the lead-up to the worst of Australian holidays, “Australia Day”. Enough has already been written about January 26 and why not to celebrate it to fill a book.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2023/01/21/the…
# Hot topic, Legal significance Australia, Aboriginal renters, Federal Government, History, Human rights, Land Rights, Race and ethnicity.