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
The solution to Australia’s rental crisis is more regulation and fewer landlords
Matt Lloyd-Cape The Guardian (No paywall)When it comes to regulating an industry that provides homes for millions, the wishes of landlords trump safety and security concerns of renters
Victoria has seen rents increase by 20% on average this year, but in some cases by up to 150%. These slightly terrifying statistics were revealed at a recent conference on the state of Australia’s rental market.
Such rental increases should concern policymakers even more than the recent rapid increase in house prices, since they disproportionately impact lower income households who are more vulnerable to housing stress.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/05/the-soluti…
# Hot topic Australia, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Jump in homelessness as Australia’s rental crisis pushes ‘overwhelmed system to breaking point’
Caitlin Cassidy The Guardian (No paywall)Vulnerable people and regional areas hardest hit, report shows, as experts demand urgent action to increase affordable housing
When Brooke escaped domestic violence in 2020, she didn’t expect her biggest problem would be finding secure housing for her and her three children.
Brooke has worked in disability and aged care for almost a decade, and never previously had a problem with rental security. But for two years she’s been in crisis accommodation in Melbourne, facing knock-back after knock-back for a permanent home.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/05/jump-in-h…
# Must read Australia, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market.Proposals to tackle Australia's rental crisis
Katherine Gregory ABC (No paywall)The World Today: While much of the interest rate focus is on borrowers, renters are also enduring stress and uncertainty.
Some policy experts say many renters are left feeling insecure and dismissed.
Experts believe the solution is more than just building more housing: instead, they say, renters need immediate protections and the market should be better regulated.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/worldtoday/proposals-to-ta…
# TUNSW in the media, Audio Australia, Eviction, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Campaigns and law reform, Federal Government, Local Government, State Government.Global models of social housing worth looking at: Mercer
Mark Eggleton Australian Financial Review (Paywall)Australia could learn from the experience of the United Kingdom in the social infrastructure space, says Mercer’s Global Head of Infrastructure, Amarik Ubhi.
Citing the UK as one of the pioneers of the public-private partnership model, he says the results have been mixed, with question marks over whether value for money was achieved and the direction the UK government has taken on procuring some of the projects. But overall, there were some good lessons, he says.
https://www.afr.com/companies/infrastructure/global-models-of-so…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing.Folk Economics and the Politics of Housing
Christopher S. Elmendorf, Clayton Nall, Stan Oklobdzija City Journal (No paywall)Political elites don’t agree on much nowadays, but they do see eye to eye on two broad points: housing is too expensive, and restrictive land-use regulations make it so. New York’s leftist firebrand Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants cities to liberalize zoning; so, too, does Indiana’s conservative Senator Todd Young, whose YIMBY Act would encourage zoning reform. Opinion leaders across the political spectrum have joined the bandwagon, from the socialists at Jacobin to the libertarians at Reason, from the institutional liberals at the New York Times to their conservative counterparts at National Review.
https://www.city-journal.org/majorities-are-skeptical-of-zoning-…
# Research alert International, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development.The dream and nightmares of council estates
The Economist The Economist (Paywall)This book measures 25cm by 21cm. It is elegantly designed, with beautiful photographs printed on hefty paper. The publisher is the Royal Institute of British Architects, which also produces books such as “Inspired by Light” and “The New Country: City Style for Rural Living”. It even smells nice. It is a lovely book on the distinctly unglamorous subject of British council estates.
And why not? At the peak, in 1981, fully 32% of English people lived in social rented accommodation—mostly in the form of houses and flats built by local councils. Even today, after four decades of mass council-home sales and very limited new building, they shape millions of people’s lives.
https://www.economist.com/culture/2022/12/01/the-dream-and-night…
# International, Public and community housing, History.Renters forced to pay hundreds in ‘unethical’ fees to secure homes
Shanti Das The Guardian (No paywall)Letting agencies are earning thousands of pounds in commission and in some cases flouting the ban on tenant fees by forcing renters to sign up to controversial “zero deposit” schemes.
An Observer investigation has uncovered evidence of pressure-selling tactics by some agencies in England, including cases where people were told they were required to sign up as a condition of securing a tenancy.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/dec/03/renters-forced-to-…
# International, Landlords and agents.The high cost of housing is a UC-created crisis
Matthew Tauzer SF Examiner (No paywall)We are now entering our third week of the largest strike in the nation — a strike that has all but shuttered the Universtiy of California’s 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. All of the 30,000-plus workers who are walking picket lines have their own stories as to what brought them to this place. But overall, issues of equity, decent compensation and housing affordability have animated the effort.
https://www.sfexaminer.com/our_sections/forum/the-high-cost-of-h…
# International, Housing affordability, Students.