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
Young WA family faces homelessness due to ongoing rental housing crisis
Lauren Smith ABC (No paywall)A West Australian family of six with four children, each with disabilities, is facing moving into a tent or caravan as the nation's rental crisis continues to worsen. Mum Megan Macdonald is the sole provider for her Albany family, which is moving out of its rental property after the landlord decided not to renew the lease. With her children and husband Ray Macdonald, she is considering moving to a caravan park or even living in a tent due to the tough competition for rental properties and high rents. Ms Macdonald said the market had never been this bad before.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-23/family-four-kids-facing-h…
# Australia, Land lease communities, Rent, Homelessness.ACT urges Tanya Plibersek to quash defence housing plan that would destroy critically endangered grasslands
Lisa Cox The Guardian (No paywall)The ACT government has urged the federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, to reject a defence housing development that would destroy critically endangered grasslands in Canberra’s north-west. Defence Housing Australia (DHA) has proposed building hundreds of houses on an old naval transmission site in the suburb of Lawson. The development would consist of 443 dwellings, 150 of which would be for defence personnel and their families. The remainder would be sold on the private market. Construction of the estate would involve clearing up to 15.8 hectares of the critically endangered natural temperate grassland of the south-eastern highlands, about 15% of the grasslands on site. Also, read Jessica Rendall's article entitled: 'Endangered Gouldian finch returns to Lee Point, prompting campaign to stop Defence Housing Australia development' on the ABC at: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-24/lee-point-darwin-gouldian-finches-defence-housing-development/101452040].
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/23/act-urges…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, Planning and development.Warilla mum whose house burnt down fears the same thing could happen again
Tareyn Varley Illawarra Mercury (Paywall)A Warilla single mum-of-four, who lost everything when her social housing home burnt down three years ago, lives in constant fear that the same thing will happen to her current fibro Housing NSW cottage. Kirsty Woodroffe, 43, believes that old, overloaded wiring in the region’s crumbling public dwellings are putting lives at risk.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7914360/warilla-mum-wh…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Repairs, Minimum habitability standards.Rent Control's Effects on Housing Supply: Saint Paul
Darrell Owens (No paywall)From United States ... Part 1 of series on rent control: St. Paul’s is undergoing rent hikes from the region’s high population growth and inflation, resulting in rent burdens affecting nearly half the Twin Cities metro area’s renters. Voters and tenant activists answered by passing rent control to prevent displacement. St. Paul’s rent control was remarkable because it was abnormally strict. In addition to vacancy controls and below inflation rent caps, proponents imposed rent control to new housing the day it was built. This is largely unheard of in most of the rent-controlled world. Cities avoid immediately rent controlling new housing construction as investors are less likely to fund developers if they lack rent-setting flexibility after a building’s been built. But St. Paul advocates insisted on it because they opposed new development being too expensive. (The Discourse Lounge) For Part 2 of this series on rent control, read Darrell Owen's article entitled 'What Economists Get Wrong About Rent Control' on 'The Discourse Lounge' at: [https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/what-economists-get-wrong-about-rent]. For other articles by Darrell Owens, check out: [https://substack.com/profile/523157-darrell-owens]
https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/rent-controls-effects-on-hou…
# International, Rent, Housing market.Wellington mayoral candidates commit to almost all proposals related to housing and climate justice
Hanna McCallum (No paywall)From New Zeland ... Wellington’s mayoral candidates made commitments to almost all proposals related to housing and climate justice, presented by activist groups. Tory Whanau, Paul Eagle and Andy Foster were presented with six key issues by Generation Zero and Renters United at a mayoral forum on Thursday night. The issues included equitable access to transport for people with disabilities, waste minimisation in the city, increased healthy homes, better and increased cycleways and funding tenant advocacy services. (Stuff)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/129927807/…
# International, Affordable housing, Health, Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services.Libraries and museums to be ‘warm havens’ for people struggling with energy bills
Rebecca Brahde, Jon Ungoed-Thomas, Tom Wall and Anna Fazackerley The Guardian (No paywall)Britain’s libraries and museums are preparing to act as warm havens for people unable to afford to heat their homes in the winter months. Ministers are being called on to provide urgent new funding so public buildings can cope with a surge in visitors during the coldest months. The buildings will be part of a network across the country which will provide warm shelter to help reduce excess winter deaths linked to freezing conditions.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/20/libraries-and-m…
# International, Utilities electricity water gas, Minimum habitability standards.Hobart's suburbs facing significant demand for social housing as some applicants fear they're 'lost in the system'
Adam Holmes ABC (No paywall)Hobart's outer northern and southern suburbs are experiencing significant demand for social and public housing — far outstripping supply — including hundreds of applications for family-size houses. New Housing Connect data obtained by the ABC shows there are almost 50 applications for three and four-bedroom social houses in the suburb of Glenorchy, with the next greatest need in Claremont and Kingston. These suburbs also have a high demand for smaller premises, including 151 applications for one-bedroom and 85 for two-bedrooms in Glenorchy. Among those on the waiting list is Shelley Ford, who became homeless in mid-2020 after a relationship breakdown. She could not afford the $350 a week rent in the private market and has couch surfed with family in Bridgewater with her 15-year-old niece, who she cares for, but who has struggled to stay in school due to the uncertainty. They have spent time living in a tent at Fortescue Bay.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-26/hobart-suburbs-facing-sig…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Women.A Ponzi scheme by any other name: the bursting of China’s property bubble
Martin Farrer The Guardian (No paywall)A little more than a year ago, a Chinese property developer largely unknown to the outside world said its cashflow was under “tremendous pressure” and it might not be able to pay back some of its eye-watering debts of $300bn (£275bn). Today, that company, China Evergrande Group, is all too well known as the poster child of the country’s economic woes. House prices in China have fallen in each of the 12 months since Evergrande’s now prophetic warning, with Xi Jinping’s government now preparing to throw billions of dollars at a property market that experts say increasingly resembles a giant Ponzi scheme.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/25/china-property-…
# International, Housing market, Landlords and agents.