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’s runaway rents
Inga Ting, Katia Shatoba, and Alex Palmer ABC (No paywall)Single mother Tilly Eastwood says the worst part of being priced out of the rental market isn’t living in a garage with her three children. It isn’t the absence of windows for light or fresh air. It’s not even the 150-plus failed rental applications. It’s the gnawing feeling that she’s letting down her kids. ... Nicola Powell, chief of research and economics at Domain, describes current rental market conditions as “extraordinary”. “Australia-wide, as well as every single capital city, is deemed a landlord’s market.” ... Professor Gurran [urban planner and director of Sydney University’s Henry Halloran Trust] says private sector landlords should be asked to play a bigger role. For example, to provide more secure leases, moderate rental increases, or participate in rent social and affordable housing programs. “We are spending a lot on the private rental sector in the form of negative gearing … if we’re prepared to spend $30 billion a year on subsidising private rental landlords, we should be asking what we’re getting out of that massive public subsidy.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-21/australia-is-in-the-grip-…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Housing market.How housing affects health on remote Country
(No paywall)The housing crisis is currently a hot-button issue making headlines Australia-wide. But it’s been endemic in Central Australia for decades. A chronic shortage of available housing in remote Indigenous communities has significant consequences, with unintended household crowding ultimately contributing to the poor health of residents. University of Queensland anthropologist and architect Professor Paul Memmott has been visiting the Barkly region in the centre of the Northern Territory for decades. He’s part of a multi-disciplinary team of five UQ researchers who collaborated with local medical service, Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation, to examine the link between housing and health for Indigenous people living on remote Country. (UQ News)
https://stories.uq.edu.au/news/2022/how-housing-affects-health-o…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Health, Housing market, Race and ethnicity.Climate change threatens up to 100% of trees in Australian cities, and most urban species worldwide
Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez, Jaana Dielenberg, Jonathan Lenoir, Mark G Tjoelker and Rachael Gallagher The Conversation (No paywall)Our study published today in Nature Climate Change found climate change will put 90-100% of the trees and shrubs planted in Australian capital cities at risk by 2050. Without action, two-thirds of trees and shrubs in cities worldwide will be at potential risk from climate change. Increasing city temperatures mean their trees are becoming more important than ever. More than just shade umbrellas, the natural air-conditioning magic of trees happens as water moves up from the soil through their roots and evaporates out of their leaves into the air. But how will the trees themselves cope with climate change as conditions shift beyond their natural tolerance limits for high temperatures or lack of water?
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-threatens-up-to-100-o…
# Australia, Climate change, Planning and development.The elephant in the room: to broaden home ownership access, governments must tackle housing affordability head-on
Hal Pawson City Futures (No paywall)Boosting home ownership: an overriding housing policy objective for many decades, not only in Britain but the world over. And yet, as also seen in many countries, the past 10-20 years have witnessed owner occupancy rates static or falling. It is not as though official endorsement for home ownership can be dismissed as purely rhetorical. Quite the contrary. As demonstrated by our recent research comparing approaches across eight countries including the UK, a highly diverse array of first-time buyer assistance interventions have been, and are being, pursued around the world. ... Well-chosen measures to assist first-time buyers are a desirable element of a wider housing strategy. But their potential for expanding access down the income spectrum remains very limited if other key policy settings remain sacrosanct. Overall home ownership growth demands systemic change to tackle the much tougher challenge of easing broader housing affordability. Yet this objective calls for the dampening of property values, an objective in tension with the dominant theme of home ownership policy: to facilitate wealth accumulation through asset ownership.
https://blogs.unsw.edu.au/cityfutures/blog/2022/09/the-elephant-…
# International, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Aboriginal man takes public housing eviction to Human Rights Commission alleging racism
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)An Aboriginal man who alleges his eviction from public housing in Western Australia is racial discrimination has been granted an injunction in the federal court, allowing him to stay at the property while he takes his complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission. John Abraham, a Noongar man, made a complaint to the Human Rights Commission against the WA Housing Authority in August after he received a “without grounds” termination notice, commonly called a no-grounds eviction notice. It requested he leave the public housing property he has lived in since 2020, the court heard on Friday.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/20/aborigina…
# Legal significance Australia, Aboriginal renters, Discrimination, Eviction, Public and community housing, Human rights, No-grounds evictions.A home of one’s own: So good only the rich need apply
Ross Gittins The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Slowly – but sooner than you may think – this country, so proud to be a nation of home owners, is turning into a nation of renters. Perversely, it’s happening because we value home ownership so highly. And we’ve never much worried about what happens to those who don’t make it onto the home owners’ merry-go-round. ... Renters have much greater legal rights in other rich countries than they do here, but that’s never bothered us. Renters, we happily assume, are just youngsters on their way to their first home. This was never true, but it becomes more untrue as each census passes. ... Time we cared about renters.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/a-home-of-one-s-own-…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market.IUT calls for moratoria on evictions, energy price caps and long-term climate allowances for low- and middle income households
International Union of Tenants (IUT) (No paywall)On the occasion of the coming International Tenants Day, the IUT released the following press release calling for a moratoria on evictions, energy price caps and long-term climate allowances for low- and middle income households ... Housing costs are the highest expenditure of households. Inflation puts another burden on tenants. The current inflation rate in the OECD area is 10,23%. The energy prices increase is alarming: 100,1% in Estonia, 88,4% in the Netherlands, and 45,5% in Italy. Tenants, who represent almost 30% of the households in the OECD area (23.1 % in the private rental market and 5.7 % in social rent) are therefore at the forefront of the housing and energy crises. [Read on]
https://www.iut.nu/news-events/iut-calls-for-moratoria-on-evicti…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Utilities electricity water gas, Climate change.London council could seize oligarchs’ homes for affordable housing
Robert Booth The Guardian (No paywall)Homes acquired with “dirty money” in the richest parts of London could be seized and turned into affordable housing under plans to crack down on oligarchs using Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Mayfair “to rinse their money”. Labour-controlled Westminster city council is examining the use of compulsory purchase orders in extreme cases where it finds properties are not being used for their stated purpose, as part of a push to “combat the capital’s reputation as the European centre for money laundering”.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/21/london-council-c…
# International, Affordable housing, Housing market, Local Government.