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
ABC's Drum discusses social housing ...
(No paywall)Listen to Dr Chris Martin of City Futures Research Centre, University of NSW, at the 26 minute mark.
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/drum/series/0/video/NC2207H044S00
# History, Audio NSW, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Home ownership.‘There are 60 other applicants for every house’: the rental crisis pushing single mothers to extremes
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)Fierce competition leaves sole parents in precarious housing market offering three months’ rent in advance and having to give up pets ... When Liang’s landlords told her last year that they were going to sell the house she lived in, they gave her more notice than most – a full six months. It was the only thing that allowed her to get ahead. “I was scared,” Liang told Guardian Australia. “In my local area people were posting [on social media] that they’d applied for 50 houses and been knocked back for all of them. I’m not even in a two-income family. I was worried about becoming homeless.” So Liang, 49, who works in hospital-based healthcare in Melbourne, started saving as much as she could. ... Tenants around Australia are straining under the weight of pandemic-era rent rises, with triple digit increases in parts of regional New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, and costs of living soaring beyond the reach of wage increases. Single parents, 82% of whom are sole-parenting mothers, are particularly feeling the strain.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/02/there-are…
# Australia, Rent, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market.Loose building standards let homes overheat in summer, stay cold in winter, passive house advocate says
Emma Wynne ABC (No paywall)When Carlos Acuna and his family moved to Perth 10 years ago, they "quickly fell in the love with place". ... "But the one thing that really impacted us, and impacts a lot of expats, is how uncomfortable the homes are here." ... but the family found the houses they rented in Australia the coldest they had ever experienced. "[The houses are] cold, they're ice chests," he said. ... After years in rented houses, both old and new and that were all hard to keep at comfortable temperatures, he decided to build a highly insulated, airtight house that used passive heating and cooling design to keep the indoor temperature at between 20-25C all year round.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-02/how-passive-house-technol…
# Australia, Minimum habitability standards.Mallacoota housing crisis deepens two years on from Black Summer fires
Rachael Lucas ABC (No paywall)Many people who lost their homes in the fires have used insurance payouts to purchase rental properties already on the market in Mallacoota, pushing the tenants of those properties out of town. Many people who lost their homes in the fires have used insurance payouts to purchase rental properties already on the market in Mallacoota, pushing the tenants of those properties out of town. "Those renters then said, 'Where do I go? I work at the school, I work at the supermarket, I work at the nursing home, I'm looking after elderly people, there's nowhere else'. ... Other renters who lost their homes were ineligible for the same emergency relief and compensation as property owners and were forced to fend for themselves or leave the region.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-03/mallacoota-housing-crisis…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Homelessness, Housing market.Fears over asbestos inhalation as Australians clean up after flooding
Alicia Nally ABC (No paywall)As Australians clean up their properties following ongoing flooding across the eastern states, a lawyer has warned they could be inhaling fatal asbestos dust. Gordon Legal partner Victoria Keays said the number of people diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases had been rising. ... "Gas flues, flue parts, imitation brick cladding, external cladding on houses could all contain it."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-31/warnings-about-asbestos-r…
# Australia, Asbestos, lead, hazardous materials, Housing market.Anthony Albanese offers $2.5 billion plan to ‘fix crisis in aged care’
Michelle Grattan The Conversation (No paywall)Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has made comprehensive reform of aged care the centrepiece of his budget reply delivered on Thursday night. His “plan to fix the crisis in aged care” is costed at $2.5 billion over four years. But this doesn’t include the cost of a wage increase for workers, which a Labor government would urge and fund. Labor’s five point plan promises registered nurses on site 24/7, more carers, a pay rise for the sector’s workers, standards to ensure better food for residents, and greater accountability imposed on providers. Also, read Brett Worthington's article entitled: 'Labor commits to fixing aged care "crisis" as Anthony Albanese sets sights on election' on the ABC at: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-31/anthony-albanese-budget-reply-aged-care-election/100955290]
https://theconversation.com/anthony-albanese-offers-2-5-billion-…
# Australia, Federal Government, Health, Housing market, Older people.Gympie already had a housing shortage, then the floods hit. Now families are homeless and in crisis
Meg Bolton and Owen Jacques ABC (No paywall)Before the first drop of rain fell on the former gold-rush town of Gympie in late February, those hunting for a home were becoming desperate. When the rains came, and the Mary River reached its highest level in more than a century, homes and businesses were destroyed and house-hunters and renters were left with even fewer options. Gympie was the first to be stricken in the south-east Queensland floods. But experts say the housing crisis already gripping Gympie will likely show up across all flood-hit regions already under pressure.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-02/gympie-residents-flood-hi…
# Australia, Homelessness.Sydney entry-level house prices soar, widening the deposit gap
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Sydney’s entry-level house prices have soared 127 per cent in a decade, new figures reveal, leaving first-home buyers struggling to keep up with the growing deposit hurdle. That is only likely to become harder, experts say, as the most affordable homes will soon be fielding extra demand from the expanded Home Guarantee scheme announced in the federal government’s final budget prior to the election. ... UNSW’s City Futures Research Centre research fellow Dr Chris Martin said while the scheme benefits individuals, on the whole it pushes property prices up for first-time home buyers down the track. “I can understand the appeal of a scheme that gives them this extra amount of security they can offer the bank that enables them to borrow a bit more and to get in, to make that further extension of their purchasing power that will get them ahead at the auction and sales,” Dr Martin said. “Having said that, that’s how it works. They set a new higher price … The benefits of these schemes means they get into home ownership quicker than they would, [but] the general effect is it increases prices. “I don’t want to knock people in that situation who have been saving to buy. Renting is too awful, and it’s made that way. It shouldn’t be that way,” he said. Governments should add more supply, including more affordable housing, rather than inflate the property market, he said.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/sydney-entry-level-house-pr…
# NSW, Rent, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.