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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
NT public houses sitting empty for months as waiting list grows
Roz=xanne Fitzgerald ABC (No paywall)Public houses in the Northern Territory are sitting unoccupied for months on end while thousands live in severely overcrowded homes or sleep rough, data suggests. It is taking the NT government an average of 136 days — 86 more than the national average — to process new tenants into affordable, urban social houses, according to the latest federal report on government services. ... Peter McMillan, the executive officer of the Northern Territory's peak housing body NT Shelter, says the wait times — which have seen some languish in limbo for more than eight years — are unacceptable. "The performance of government in this area has really deteriorated pretty significantly over the past 20 years," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-17/nt-government-public-hous…
# Australia, Public and community housing, State Government.‘Gut-wrenching’: Hunt for affordable home couldn’t outrun climate change
Tawar Razaghi The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Jacob Dossett and his family swapped the northern beaches for the Northern Rivers in the middle of 2021, as they chased affordable housing and a tree change. But after living there for less than a year, they have now lost everything in the catastrophic floods that swept through the region.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/gut-wrenching-the-climate-c…
# NSW, Climate change, Regional NSW.How Australia’s skyrocketing cost of living is pushing people into poverty
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)Julie-Marie Hay didn’t always struggle on her nurse’s salary – even as a single parent and the primary carer of her three children. “I used to be able to afford what we needed when we needed it, and only struggled on the odd occasion when something big came in. Even a couple of years ago,” Hay says. Hay, 41, is an enrolled nurse and works full-time in Perth. Her fortnightly take-home pay comes in at just under $2,000. She receives small stipends from the family tax benefit and carer’s allowance from Centrelink, and occasional child support payments. And it’s not enough to keep the family’s heads above water. ... And then there’s rent, which has “skyrocketed” in Perth. Hay’s rose $60 per week last April and she is terrified it will rise again next month. “I don’t have any savings, so if they say to me ‘you’re out’, then I’m stuck.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/19/how-austr…
# Australia, Rent, Families, Personal stories, Women, Work, employment.Motor homes for flood-affected Lismore residents empty while more temporary housing yet to arrive
Elias Visontay and Tamsin Rose The Guardian (No paywall)Motor homes intended for Lismore residents whose houses were inundated in this month’s floods are lying empty because linen and water sources have not been organised, while housing “pods” promised by the New South Wales government are yet to materialise. The measures were announced as part of a temporary housing package last week, but three weeks on from the flood, thousands of locals are still living in makeshift conditions, either in evacuation centres, the homes of friends and families, paid accommodation and repurposed recreation camps.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/18/motor-hom…
# NSW, Homelessness, State Government.Housing Crisis
Laura Tingle ABC (No paywall)The flood disaster has compounded a rental crisis in regional Australia. Concerns people on home care packages aren't getting the care they need because of ongoing staffing issues. Laura Tingle looks into government grants. (ABC 7.30)
# Video Australia, Housing market, Older people, Regional NSW, Welfare.Making daylight savings permanent
ABC (No paywall)... Plus, around 80 per cent of Australians under 30 don't have contents insurance for their belongings. That's put young renters who lost everything in the recent floods in a really difficult position. As climate disasters become more frequent, what can be done to make sure young people aren't left worse off? (ABC Triple J Hack)
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Rent.New social housing tenant says Bellambi house riddled with mould, plumbing not connected
Nick Rheinberger and Nick McLaren ABC (No paywall)A woman who moved into a social housing property in Bellambi, north of Wollongong, says the house had a putrid smell, was covered in mould, and months later still has disconnected plumbing. Mich Gray says she was given the keys in May 2021 only to find the house was virtually uninhabitable. She paid to get the carpets cleaned twice, then ripped them up. Ms Gray said it revealed rotten floorboards underneath which the NSW Land and Housing Corporation eventually replaced, but problems with disconnected plumbing in the bathroom remain. "The carpenter got under and said 'your bathroom's not plumbed', and he goes 'there's no waste pipe'," she said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-17/social-housing-wollongong…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Public and community housing, Repairs, Tribunal NCAT, Mould.Housing associations face £20bn spend on building safety and decarbonisation amid growing debt, Moody’s warns
James Wilmore Inside Housing (Paywall)English housing associations will have to spend an estimated £20bn over the next decade and many will increase their borrowing to cover building safety and decarbonisation costs as current government support “falls short”, Moody’s has warned.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/housing-associations-f…
# International, Public and community housing, Repairs, Climate change, Minimum habitability standards.