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
‘It’s a sanctuary’: the magic of quiet, low-cost, allergy-free ‘passive’ homes
Aliya Utuova The Guardian (No paywall)The first night Stephanie Silva spent at her new Brooklyn apartment was uncommonly quiet. So was the following morning and the next day. The 32-year-old native New Yorker had forgotten the last time she was able to mute the city of 8.2 million. “It’s like a sanctuary,” Silva says, but as soon as she opens the street-facing windows, the bustling outside noise fills her living room. Once she closed the windows again, the difference was instantly noticeable. “Since moving here my anxiety went out the window,” Silva says, referring to the 10th-floor affordable apartment in Ocean Hill, part of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. But what sets this 67-unit building apart from the rest of the housing in the city is its “passive” element. A passive building is designed to use minimal energy. To be efficient in heating and cooling, the space is sealed with airtight insulation – like a vacuum flask – so that it can keep the heat in during winter while keeping it out during the summer.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/24/passive-buil…
# International, Climate change, Minimum habitability standards.Pay rises, not military support, the solution: former aged care commissioner
Dana Daniel The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Former Aged Care Royal Commissioner Lynelle Briggs says the report she co-authored warned the federal government about an impending staffing crisis in the sector and backed the case for a pay rise, as new polling shows most voters support military assistance in homes struggling to fill shifts. Ms Briggs, who co-wrote the final report delivered to the government a year ago along with fellow commissioner Tony Pagone QC, said the government’s slow response to the sector’s workforce challenges had left aged care homes exposed when the Omicron wave of COVID-19 hit this summer.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pay-rises-not-military-s…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Housing market, Older people.Why are home prices in this coastal town rising faster than anywhere else in Australia?
Tim Fernandez ABC (No paywall)When Sally Medcalf was evicted from her home in Kiama on the NSW south coast in January, she never thought her family would be plunged into homelessness. However, unable to find a new home in the area, she was relieved when a friend offered to let the family camp in her backyard. "It has been impossible," she says. "It is not difficult, it is impossible. The amount that they want in rent we cannot afford. We are a single-income family but my husband makes good money, yet we still can't afford the [up to] $1,000 [per week] that they're now wanting for houses." ... An increase in migration from capital cities during the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled demand for homes in regional towns such as Kiama.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-26/is-kiama-the-least-afford…
# NSW, Eviction, Rent, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market, Regional NSW.Stockland sells retirement villages for close to $1 billion
Carolyn Cummins The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Property giant Stockland has delivered a first-half profit of $850 million, up from $339 million in the prior half thanks to more than half a billion dollars in gains from revaluing its shopping centres, and announced a $987 million deal to sell its retirement villages. ... Stockland - the nation’s biggest home and land developer with a $9.6 billion sharemarket value -is a diversified company that develops, owns, manages and invests in residential properties, retirement living, office and commercial sites and malls and large retail town centres. As part of its strategy to focus on commercial, logistics and residential operations, the company on Wednesday announced it has sold its retirement living homes for $987 million to EQT Infrastructure. The deal includes 58 retirement living villages and 10 development projects underway and in planning, with more than 300 Stockland employees transferring to EQT. Stockland chief executive Tarun Gupta said the sale was part of the company’s strategy to redirect funds to the growing land lease sector, which is where a resident buys their house but rents the land on which it sits from Stockland for a more affordable entry to the booming housing market. The company last year bought Queensland lifestyle villages group Halycon to get access to its big development pipeline in that sector. “The Land Lease Communities business is performing ahead of the assumptions that underpinned Stockland’s acquisition of the Halcyon business in August 2021,” Mr Gupta said.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/stockland-sells-retire…
# Australia, Land lease communities, Housing market, Older people.Law criminalising rough sleeping to be repealed
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... A law that criminalises rough sleeping and begging in England and Wales has been repealed. Last night the government tabled an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will see the 200-year-old Vagrancy Act repealed. The move has been welcomed by homelessness charities that have long campaigned for the act to be abolished. Passed in 1824, the law gives authorities the power to punish people “in any deserted or unoccupied building, or in the open air, or under a tent, or in any cart or waggon, not having any visible means of subsistence”. Studies have shown that the act has been used to move rough sleepers on from certain locations. Rough sleeping minister Eddie Hughes said he was “delighted” to announced the “outdated” act would be repealed.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/law-criminalising-roug…
# International, Homelessness.'We're homeless after being rejected from 227 rental properties'
Madeline Cox (No paywall)Outside the bedroom where Hayden’s kids slept, water ran down the outside of the house. Inside, thick layers of black mould grew inside the walls – which was so sodden that they could be pulled apart by hand. The humidity inside the room in the Adelaide home was unbearable – with his six-year-old daughter, Carlea-Jane, often sick as a result. But despite the nightmare conditions, it was still better than having nowhere to live, which is the situation that Hayden, his partner Aimee and three kids (who are 9, and six-year-old twins) have now found themselves in. ... With over a month to find somewhere else to live, you might assume that Hayden would have found a new house in time. But sadly, the dad was rejected from an astounding 227 rental properties that he'd applied for. “When we’ve asked for feedback on applications that have been declined, it’s often been, ‘there’s nothing wrong with your application, the landlord just went with someone else’,” he explains. (kidspot,news.com.au)
https://www.kidspot.com.au/news/were-homeless-after-being-reject…
# Australia, Eviction, Rent, Homelessness, Housing market, Mould, Personal stories.Kimberley leaders frustrated over Housing Minister meeting amid concerns over 'Third World' conditions
Ted O'Connor and Vanessa Mills ABC (No paywall)Shire presidents from northern WA have expressed frustration and disappointment over a meeting with the state's Housing Minister, saying he did not appreciate the need to urgently address rife overcrowding. Representatives from the Kimberley Regional Group, an alliance of shire councils, met with Housing Minister John Carey earlier this month to lobby for a comprehensive response to widespread concerns over social housing. Throughout the region many Indigenous people live in severely overcrowded conditions in government housing, fuelling social problems and high rates of youth crime. The demand for social and affordable housing far outstrips supply in the Kimberley, and shire presidents stressed to the minister that large-scale investment was needed in the immediate and long term.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-25/kimberley-leaders-frustra…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Housing market.Middle income first-home buyers unable to afford 70 per cent of homes
Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Australia’s property price boom has pushed 70 per cent of homes out of reach of first home buyers on middle incomes despite record low interest rates, with those able to buy forced to save for an extra year to have a big enough deposit. A report from the federal government’s National Housing Finance and Investment Corp (NHFIC) also reveals a looming demographic shift that will change the property market, with a surge in the number of single-person and couple-only households. Check out Alex Mitchell's article in 'The New Daily' entitled: 'New housing shortfall "may persist for decade"' which draws on the same report. Go to: [https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2022/02/25/new-housing-shortfall-report/] Check Sophie Foster's article in the 'Courier Mail' entitled: 'Housing crisis: 60pc of workers can’t afford 90pc of properties' which also draws on th same report'. Go to' [https://www.realestate.com.au/news/housing-crisis-60pc-of-workers-cant-afford-90pc-of-properties/]. You may read NHFIC's report at: [https://www.nhfic.gov.au/media-resources/media-releases/nhfic-releases-flagship-state-of-the-nations-housing-2021-22-research-report/]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/middle-income-first-home…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Families, Home ownership, Housing market.