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Tenants Advice & Advocacy Services have limited availability over the holiday period. The Tenants' Union will operate a Tenancy Advice Hotline from Wednesday 18/12/2024 until Wednesday 8/1/2025 (excluding weekends and public holidays). The hours of operation are 10am-1pm and 2-5pm.
Get advice on: (02) 8117 3750 or 1800 251 101
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
Raymond pays $150 a week to live in Paddington. Developers want him to leave
Sue Williams The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)For the past 45 years Raymond Reading has lived in a tiny, dark, two-room unit in a rundown boarding house in the blue-chip Sydney suburb of Paddington, and he never imagined leaving. Until, that is, he was told a consortium of developers had bought his building and the ones next door, and now plans to tear them apart and replace each with a grand luxury house. The 75-year-old triple stroke and double heart attack survivor’s genial grin turns into a scowl. “But they’re not going to be able to get rid of me easily,” he vows. “I’ve got my stick here” – he waves his walking stick in the air – “to defend myself. They’ll have to take me out in handcuffs.”
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/raymond-pays-150-a-week-to-…
# Must read NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Eviction, Rent.Inner West to provide emergency funding for renters' legal representation
Darcy Byrne and Chloe Smith Inner West Council (No paywall)Inner West Council is providing an emergency payment of $125,000 to Marrickville Legal Centre to help meet the unprecedented demand for legal advice and representation for renters and people escaping domestic violence in the Inner West. The request for funding from the legal centre comes after they delivered legal advice to almost 1,500 renters last year. More than 700 clients had to be referred on to other services for additional support because of the legal centre not having the capacity to assist due to the extraordinary demand.
https://www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/about/news/media-releases/2024-…
# Hot topic NSW, .NSW’s new maintenance system will see 750 homes revamped with thousands to follow
Alexandra Smith The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)NSW Labor’s push to abandon the outsourcing of government services will see an initial 750 publicly owned homes repaired after languishing on private sector maintenance lists for years. The homes – in the local government areas of Canterbury-Bankstown, Newcastle, Blacktown, Wollongong, Campbelltown and Cumberland – will be the first to be repaired and revamped under the new public housing maintenance system.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-s-new-maintenance-system…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing.How this mayor survived Sydney’s housing crisis as a young man
Sue Williams The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne has thrown his weight behind a campaign to save Sydney’s boarding houses for some of its most struggling battlers, revealing that he once lived in a boarding house as a young man. The revelation, which he has never publicly spoken of before, came after he learnt from this masthead of residents fighting to save two boarding houses in Paddington’s Selwyn Street that have become a battleground for the future of the housing type.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/revealed-how-this-mayor-sur…
# Must read NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Rent.‘Dress better’: Real estate agent’s brutal advice to renters
Jasmine Kazlauskas news.com.au (No paywall)A Sydney real estate agent is facing backlash after offering two words of advice to renters struggling to find a property. Amir Jahan sparked anger online after suggesting that renters struggling to find a property must “dress better.” The 25-year-old, who recently opened A-Class Estate Agents in Paramatta, explained that looking presentable during an inspection is more important than people realise. “I think that the way someone looks is the most important thing,” he told news.com.au
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/dress-better…
# Hot topic NSW, Discrimination, Rent, Starting a tenancy.Big win for Woronora residents
Eloise Parry Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)Nestled along the banks of the Woronora River lies Woronora Village Tourist Park, a small community that was established in 1956. In recent years, this community has been under threat due to repeated attempts by the current operator to develop the community, causing uncertainty and distress among its residents. The residents are a mix of home owners and tenants. From 1956 until 2006 the community had the same owner. After it was sold in 2006 some small changes were made with new moveable dwellings installed and the community moved away from being a holiday makers park.
https://www.tenants.org.au/thenoticeboard/news/big-win-woronora
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Land lease communities.We rely on them to keep Sydney running. But they can barely afford to live here
Matt Wade and Craig Butt The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Dozens of inner-Sydney suburbs are entirely devoid of emergency workers as soaring housing costs push a growing number of those employed in frontline jobs to outer metropolitan areas and beyond. There are 33 suburbs in Sydney’s north shore, eastern suburbs and inner west with no residents who work as police officers, firefighters or paramedics, Herald analysis of local area employment data reveals. The neighbourhoods without emergency workers, which included Double Bay, Rushcutters Bay, Birchgrove, Kirribilli and Castlecrag, have a combined population of 90,000 people.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/triple-0-the-sydney-suburbs-…
# Hot topic NSW, .‘Huge waste’: Labor loses key supporters over inner-city housing plans
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Minns government has been criticised from all sides of the housing debate, including its usual supporters, over its plan for a prime piece of inner-city land that will be sold to developers for new homes. Sydney YIMBY, which advocates for more housing, said it was a “huge waste” that the 1.2-hectare former WestConnex dive site on Parramatta Road in Annandale was slated to deliver just 100 private market dwellings and no social or affordable housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/huge-waste-labor-loses-key-s…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing.