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
Tenant organizers poised to secure significant protections for US renters
Amanda Holpuch The Guardian (No paywall)Pandemic housing crisis brought new attention to need for eviction protection and affordable housing. ... [17-year old Faith Plank's] visit to [Washington] reflects the seismic shift in how elected leaders, and the public, understand access to housing and the rights of people to stay in their homes during a pandemic. ... The tenants also appeared at a press conference with Senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, and Representative Cori Bush, of Missouri, where the legislators introduced the Keeping Renters Safe Act. The bill would give the health department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the power to implement an eviction moratorium to respond to public health crises. ... “Since the beginning of the Biden administration, the treasury has engaged tenant advocacy groups as part of our broader effort to ensure the Emergency Rental Assistance program serves as many vulnerable renters as possible,” a treasury department spokesperson said. “We are committed to continuing that engagement going forward.” The tenant delegation’s visit coincided with the debate in Congress over a $3.5tn infrastructure bill which includes a $327bn investment in affordable housing, a sum not seen in the US for generations.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/08/tenant-organizer…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government.Housing is healthcare: Poor rental rights lead to bad outcomes
David Pearson and Carmel Williams (No paywall)There is a direct link between insecure housing and poor health outcomes, write David Pearson and Carmel Williams, who argue that addressing the problem could be a low-cost way to ease pressure on our hospitals. ... Organisations like Shelter SA and Better Renting have set out a range of measures to improve the situation ... [Read on]. (In Daily)
https://indaily.com.au/opinion/2021/10/06/housing-is-healthcare-…
# Australia, Rent, Health, No-grounds evictions.Another policy designed to worsen inequality
Michael Pascoe The New Daily (No paywall)Effective from today, banks, building societies and credit unions will not be permitted to accept mortgage applications from people born under the three astrological “fire” signs – Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. ... Meanwhile, yet another housing inquiry is under way, this time chaired by Sydney North Shore Liberal MP, Jason Falinski, who has declared a dislike of social housing and a belief that housing affordability is all about supply. It’s taken for granted that he’s a fan of maintaining the present negative gearing and capital gains tax settings. As explained by Peter Mares, author of No Place Like Home: Repairing Australia’s Housing Crisis and lead moderator at Monash University’s Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership, there have been some fine submissions but the inquiry is fated to be a crock ... Clarification: I made up the early stuff about mortgage birthday bingo. The rest, unfortunately, is factual.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2021/10/08/michael-pascoe-ine…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Housing market.Teenagers ‘charged for petty crimes’ locked up in NSW because of homelessness, report says
Cait Klly The Guardian (No paywall)Hundreds of adolescent offenders are being held in detention in New South Wales before they have been sentenced simply because they are homeless, a report has revealed. During the 2019 - 2020 financial year, 236 highly vulnerable adolescents were locked up before they had been sentenced because they had nowhere else to go, the report by the peak body for youth homelessness Yfoundations has shown.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/08/teenagers-charge…
# NSW, Homelessness, Race and ethnicity, Young people.Homeless non-residents were given emergency housing during lockdown. That ends Monday
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Asylum seeker Cyril spent the past year sharing a scary, smelly and crowded room with 11 men, including “wild people, out of their minds on drugs” and recently released prisoners. Ineligible for government support, healthcare and public housing like all non-resident refugees, asylum seekers and foreign students, the room where other men shot up heroin was the only thing Cyril could afford. When the lockdown hit, even that was unaffordable. In a first for NSW, Cyril and another 19 non-residents were provided emergency accommodation funded by the state government in a Sydney apartment hotel for the duration of the lockdown. With that funding likely to stop on Monday, Grace Rullis, manager of homelessness services with non-profit The Haymarket Foundation, said they were doing everything they could “to make sure they don’t return to the streets once the lockdown ends”. “While their housing pathways remain uncertain, we are committed to making sure they remain safe.” Cyril and some other non-residents have been given another three months by Haymarket ...
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/homeless-non-residents-were-…
# NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Coronavirus COVID-19, State Government.Ombudsman makes double severe maladministration finding against London landlord
Nathaniel Barker Inside Housing (Paywall)A small London housing association has been hit with a rare double severe maladministration finding by the Housing Ombudsman after it left a resident living with damp and mould for two years. The arbitration service found severe maladministration in Inquilab Housing Association’s failure to respond to the resident’s request to deal with the problem and its subsequent complaint-handling. According to the resident, the leaks and outstanding repairs left her daughter’s bedroom unusable, damaging their belongings and impacting on their physical and mental health. Inquilab, which owns around 1,300 homes, was ordered to pay the resident £3,633 in compensation, prepare a detailed schedule of works to deal with outstanding repairs, and offer redress to reflect the damage to the resident’s possessions. It was also told to conduct a “senior management review” into why it failed to carry out the repairs and respond to the formal complaint despite multiple interventions from the ombudsman.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/ombudsman-makes-double…
# International, Public and community housing, Repairs, Mould.Only London’s highest earners able to rent privately at affordable cost, ONS says
Hilary Osbourne The Guardian (No paywall)Only the top 25% of earners in London were able to privately rent a property in the city at an affordable rate last year, according to official figures on costs across England. Data from the Office for National Statistics revealed that for three-quarters of households, rents in the capital were set at a level equal to more than 30% of their income.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/oct/06/london-rent-privat…
# International, Rent, Housing affordability.Profits over People: in-home care a cash bonanza for greedy aged providers
Sarah Russell (No paywall)A $53,000 home-care package gets just nine hours of support yet the government has slung suppliers an extra $6.5 billion. Dr Sarah Russell reports on aged care profiteers and finds self-management is the answer. The only aspect of in-home care for older people that makes the news is the ridiculously long queue for home care packages. Flying under the radar is the chronic rorting, with corporate providers skimming off vast profits. (Michael West Media)
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/profits-over-people-in-home-care-…
# Australia, Older people.