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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
Hundreds more homes ready for NSW families under social housing scheme
Mikala Theocharous 9 News (No paywall)Hundreds of new social housing dwellings are ready for families to move into in New South Wales, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced. Approximately 277 previously derelict homes have been renovated to provide social housing for over 700 people. The homes include 165 cottages, 30 townhouses, seven villas and 75 units. A further 13 homes will be ready by the end of June. From a new public home in Sydney's Inner West at Russell Lea, Albanese said the renovation scheme is a way to get families into homes quickly. "Places like this were derelict, at a time where Australians don't have enough homes they were left to waste," he said.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/hundreds-more-homes-ready-for-…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing.Gas leak reported six weeks ago at exploded Whalan housing complex, odour lingers at site
Lachlan Leeming, Inasha Iftekhar & William Tyson Daily Telegraph (Paywall)Emergency crews have returned to the scene of a Western Sydney building explosion that killed a young woman after reports nearby residents could still smell gas. NSW Fire and Rescue crews were at the Whalan scene on Tuesday morning to investigate reports of a gassy odour in the area. Firefighters said they had not yet detected traces of flammable gas with their official gas readers but did confirm they could smell the odour in the air. Jasmin Mhey was visiting her mother’s unit on Waikanda Cres on Saturday afternoon when the top floor of the building suddenly exploded. Ms Mhey, also known as Mhey Yumol Jasmin, was found amid the rubble of the ruined townhouse at Whalan at about 3.20am on Monday, following more than 36 hours of painstaking searching by emergency services crews.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/gas-leak-reported-six…
# Must read, TUNSW in the media NSW, Disasters, Public and community housing, Repairs.MASSIVE ADVOCACY WIN: Ambitious housing targets for local councils
Sydney Yimby (No paywall)Premier Chris Minns today announced a new round of housing targets for local councils- setting out where the government expects the 377,000 new homes to be delivered in NSW over the next five years. This is a really big deal. Housing targets are the single most powerful tool that the state government has to encourage more homes in the places that people want to live. Combined with recent reforms such as the Transport Oriented Development and the Diverse and Well Located Homes programs, these targets will force councils across the city to rewrite their planning rules, helping to deliver the housing that we need to achieve an affordable, sustainable and liveable Sydney. Let’s dive into this announcement in detail.
# Hot topic, New policy announcement NSW, Rent.Revealed: The number of new homes coming to your Sydney suburb
Michael Koziol, Michael McGowan and Anthony Segaert The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Parts of inner Sydney will be required to triple the number of new homes they deliver over the next five years in a long-awaited and ambitious rewrite of the city’s housing targets that shifts the focus from west to east and aims to address the supply crisis. Ku-ring-gai’s five-year target has increased from 3000 to 7600, while Woollahra’s has nearly quadrupled from 500 to 1900. North Sydney, the Northern Beaches and Fairfield have all doubled from 3000 to 5900 each.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/revealed-the-number-of-new-h…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.Cockroaches, leaks and asbestos – my living conditions were shameful. So I named and shamed the culprits
Kwajo Tweneboa The Guardian (No paywall)I never planned to become a housing rights campaigner. I hoped to become an artist; I always loved to paint. But events put me on a different path. It feels as if I missed an exit on the motorway somewhere and now I can’t turn back. It started when we moved into a housing association flat on the Eastfields estate in Mitcham, south London, in 2018: my father, my two sisters, aged 17 and 20, and 19-year-old me. Before that, we were in temporary accommodation: a half-converted garage that had mould and damp on the walls and a bathroom the size of a cupboard. We had been there since 2016, waiting to get a permanent council property, but the new place was no better.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/30/co…
# Must read, Hot topic International, Rent, Repairs.Unions and Tenant Organizations Are Natural Allies
Fran Quigley Jacobin ()Across the US, labor unions are starting to ally with tenant organizers around affordable housing and tenant protection campaigns. The efforts reflect a growing sense of shared interests — and shared corporate enemies. Hope Vaughn was a tenant union organizer before she knew there was a tenant union. When her New Haven, Connecticut, landlord Ocean Management refused to address the mold in her apartment, the rodents in the building, and the standing, rancid water in the basement, Vaughn’s response was obvious to her. After more than a dozen years as a long-term care certified nursing assistant member of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1199 NE, she had no intention of fighting back alone. She began knocking on her neighbors’ doors and gathering signatures on a petition demanding repairs and a cleanup.
https://jacobin.com/2024/06/labor-tenants-unions-organizing-soli…
# Must read International, Eviction, Rent.‘No fault’ evictions in London surge 52% in a year as Sadiq Khan slams failure to ban them as 'huge betrayal'
Noah Vickers The Standard (No paywall)The number of ‘no fault’ evictions in London increased 52 per cent in the last year - more than five times the rate seen in the rest of England and Wales, a City Hall analysis reveals. Sadiq Khan said the data showed how the Government’s failure to ban the evictions - also known as section 21 notices - had been a “huge betrayal”. Section 21 notices are used by landlords to evict tenants with two months’ notice and without any reason needing to be given. According to the latest Government data, there were 11,880 of these ‘no fault’ eviction claims in London in the year to the end of March 2024, up 52 per cent from 7,834 in the year to March 2023.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/sadiq-khan-no-fault-evict…
# Hot topic International, Eviction.What’s causing Europe’s housing crisis?
Round Table (No paywall)VIDEO: The high cost of living and increase in house prices across Europe has left many lower income households struggling to make ends meet. This at the same time as rental prices are soaring. For the first time in decades, younger generations could have fewer opportunities than their parents. Who can still afford to live in some of the world’s most expensive cities? And why is the housing situation so bad?
# Hot topic, Video International, .