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Also check out our blog, Tenant News archive, media appearances, and Housing News Digest.
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WESTS Community Engagement Day

WESTS Tenant Advocates
On Friday 21 May 2021, WESTS held a community engagement event at the Skye Hotel in Parramatta to reconnect with key partners of our organisation. The event was a great success. There were over 60 attendees at the community engagement day who were able to finally reconnect with WESTS after a long-period of physical isolation dating back to the COVID-19 lockdown in March last year.
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No home left behind!

Range of different boarding houses and pics of residents in photo frames
In this op-ed piece, Leo Patterson Ross asks what is missing from our approach to regulation of boarding houses? What would it look like if we started the conversation about reform by identifying housing need? Originally published in Council to Homeless Persons' publication Parity.
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A long, winding road: NSW boarding house reform

Long road, stretches to horizon. Australian bush on side of road.
In the context of plans for a new Shared Accommodation Act to replace the existing Boarding House Act 2012, Jemima Mowbray provides a short history of the long road towards ensuring better protections for all people who rent their homes, whether they live in boarding houses, shared accommodation or lodgings, or other renting arrangements.
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Renting: What needs to change?

Rainbow and houses graphic. Text reads: somewhere over the rainbow, there's a place called home.
“There’s no place like home.” But for so many of us who rent, current tenancy laws and practice prevent renters from feeling the sense of being settled and secure needed to really feel 'at home'. Part of our work at the Tenants Union NSW is to push for change & towards housing justice. We want to hear from you: what needs to change? What renting issues are most important to you, and why? Please take a minute and take our survey.
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Public housing maintenance: a 'real fix' needed

Follow up review NSW Parli Inquiry graphic
Yesterday the Tenants' Union NSW's CEO Leo Patterson Ross and Policy and Advocacy Coordinator Jemima Mowbray attended a public hearing of the Follow Up Review of the Management of Public Housing Maintenance Contracts. We were able to speak to the submission made by the Tenants' Union and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. Here we publish our opening statement to the Inquiry in full.
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How a volatile rental market could impact some of the most vulnerable in our communities 

Advocate assisting a client in office
The past 12 months have had a significant impact on many tenants, particularly those who may be at risk of financial hardship or homelessness. Pamela Hunter, from VERTO’s Tenants’ Advice and Advocacy Service (TAAS) outlines some of the serious challenges facing renters, particularly in regional areas where a volatile housing market is wreaking havoc.
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COVID Eviction Moratorium ends; Transition Period begins

Renters Guide to COVID-19
The COVID eviction Moratorium Period which began in April 2020 is coming to an end on 26 March. However a six-month Transition Period will follow, during which there will be limited protections against eviction for tenants with COVID-induced arrears. 
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The long road

Home owners from Rivergum holiday retreat with Tenant Advocates
Rivergum Holiday Park at Corowa is a small community with about 45 residents including Bob Myles who was one of the first home owners to take an electricity dispute to the Tribunal under the Residential (Land Lease) Communities Act (the Act). In February 2017 the Tribunal made an order that the operator was to provide Mr Myles with copies of their electricity accounts so that he could check whether or not he was being overcharged. It was this decision that was later cited by a number of other home owners who were seeking access to their operator’s accounts under section 83 of the Act.
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Kincumber Nautical Village Appeal update

Outasite Lite logo
On 13 November 2020, Liesl Tesch, MP and Member for Gosford made a Private Members Statement in the NSW Parliament regarding Kincumber Nautical Village (KNV). Ms Tesch had become aware of the dispute regarding the fixed method site fee increase which she said “appears as a disappointing abuse of power and disrespect of residents and the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal [NCAT] by the owner”. Ms Tesch commended the action of the residents, Bob Morris (who is representing the residents), the residents’ committee and the Tenants’ Union for supporting residents through their disputes.
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Submission: Land Lease Communities Act Review

The Tenants’ Union welcomes the opportunity to provide comment on the Discussion Paper on the Statutory Review of the Residential Land Lease Communities Act (2013).
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