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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See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
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Archive
Money-laundering bill finally back in Parliament despite fight by Law Council, property lobby’
Tasha May (No paywall)... this week, Labor, the Coalition and the cross-bench senators will have to decide: are they owned by the powerful property, accountancy and legal industries or not? (Roger West Media)
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/money-laundering-bill-finally-bac…
# Must read Australia, Landlords and agents.Land lease communities
(No paywall)Check the latest news in land lease communities. (Outasite Lite)
https://mailchi.mp/tenants.org.au/land-lease-community-news-38?e…
# NSW, Land lease communities.'Poverty, Property and Place: A geographic analysis of poverty after housing costs in Australia
City Futures (No paywall)New research on poverty after housing costs in Australia: The online maps can be viewed at: [http://povertyandinequality.acoss.org.au/maps/]
# Research alert Australia, Housing affordability.'Renting and COVID-19
(No paywall)We speak to tenants, tenant advocates and academics about renting during COVID-19. (City Road Pod)
https://cityroadpod.org/2020/11/25/renting-and-covid-19/#more-18…
# TUNSW in the media, Audio Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.Khan promises “majority social rent” £4bn London grant programme
Nathaniel Barker Inside Housing (Paywall)London mayor Sadiq Khan has promised to spend more than half of his new £4bn affordable housing budget on homes for social rent.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/khan-promises-majority-soci…
# International, Affordable housing.Deptford landlord faces two and a half years in jail after illegally housing residents
James Twomey (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... A landlord faces prison if he cannot find more than £280,000 in three months after housing eight people in a flat which was illegal for even one resident. ... The homes were a massive danger to the people crowded into them – they had no fire detectors or proper fire escapes, electrical sockets in bathrooms and no heating in some bedrooms.
http://londonnewsonline.co.uk/deptford-landlord-faces-two-and-a-…
# International, Rent, Security and safety, Landlords and agents.Berlin's rent cap offers a new way of thinking about Britain's housing crisis
Alexander Vasudevan The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... For most tenants in the UK – conditioned to the prospect of rising rents, poor living conditions and the ongoing threat of eviction – the very idea of receiving a letter from their landlord outlining a reduction in their monthly rent would be absolutely unthinkable. And yet this is exactly what has happened to thousands of renters in Berlin, as the second stage of the city’s rent cap, or Mietendeckel (literally a “lid” on rents), came into force on Monday.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/25/berlin-ren…
# Must read International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.Private market must respond to the housing problem. Airbnb is “highly speculative”
Rita Neto (No paywall)From Portugal ... The International Union of Tenants and the United Nations-Habitat argue that one of the responses to the housing shortage should be the mobilisation of empty property at the public but also private market. (International Union of Tenants News)
https://www.iut.nu/news-events/private-market-must-respond-to-th…
# International, Rent, Housing affordability, Short-term holiday letting.