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
Majority of homeless people in Wigan kicked out by landlords in 'no fault evictions'
George Lythgoe Manchester Evening News (No paywall)Landlords kicking people out of homes is the cause for 65 per cent of homeless cases in Wigan, a meeting heard.
The Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee was told that 1,091 homelessness applications were submitted to Wigan Council in recent months - an increase of 339 compared to the same time last year. This was described as “devastating” by Coun Danny Fletcher who highlighted is as the “biggest amount we’ve had in a long time”.
Coun Fletcher told Wigan Town Hall that many in his ward of Ashton had fallen victim to Section 21 eviction notices - which do not require fault for landlords to kick people out.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-…
# International, Eviction, Campaigns and law reform, Landlords and agents, No-grounds evictions.Tourism: clear rules and data sharing are the only way to ensure a fair short-term rental market in Europe
Matteo Miglietta European Committee of the Regions (No paywall)Increased transparency and free access to critical information on short-term rentals in order to fight illegal activities and ensure the availability of affordable housing for local communities: these are the main requests that European cities and regions addressed to the EU institutions through an opinion drafted by Roberto Ciambetti, President of the Veneto Regional Council, adopted by unanimity on 15 March at the plenary of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR).
https://cor.europa.eu/en/news/Pages/clear-rules-data-sharing-fai…
# International, Housing affordability, Landlords and agents, Short-term holiday letting.What If We Made It Easier for Renters to Buy Their Buildings?
Wilfred Chan Curbed (No paywall)Viola Straker and her neighbors in her 31-unit Crown Heights building have a proposal to end the yearslong standoff over who owns 1074 Eastern Parkway: Sell the building to them. “Tenants would be better off purchasing instead of selling it to another slumlord,” she says.
The idea might sound outlandish: Straker lives on Social Security, giving her just enough to pay her stabilized monthly rent of $817, to say nothing of trying to purchase a multifamily building valued at over $1.3 million. After her landlord died in 2017 and previous agreements with another company to manage the building fell through, it also needs expensive repairs, with leaks, mold, pests everywhere, and a collapsing roof. But what if tenants didn’t have to be rich to buy their building?
https://www.curbed.com/2023/03/tenants-opportunity-purchase-act-…
# International, Affordable housing, Campaigns and law reform, Co-operatives and resident-led housing, Housing market, Planning and development, Strong communities.The faces of Sydney’s rental crisis
Amber Schultz and Mary Ward The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The number of people inspecting rentals in Sydney’s city and east has more than doubled from last year. We spoke to some of those in the Saturday queue.
Inspections for rentals in Sydney’s inner and eastern suburbs are attracting more than double the prospective tenants than last year, as thousands of the city’s renters continue their search for a place to call home.
Domain data shows the number of rental check-ins – people who gave their personal details to an agent to enter a property, a common practice at inspections – per listing in the city’s eastern suburbs was up 145 per cent in February compared to the same month the previous year.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-faces-of-sydney-s-rental…
# Must read, Hot topic NSW, Housing market, Personal stories, Renting culture.Independents call out old age homeless crisis
Duncan Murray South Coast Register (No paywall)They're a group often left out of the housing crisis conversation, but many older Australians are finding themselves homeless at a time in their lives when stability is most important.
An alliance of independent candidates and MPs in NSW is calling for the major parties to help stem the issue by lowering the priority age for social housing from 80 and introducing a specialist housing support service for older people.
https://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/8122185/independents…
# Must read, Hot topic NSW, Homelessness, Older people, State Government.I was evicted and the law didn’t help. But I’m one of the lucky ones
Laura Chung The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Finding a home is stressful at the best of times, let alone when rents are sky-high and thousands of people are in the same boat. I’d seen the viral videos of tenants lining up like sardines to inspect a rental, but hoped I’d never join them.
That was until, a few months ago, my flatmate and I were told we had 60 days to vacate our property (despite the legal requirement being 90 days). We’d been on a rolling lease and had not signed a new agreement, so were entitled to the full three months.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/i-was-evicted-and-the-law-di…
# Hot topic NSW, Eviction, Housing market, Personal stories.Greens demand fix for housing crisis as crossbench power predicted to grow
Tom Rabe and Alexandra Smith The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The NSW Greens are preparing to capitalise on a Labor-led minority government, pushing for a restriction on the sale of public land and for an extra 100,000 social and public homes to be built to address the state’s growing housing crisis.
With the prospect of a hung parliament appearing more likely ahead of Saturday’s state election, the Greens are increasingly flexing their muscles in key policy areas they will demand action on.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/greens-demand-fix-for-housin…
# Hot topic NSW, Homelessness, Housing market, State Government.Housing crisis threatens to impose a lifetime of renting
The Sydney Morning Herald The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Queues of renters outside weekend rental property inspections have become a familiar sight in parts of the city in an increasingly heated competition for a dwindling supply of housing stock.
As our reports on the rental property market crisis show, inspections for rentals in Sydney’s inner and eastern suburbs have more than doubled in a year.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/housing-crisis-threatens-to-…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market.