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
The Rent Revolution is Coming
Conor Dougherty The New York Times (Paywall)For the 44 million households who rent a home or apartment in the U.S., inflation keeps pushing costs higher and higher. Anger is rising too. It could be a breaking point. ... There was Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, Mo., on a stage dressed as the pope with a half-dozen hecklers in yellow T-shirts berating his new housing plan from the audience in front of him. Mr. Lucas had arrived at the outdoor Starlight Theater on a warm August evening for a cameo appearance in a local production of Sister Act. Just before he walked onto the stage, the demonstrators, who belonged to a group called KC Tenants, unfurled a banner that read Mayor Lucas: Developing Displacement. A pack of uniformed security guards promptly smothered the scene. During the slow procession to the exit gates that followed, members of KC Tenants chanted, The rent is too damn high! while the audience tried to focus on the mayor/pope and the dancing nuns. Such is the state of housing in America, where rising costs are flaring into pockets of resistance and rage. Take two-plus years of pandemic-fueled eviction anxiety and spiking home prices, add a growing inflation problem that is being increasingly driven by rising rents, and throw in a long-run affordable housing shortage that cities seem powerless to solve. Add it up and the 44 million U.S. households who rent a home or apartment have many reasons to be unhappy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/15/business/economy/rent-tenant-…
# International, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Families, Housing affordability, Housing market.If cities don’t want homeless encampments they should help people, not punish them
Penny Gurstein The Conversation (No paywall)From Canada ... Encampments of those experiencing homelessness have become a fixture in large cities as well as smaller communities. It should not be surprising that people who are unsheltered seek out the relative security, community and resources encampments can provide. Yet, the ineffective, and often punitive, responses by various levels of government are alarming. These policy failures are most evident in the troubling encampment evictions occurring across North America. More than 235,000 people are estimated to be homeless in Canada. In addition to these visibly homeless, another 450,000 to 900,000 are among the “hidden” homeless: those staying with family and friends because they have nowhere to live.
https://theconversation.com/if-cities-dont-want-homeless-encampm…
# International, Federal Government, Homelessness, State Government.Rents are still soaring in south-east Queensland, is buying becoming a cheaper option?
Lexy Hamilton-Smith ABC (No paywall)The housing crisis in south-east Queensland is getting so bad some tenants are finding, even with rising interest rates, a mortgage would be cheaper than renting. The problem is many simply cannot raise a deposit to take that first step onto the property ladder.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-15/qld-real-estate-property-…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Fixed or variable? A look at how home loan rate options across Australia stack up
Peter Hannan The Guardian (No paywall)After crunching the numbers, it’s clear that mortgage holders shouldn’t just do nothing, says RateCity’s head of research.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/15/fixed-or-…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Albany landslide to be surveyed as WA government 'leans in' to help affected properties
Olivia Di Iorio ABC (No paywall)A home owner in the path of a landslide on Western Australia's south coast hopes a geotechnical survey of the hillside will finally provide answers to what is causing the disaster.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-13/albany-landslide-geotechn…
# Australia, .‘Stuck with useless land’: Harry Triguboff fights council over Bondi synagogue
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A synagogue in Sydney’s eastern suburbs faces an uncertain future as Meriton founder Harry Triguboff battles a local council over permission to build flats on the site.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/stuck-with-useless-land-harr…
# NSW, Landlords and agents, Local Government, Planning and development.If the Tories U-turn on no-fault evictions, they’ll be guaranteeing misery for renters
Daniel Lavelle The Guardian (No paywall)The Tories have not exactly hidden their contempt for the British public over the past 12 years, but they’re not even trying to maintain the facade any more. In Liz Truss’s latest gambit to hand Keir Starmer the keys to Downing Street, the government may be about to break its promise of banning no-fault evictions. It risks creating a homelessness catastrophe this winter.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/11/tories-evi…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Homelessness, No-grounds evictions.Are there any short term fixes for the rental crisis?
Michele Weekes ABC (No paywall)The latest figures show residential rental vacancies at their lowest levels ever. Fixing the rental crisis means releasing more land, building more homes and other measures that are longer term solutions. So what can be done in the meantime? (ABC Radio National)
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/are-th…
# Audio Australia, Rent, Housing market.