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
Tenant awarded over $2,000 after landlord tried to end tenancy in retaliation
New Zealand Tenancy Services (No paywall)Aotearoa: The tenant received the email after the landlord was issued an Improvement Notice to resolve a complaint made by the tenant about the rental property. In his decision, the Tenancy Tribunal adjudicator, Rex Woodhouse stated that “there are strong interests for tenants and the public generally, that when termination notices are given, they are only given lawfully. Ending a person’s tenancy is a very significant step to take.”
https://www.tenancy.govt.nz/about-tenancy-services/news/tenant-a…
# Hot topic International, Rent, Tribunal NCAT.Rising rents lead to spike in evictions in Arizona's Maricopa County
CBS News (No paywall)Since March 2023, Maricopa County, Arizona, has led the nation in eviction filings, with one Phoenix judge hearing as many as 500 eviction cases a month. It's part of an affordable housing crisis attributed to rising rents. According to the website Zillow, rents have jumped more than 30% from pre-pandemic prices.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/rising-rents-lead-to-spike-in-evic…
# Video International, Eviction, Rent.Adelaide mother and disabled son awaiting public housing told to 'manifest a home' or consider living in tent
Bethanie Alderson ABC (No paywall)An Adelaide mother who has two months to find somewhere to live with her severely disabled son says she was told to "manifest a house" or consider living in a tent by a SA Housing Trust public servant. Katie Fattel told ABC Radio Adelaide her four-year-old son Cassian acquired a severe brain injury at 18 months old, leaving him with "the most severe" form of cerebral palsy. She says he is non-verbal and non-mobile, and relies on multiple machines to keep him alive. "He's on the feeding pump for 22 hours a day ... his suction machine has actually saved his life on several occasions," Ms Fattel told ABC Radio
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-12/mother-and-disabled-son-f…
# Must read Australia, Discrimination, Rent.The Great Crumbling Australian Dream: By the river
Abigail Varney and Nelli Saarinen ABC (No paywall)It might seem like a rough way to live, but for Chloe and Trent, it’s the most stability they’ve had in a long time. “It’s our healing chapter,” Chloe says. “Our whole lives, both of us have been through hell and back pretty much, both in our own ways,” she says. “And now it’s just really recovering so we can have a good rest of our life and just be happy. We’re going to take it easy and get our mental health better.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-11/young-homeless-people-tas…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Report reveals 100,000 Melbourne homes were vacant in 2023
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)There were almost 100,000 homes sitting vacant or under-used in Melbourne in 2023, a new report has revealed. Prosper Australia's Speculative Vacancy report, which examines water meter usage data, reveals 27,400 homes, or 1.5 per cent of all dwellings in Melbourne, were left entirely empty in 2023. With the inclusion of homes that recorded less than a quarter of the average single-person consumption of water over the year, another 70,400 homes were significantly under-used last year, lifting the total to almost 100,000 homes, or one in 20 dwellings across the city, sitting vacant.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-13/report-reveals-100000-mel…
# Must read Australia, Rent.Landlordism, not supply, is causing the housing crisis
Elizabeth Farrelly The Saturday Paper (Soft Paywall)Years ago, when I sat next to Donald Horne at lunch, he explained at some length – as he often had before – that the “lucky” in his 1964 book The Lucky Country was not a compliment. Indeed, Horne’s point was that Australia’s luck – in weather, land and resources – had allowed us to normalise a culture of greed, mediocrity and sloth. “Australia,” he wrote, “is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people’s ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.”
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/life/cities/2024/07/13/landl…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.40yo renter reveals grim reality after rental increase
Mary Madigan news.com.au (No paywall)Sarah Bartolo is currently experiencing every renter’s nightmare. She’s watching new potential tenants inspect her apartment, which she cannot afford. Ms Bartolo, 40, is a comedian, actor, and studio assistant who lives in the trendy suburb of Brunswick East in Melbourne. Her lease ends in August, and her real estate agent informed her that the landlord wants to increase the rent from $423 per week to $523 per week. She’s been priced out of her apartment and, as if that news hasn’t been tough enough to face, she’s now stuck living in a unit hosting inspections for potential new tenants.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/renting/40yo-renter-…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Lifestyle Communities promise retirees affordable, resort-style living. But some say they're a 'financial prison'
Adele Ferguson and Chris Gillett ABC (No paywall)When retired policeman Geoff Gauci packed up his old life and moved to an over-50s gated community on Melbourne's northern fringe, he pictured his next chapter as peaceful. After spending 36 years investigating shoplifters, drug trafficking, burglary, fraud and deception, it was time for the quiet life. Seduced by promises of low maintenance and resort-style living at an affordable price, he bought into a Lifestyle Communities development at Wollert, impressed with its high-security cameras and boom gates that guarded a manufactured urban landscape of neat rows of uniform houses and perfectly manicured fake lawns.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-15/lifestyle-communities-fac…
# Hot topic Australia, Land lease communities.