ADVICE OVER THE HOLIDAY PERIOD
Tenants Advice & Advocacy Services have limited availability over the holiday period. The Tenants' Union will operate a Tenancy Advice Hotline from Wednesday 18/12/2024 until Wednesday 8/1/2025 (excluding weekends and public holidays). The hours of operation are 10am-1pm and 2-5pm.
Get advice on: (02) 8117 3750 or 1800 251 101
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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
Wellington mayoral candidates commit to almost all proposals related to housing and climate justice
Hanna McCallum (No paywall)From New Zeland ... Wellington’s mayoral candidates made commitments to almost all proposals related to housing and climate justice, presented by activist groups. Tory Whanau, Paul Eagle and Andy Foster were presented with six key issues by Generation Zero and Renters United at a mayoral forum on Thursday night. The issues included equitable access to transport for people with disabilities, waste minimisation in the city, increased healthy homes, better and increased cycleways and funding tenant advocacy services. (Stuff)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/129927807/…
# International, Affordable housing, Health, Tenants Advice and Advocacy Services.Libraries and museums to be ‘warm havens’ for people struggling with energy bills
Rebecca Brahde, Jon Ungoed-Thomas, Tom Wall and Anna Fazackerley The Guardian (No paywall)Britain’s libraries and museums are preparing to act as warm havens for people unable to afford to heat their homes in the winter months. Ministers are being called on to provide urgent new funding so public buildings can cope with a surge in visitors during the coldest months. The buildings will be part of a network across the country which will provide warm shelter to help reduce excess winter deaths linked to freezing conditions.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/20/libraries-and-m…
# International, Utilities electricity water gas, Minimum habitability standards.Hobart's suburbs facing significant demand for social housing as some applicants fear they're 'lost in the system'
Adam Holmes ABC (No paywall)Hobart's outer northern and southern suburbs are experiencing significant demand for social and public housing — far outstripping supply — including hundreds of applications for family-size houses. New Housing Connect data obtained by the ABC shows there are almost 50 applications for three and four-bedroom social houses in the suburb of Glenorchy, with the next greatest need in Claremont and Kingston. These suburbs also have a high demand for smaller premises, including 151 applications for one-bedroom and 85 for two-bedrooms in Glenorchy. Among those on the waiting list is Shelley Ford, who became homeless in mid-2020 after a relationship breakdown. She could not afford the $350 a week rent in the private market and has couch surfed with family in Bridgewater with her 15-year-old niece, who she cares for, but who has struggled to stay in school due to the uncertainty. They have spent time living in a tent at Fortescue Bay.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-26/hobart-suburbs-facing-sig…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Women.A Ponzi scheme by any other name: the bursting of China’s property bubble
Martin Farrer The Guardian (No paywall)A little more than a year ago, a Chinese property developer largely unknown to the outside world said its cashflow was under “tremendous pressure” and it might not be able to pay back some of its eye-watering debts of $300bn (£275bn). Today, that company, China Evergrande Group, is all too well known as the poster child of the country’s economic woes. House prices in China have fallen in each of the 12 months since Evergrande’s now prophetic warning, with Xi Jinping’s government now preparing to throw billions of dollars at a property market that experts say increasingly resembles a giant Ponzi scheme.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/25/china-property-…
# International, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Australia’s runaway rents
Inga Ting, Katia Shatoba, and Alex Palmer ABC (No paywall)Single mother Tilly Eastwood says the worst part of being priced out of the rental market isn’t living in a garage with her three children. It isn’t the absence of windows for light or fresh air. It’s not even the 150-plus failed rental applications. It’s the gnawing feeling that she’s letting down her kids. ... Nicola Powell, chief of research and economics at Domain, describes current rental market conditions as “extraordinary”. “Australia-wide, as well as every single capital city, is deemed a landlord’s market.” ... Professor Gurran [urban planner and director of Sydney University’s Henry Halloran Trust] says private sector landlords should be asked to play a bigger role. For example, to provide more secure leases, moderate rental increases, or participate in rent social and affordable housing programs. “We are spending a lot on the private rental sector in the form of negative gearing … if we’re prepared to spend $30 billion a year on subsidising private rental landlords, we should be asking what we’re getting out of that massive public subsidy.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-21/australia-is-in-the-grip-…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Housing market.How housing affects health on remote Country
(No paywall)The housing crisis is currently a hot-button issue making headlines Australia-wide. But it’s been endemic in Central Australia for decades. A chronic shortage of available housing in remote Indigenous communities has significant consequences, with unintended household crowding ultimately contributing to the poor health of residents. University of Queensland anthropologist and architect Professor Paul Memmott has been visiting the Barkly region in the centre of the Northern Territory for decades. He’s part of a multi-disciplinary team of five UQ researchers who collaborated with local medical service, Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation, to examine the link between housing and health for Indigenous people living on remote Country. (UQ News)
https://stories.uq.edu.au/news/2022/how-housing-affects-health-o…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Health, Housing market, Race and ethnicity.Climate change threatens up to 100% of trees in Australian cities, and most urban species worldwide
Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez, Jaana Dielenberg, Jonathan Lenoir, Mark G Tjoelker and Rachael Gallagher The Conversation (No paywall)Our study published today in Nature Climate Change found climate change will put 90-100% of the trees and shrubs planted in Australian capital cities at risk by 2050. Without action, two-thirds of trees and shrubs in cities worldwide will be at potential risk from climate change. Increasing city temperatures mean their trees are becoming more important than ever. More than just shade umbrellas, the natural air-conditioning magic of trees happens as water moves up from the soil through their roots and evaporates out of their leaves into the air. But how will the trees themselves cope with climate change as conditions shift beyond their natural tolerance limits for high temperatures or lack of water?
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-threatens-up-to-100-o…
# Australia, Climate change, Planning and development.The elephant in the room: to broaden home ownership access, governments must tackle housing affordability head-on
Hal Pawson City Futures (No paywall)Boosting home ownership: an overriding housing policy objective for many decades, not only in Britain but the world over. And yet, as also seen in many countries, the past 10-20 years have witnessed owner occupancy rates static or falling. It is not as though official endorsement for home ownership can be dismissed as purely rhetorical. Quite the contrary. As demonstrated by our recent research comparing approaches across eight countries including the UK, a highly diverse array of first-time buyer assistance interventions have been, and are being, pursued around the world. ... Well-chosen measures to assist first-time buyers are a desirable element of a wider housing strategy. But their potential for expanding access down the income spectrum remains very limited if other key policy settings remain sacrosanct. Overall home ownership growth demands systemic change to tackle the much tougher challenge of easing broader housing affordability. Yet this objective calls for the dampening of property values, an objective in tension with the dominant theme of home ownership policy: to facilitate wealth accumulation through asset ownership.
https://blogs.unsw.edu.au/cityfutures/blog/2022/09/the-elephant-…
# International, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.