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
Public housing tenants shocked by rent rises as cost of living squeezes budgets
Rebekah Lowe ABC (No paywall)Public housing tenants in regional Victoria fear they will be forced out of their properties or have to go without basic needs as some face rent increases of up to 70 per cent. Donald resident Robert Christopher's rent will rise from $84 per week to $150 per week in August. In a letter seen by the ABC, Homes Victoria advised the 77-year-old the increase was calculated using market rent indices, including the median rent value based on area and property type. Mr Christopher receives a subsidy that will lower his rent slightly, to $288.70 per fortnight, but said he would still not be able to live comfortably on his pension of about $1,000 per fortnight.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-16/public-housing-rent-rise-…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing.Is immigration worsening the housing crisis?
SBS (No paywall)Australia's facing a worsening housing crisis. At the same time, the number of overseas migrant arrivals is at its highest ever since records began. Is increased migration driving up housing and rental prices? It might seem like migration is driving up housing prices, but experts say it's not that simple. Emeritus Professor of Demography at the Australian National University, Peter McDonald told SBS Examines this perspective could be a distraction. "When commentators and politicians attribute all problems in the housing market to high immigration, by definition, they're diverting attention away from the wide range of policy approaches that are required to deal with the housing crisis," Prof McDonald said.
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/en/podcast-episode/is-im…
# Hot topic, Audio Australia, .Landlords, agents call for more protection in proposed Tasmanian laws allowing pets in rentals
Georgie Burgess ABC (No paywall)Terry helps manage his 90-year-old father's rental properties in Hobart's northern suburbs, but says it isn't worth the stress. His father built them himself about 40 years ago, and over that time they've been home to many long-term renters at the lowest rate he could manage. The two units are his dad's primary income, as he doesn't claim a pension. He said the two units were only rented for $250–$350 per week, so any damage directly impacted his father's income.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-16/tasmania-pets-in-rentals-…
# Hot topic Australia, .City-dwelling millennials are on the move again, escaping the rental rut in what some are calling the regional migration 'boomerang'
Jane Norman ABC (No paywall)An email from his property manager was the "final nail in the coffin" for Ben Frazer, who'd been mulling over a major life decision. A few months earlier, a friend had sent him a link to a five-bedroom house for sale with a price guide around the low $1 million mark. It was in Lake Macquarie, about a two-hour drive north of Sydney. Lifelong Sydneysiders, Ben and his wife Lauren had a second baby on the way and were already spending about half of their combined income renting a townhouse in the city's north. When they received notice that their rent was about to be increased again, they decided it was time to move out of the city and escape "the rental rut".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-16/regional-house-prices-sur…
# Hot topic Australia, .Raymond pays $150 a week to live in Paddington. Developers want him to leave
Sue Williams The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)For the past 45 years Raymond Reading has lived in a tiny, dark, two-room unit in a rundown boarding house in the blue-chip Sydney suburb of Paddington, and he never imagined leaving. Until, that is, he was told a consortium of developers had bought his building and the ones next door, and now plans to tear them apart and replace each with a grand luxury house. The 75-year-old triple stroke and double heart attack survivor’s genial grin turns into a scowl. “But they’re not going to be able to get rid of me easily,” he vows. “I’ve got my stick here” – he waves his walking stick in the air – “to defend myself. They’ll have to take me out in handcuffs.”
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/raymond-pays-150-a-week-to-…
# Must read NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Eviction, Rent.Inner West to provide emergency funding for renters' legal representation
Darcy Byrne and Chloe Smith Inner West Council (No paywall)Inner West Council is providing an emergency payment of $125,000 to Marrickville Legal Centre to help meet the unprecedented demand for legal advice and representation for renters and people escaping domestic violence in the Inner West. The request for funding from the legal centre comes after they delivered legal advice to almost 1,500 renters last year. More than 700 clients had to be referred on to other services for additional support because of the legal centre not having the capacity to assist due to the extraordinary demand.
https://www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/about/news/media-releases/2024-…
# Hot topic NSW, .NSW’s new maintenance system will see 750 homes revamped with thousands to follow
Alexandra Smith The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)NSW Labor’s push to abandon the outsourcing of government services will see an initial 750 publicly owned homes repaired after languishing on private sector maintenance lists for years. The homes – in the local government areas of Canterbury-Bankstown, Newcastle, Blacktown, Wollongong, Campbelltown and Cumberland – will be the first to be repaired and revamped under the new public housing maintenance system.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-s-new-maintenance-system…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing.How this mayor survived Sydney’s housing crisis as a young man
Sue Williams The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne has thrown his weight behind a campaign to save Sydney’s boarding houses for some of its most struggling battlers, revealing that he once lived in a boarding house as a young man. The revelation, which he has never publicly spoken of before, came after he learnt from this masthead of residents fighting to save two boarding houses in Paddington’s Selwyn Street that have become a battleground for the future of the housing type.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/revealed-how-this-mayor-sur…
# Must read NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Rent.