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
Ontario man applying for medically-assisted death as alternative to being homeless
Cynthia Mulligan and Meredith Bond (No paywall)A 54-year-old St. Catharines man is in the process of applying for medical assistance in dying (MAiD), not because he wants to die, but because social supports are failing him and he fears he may have no other choice. Amir Farsoud lives with never-ending agony from a back injury years ago. He tells CityNews at its worst he is “crying like a 5-year-old and not sleeping for days in a row.” Farsoud also takes medication for depression and anxiety. He describes his quality of life as “awful, non-existent and terrible … I do nothing other than manage pain.” But Farsoud said his quality of life is not the reason he is applying for MAiD. He applied because he is currently in danger of losing his housing and fears being homeless over dying. “It’s not my first choice.”Farsoud lives in a rooming house he shares with two other people, and it is currently up for sale. He is on social assistance and says he can’t find anywhere else to live that he can afford. “I don’t want to die but I don’t want to be homeless more than I don’t want to die,” shared Farsoud.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/10/13/medical-assistance-death-…
# International, Health, Homelessness.Young Queenslanders facing homelessness targeted with state government strategy
Bianca Wylie ABC (No paywall)The Queensland government's program to help young people find safe, secure housing includes addressing the underlying causes of homelessness. Minister for Youth Affairs Meaghan Scanlon said the strategy was developed with the help of young people.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-15/towards-ending-homelessne…
# Australia, Homelessness, Young people.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.