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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
Generation Z faces a brutal truth. Finding a decent home will be a lifelong struggle
Sonia Sodha The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... It is grim being a renter in your mid-20s in 2022, given the way rents have spiked in the last couple of years; the fact that, even a few years ago, renters were paying the highest rents in Europe, spending 36% of their income on housing compared with 12% for mortgaged owners; and the grotty state of much that’s on offer and the fact you have no idea where you’ll be living once your tenancy comes to an end. But imagine still being subject to the whims of a landlord and substandard housing – around a quarter of privately rented homes don’t meet the decent homes standard – when you have young kids, worrying about when the next move is, how far it will take you from school, grandparents and friends, whether you will have to downgrade and lose a bedroom just as they are getting older. Then imagine how scary your approaching retirement will be, with a state and private pension system that simply isn’t designed for people who haven’t either already paid off their mortgage or who don’t have the long-term security and controlled rents of social housing.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/28/life-is-be…
# International, Public and community housing, Rent, Families, Housing market, Welfare.Solar solutions could be the key to climate-proofing homes in Aboriginal town camps
Stephanie Boltje ABC (No paywall)In the Red Centre's Hidden Valley, traditional owner Benedict Stevens is proud to call his late grandmother's 1970s house his home. But this home wasn't built with insulation, heating, and cooling in mind. "The cold gets to about 0 degrees Celsius in winter, and during summer it goes up to about 45 degrees," Mr Stevens told The Drum. Mr Stevens lives in Ewyenper-Atwatye, also known as Hidden Valley, one of the Aboriginal town camps that dot the edges of Alice Springs. ... Tangentyere Council is connecting PV solar panels to prepayment systems on its community centres within the town camps to show how they could work to individually secure energy for residents.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-25/solar-solutions-climate-p…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Utilities electricity water gas, Climate change, Health, Minimum habitability standards.Ruby's Reunification Program has helped reunite nearly 2,000 families in South Australia
Evelyn Manfield ABC (No paywall)It was a combination of teenage struggles – from friendship, school work and mental health – that led Stacey Walker and her then 15-year-old, Fiki, to Ruby's Reunification Program, a counselling and accommodation centre for Adelaide teenagers.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-25/reunification-program-hel…
# Australia, Homelessness, Young people.Oracle is the latest builder to run out of money and there could be more — what rights do you have as a home owner?
Emilie Gramenz ABC (No paywall)Linda and Warwick Wade were supposed to move into their dream home in the Logan suburb of New Beith this month. All that's happened on their block so far is earthworks and this week they learned their builder, Oracle Homes, had gone into liquidation. "It's heartbreaking," said Linda. ... [So] what are people's rights when their builder goes bust? Also, read Antonia O'Flaherty's article entitled: 'Oracle Homes collapse leaves hundreds in the lurch, but what is the forecast for building a home?' on the ABC at: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-27/housing-construction-industry-braces-for-more-uncertainty/101378080] Read Marty Silk's article entitled: '"Those poor people": Oracle customers face wait on homes in Queensland' in 'The Sydney Morning Herald' at: [https://amp.smh.com.au/national/queensland/those-poor-people-oracle-customers-face-wait-on-homes-in-queensland-20220825-p5bcp5.html]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-26/qld-home-owners-rights-li…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Everyone needs a place to live: more migrants mean we’ll need more homes
Brendan Coates and Joey Moloney The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The Albanese government looks set to boost Australia’s annual cap on permanent migration from 160,000 to as high as 200,000 at this week’s Jobs and Skills Summit. Victorian Premier Dan Andrews has now backed the plan. But without a corresponding plan to boost housing supply, increasing migration risks adding to Australia’s housing affordability woes, hurting low-income renters the most. Australia’s migration policy is its de-facto population policy. Increasing its permanent migrant intake will boost Australia’s population, and housing demand, in the long term.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/everyone-needs-a-place-to-live-m…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing market, Work, employment.Jamie was told to move out of her rental 'for her own safety'. Five months on, she feels trapped there
David Aidone SBS (No paywall)Jamie rents a house in Sydney's south-west. It has water damage, mould growth, and what she fears is a sinkhole risk in the backyard. She also feels trapped there. ... On Thursday, the Australian Greens' housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather called for a two-year, nationwide freeze on rents to allow incomes to catch up with surging prices, as well as an ongoing policy to cap rent increases at two per cent every 24 months. The government dismissed this, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese saying he was unsure how a national rental freeze would work in practice. ... On Thursday, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government would focus on boosting supply to combat the housing crisis. "That's why we have the Housing Australia Future Fund that's building more affordable homes, and I'm working with the super industry and the states to see if we can build more stock."
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/jamie-was-told-to-move-out-o…
# NSW, Rent, Federal Government.Point of no return: crunch time as China tries to fend off property crash
Martin Farrer The Guardian (No paywall)With the global economy also at a crossroads, it is not just Beijing’s leadership that is in peril, say experts. China has reached a point of no return in its battle to contain what could be the biggest property crash the world has ever seen, experts are warning, putting the country’s Communist leadership and the global economy in peril. As western countries stand on the edge of a potentially ruinous recession in the coming year, China is also facing a slump thanks to “total collapse” of confidence among ordinary people in the once-buoyant housing market, the continued ravages of Beijing’s draconian zero-Covid strategy and an extreme heatwave that is affecting the supply of power and food. Alarm is spreading in China that tough times are on the horizon ...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/28/crunch-time-chi…
# International, Climate change, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Families flee as India demolishes 100-metre towers outside Delhi
The Guardian (No paywall)Indian authorities have demolished two illegally constructed skyscrapers in a wide plume of dust debris outside Delhi, razing the tallest structures ever pulled down in the country in less than 10 seconds. Crowds watching the collapse from rooftops on nearby high-rise buildings cheered and clapped as the 103 metre (338ft) tall towers collapsed during a controlled demolition. The supreme court last year ordered the destruction of the towers in the Noida area after a long legal hearing found they violated multiple building regulations and fire safety standards.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/28/india-demolishes-1…
# Video International, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Minimum habitability standards.