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
Modern cities like Sydney becoming ‘ghettos of rich people’, architects warn
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Modern cities such as Sydney are becoming “ghettos of rich people” where few working people can afford to live, award-winning architects Jean-Philippe Vassal and Anne Lacaton warn. Known as the “never demolish” architects, Vassal and Lacaton won the Pritzker Prize, the world’s most prestigious architectural prize, in 2021 for a series of projects where they refused to raze existing public housing, apartment blocks and museums. At workshops at Sydney University this week, the visiting French architects encouraged architecture students to reimagine a future for Waterloo estate’s public housing – slated for redevelopment and future demolition. The brief: don’t destroy anything. Not even a tree. In a public lecture at the Seymour Centre on Thursday night, Lacaton said they believed “architects should never demolish, never subtract, never remove, always add and transform”. They see demolition as an act of violence, and a waste of energy, history and materials.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/modern-cities-like-sydney-be…
# NSW, Estate renewal, Housing market, International, Planning and development, Sydney.The Renters Review, July 2022
Tenants Victoria (No paywall)Taking stock over the past financial year, we directly helped over 10,000 Victorian renters with their tenancy problems. Hundreds of thousands more sought information from our helpful website that serves as something of a renting encyclopaedia. These are solid achievements for us in another pandemic year. However, in the social and economic context of more and more Victorians renting their homes, our service faces a daily dilemma: we can only answer a proportion of inquiries to our advice lines. Demand remains intense - and too often unmet - because of resource constraints.
https://us3.campaign-archive.com/?u=a0504c68fc1184750ad91bd5e&id…
# Australia, Boarders and lodgers, Privacy and access, Public and community housing, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Coronavirus COVID-19, Mould.Transitional housing support for Indigenous men leaving prison aims to reduce recidivism rates
Rio Davis ABC (No paywall)A contract has been signed for the construction of a Victorian-first housing project for Aboriginal men leaving prison, with hopes of reducing recidivism rates. Warrigunya — a name chosen by Aboriginal inmates at Fulham Correctional Centre meaning warrior's home — hopes to give men leaving the prison a fighting chance of reintegrating into society. Homes Victoria has granted the Aboriginal corporation $3 million to build the first stage of the housing at Darriman, near Yarram in the state's south east.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-28/housing-support-for-indig…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Race and ethnicity.Minimum Wage Workers Cannot Afford a 2-bedroom Rental Home Anywhere
Molly Bolan (No paywall)Plus, these workers can’t rent a one bedroom in 91% of U.S. counties, according to a new report. Amid record-breaking rent increases, it’s nearly impossible for low-wage workers to afford rental homes anywhere in the United States, according to a new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. (Route Fifty)
https://www.route-fifty.com/health-human-services/2022/07/minimu…
# International, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market.ACT government outlines plans to deliver 30,000 new homes over five years, including build-to-rent
ABC (No paywall)An extra 30,000 homes will be built in Canberra over the next five years under the ACT government's plan to significantly increase the city's housing supply to meet population growth. The housing package in next week's territory budget will include the release of land for 16,500 dwellings, plans for a build-to-rent scheme and an extra $30 million for public housing growth and renewal projects. "To give some context, we currently have around 180,000 dwellings in the territory and we believe that we will need that to grow to around 210,000 over the next five years," Chief Minister Andrew Barr said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-31/act-government-outlines-h…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.Mental health programs for new mothers struggle to meet demand in Western Sydney
Rani Hayman ABC (No paywall)Cradling her five-month-old baby tight, Helena's main priority is keeping her son and herself safe. "Coming from a place of being a child in care myself and domestic violence while I was pregnant with my son, I could have ended up on the streets or my son could have ended up being in care, which was something that I definitely didn't want," she said.
The 24-year-old Kamilaroi woman from Western Sydney was referred to a support service for women and their children and got in.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-30/mothers-mental-health-pro…
# NSW, Domestic violence, Health, Homelessness, Women.With fake photographs of fully-furnished homes, scammers target renters who are desperate to secure housing
Eric Tlozek and Candice Prosser ABC (No paywall)As demand in the rental market continues to soar, Ashmitha De Silva and Amarani Silva were thrilled to be offered what seemed like a perfect family home in Adelaide's northern suburbs. They paid a deposit and their first rental instalment up front, totalling $3,200. However, the day before they were due to fly to Adelaide from Melbourne, they found out the address of their supposed rental property was a building site. The couple — who decided to relocate to South Australia to pursue work opportunities — had been struggling to find an affordable property. While searching real estate forums on Facebook, Ms Silva came across posts from a man with the screen name of James A Bush who claimed to have properties available to rent. ... The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has received more than 275 reports to Scamwatch about rental and accommodation scams this year, with reported losses exceeding $175,000. It reports that the most common rental scam resulted in victims sending a deposit before inspecting a rental property in person.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-30/sa-rental-scam/101285338
# Australia, Rent, Landlords and agents.‘The power players are right in your face’: How David Chandler took on Sydney’s shoddy developers
Megan Gorry The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The state’s first Building Commissioner, David Chandler, had been looking forward to going fishing when his stint in the high-profile role was due to end this year. But once he heard some developers had already ordered the champagne for a party to celebrate his exit, he decided to stay put a bit longer, Chandler reportedly quipped to a room of property insiders a few months ago. ... The abrupt departure of the man who the former premier Gladys Berejiklian hired to tackle the state’s building crisis three years ago – following the dramatic evacuations of the cracked Opal Tower and Mascot Towers apartments – has triggered significant speculation in the development sector, and raised questions about the future of the state government’s ambitious agenda to reform the industry and weed out shoddy operators.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-power-players-are-right-…
# NSW, Strata, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Minimum habitability standards.