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
Evictions plague renters across the country. In Greensboro, a grassroots group is pushing the city to fund a solution.
Marielle Argueza Triad City Beat (No paywall)Courtroom 215, located in Greensboro’s Guilford County Courthouse, can feel like a machine, spitting out judgments as quickly as fresh eviction cases are filed. For those unfamiliar with the civil court system, it can be daunting, especially without legal help navigating the process. Unlike criminal court, where defendants have a right to an attorney if they cannot afford one, there is no federally upheld right to counsel in civil cases. It’s all dependent on the city or county.
https://triad-city-beat.com/evictions-plague-renters-across-the-…
# Hot topic International, Rent.Where can you afford to rent?
Nael Shiab CBC (No paywall)Canada is in a rental housing crisis, with affordable homes disappearing at an alarming rate across the country. According to a CBC News analysis of over 1,000 neighbourhoods across Canada’s largest cities, less than one per cent of rentals are both vacant and affordable for the majority of Canadian renters. To gauge the extent of the rental housing crisis, CBC News combined 2021 census data with the most recent findings from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s rental market survey, conducted in October 2023. If you needed to find a home to rent, could you?
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2024/rentals-affordabil…
# Hot topic International, Rent, Starting a tenancy.What does the NSW budget 2024-25 mean for renters
TUNSW Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)The Tenants' Union of NSW has dived into today's NSW budget announcements, looking for the key measures that will significantly impact renters. These are our initial thoughts, we will add to this page as we gather more detail. There may be errors we will rectify as they are identified. What Government delivered
Investment in public and community housing, investment in Homes NSW... We applaud the government’s commitment to increasing housing stock and improving repairs and maintenance for public housing through investment of $5.9bn for Homes NSW to deliver:
https://www.tenants.org.au/news/what-does-nsw-budget-2024-25-mea…
# Must read, TUNSW in the media, Legal significance NSW, Public and community housing, Rent.NSW budget to deliver 30,000 new homes, promising historic investment in social housing
Isobel Roe ABC (No paywall)New South Wales will make the biggest single investment in social housing in the state's history, spending $5.1 billion to build 8,400 new and refurbished social homes, with a significant proportion to go to women and children fleeing domestic violence. Labor's 2024-25 budget, which records a $3.6 billion deficit, has promised 30,000 new homes all up through several new housing schemes, including a build-to-rent program for essential workers and the sale of public land to developers. Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said his "must haves and not nice-to-haves" budget "carefully absorbs" a $11.9 billion hit from a loss in GST revenue, rather than creating "misery" by making cuts to services.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-18/nsw-budget-government-to-…
# Must read NSW, Public and community housing.The neighbours desperate to stop building being demolished for luxury apartments
Sue Williams The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)More than 50 residents and neighbours of a 1960s apartment building have protested the block’s proposed demolition in an extraordinary kerbside battle against developers they say could be a watershed moment for Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The furious community members of the block in Elizabeth Bay, one of six comprising cheap studios and one-bedroom units earmarked to be torn down and replaced with high-priced, oversized luxury apartments, crowded the pavement and road at an outdoor conciliation meeting.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-neighbours-desperate-to…
# Must read NSW, Eviction.From social housing to $1.5m for a studio: minister hits out at ‘dud deal’ sale of Sydney’s Sirius building
Tamsin Rose The Guardian (No paywall)A decade ago the only way to secure a bed in Sydney’s brutalist icon, the Sirius building, was a proven need and time on the social housing waitlist. Now the price of admission starts at $1.55m – for a studio apartment. The last of the 76 apartments in the redeveloped complex in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge are on the market after the building was sold to a developer by the former Coalition state government for $150m in 2019. A two-bedroom in the soon-to-be-completed block starts at $3.2m and prospective owners would be asked for another $1.5m if they wanted a car park to accompany their Rocks abode.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/17/f…
# Must read, Hot topic NSW, Eviction, Public and community housing.NSW allocates $450 million for more than 400 build-to-rent homes for essential workers
Nick Dole ABC (No paywall)The Minns government will build apartment blocks for Sydney's essential workers, offering them cheap rent so they're not priced out of the city. Tuesday's budget will set aside $450 million to build more than 400 build-to-rent dwellings over the next three years. The homes will be offered to workers like teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters at a discount to the market rent. Premier Chris Minns said the government was thinking "outside the square" to improve affordability. "We're expecting big towers and they'll be exclusively for essential workers," Mr Minns said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-16/nsw-to-invest-450-million…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.Occupants of empty buyback homes face eviction day
Mia Armitage Echo (No paywall)Members of Lismore’s Reclaim our Recovery community group called for a last-minute gathering of supporters this morning as people continued to occupy otherwise empty bought-back houses in North Lismore. Locals and travellers alike were said to be living in houses on Pine Street and elsewhere that officially belonged to the NSW Reconstruction Authority (RA) thanks to their former owners’ participation in the Resilient Homes Program’s buyback scheme. RA head Mal Lanyon told ABC North Coast listeners last week bought-back homes would be managed on a case-by-case basis.
# Hot topic NSW, Disasters, Eviction.