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
Do politicians even want to revive the Australian dream of home ownership?
Gareth Hutchins ABC (No paywall)Who should we believe? Last week, former prime minister John Howard said he didn't "accept" there was a housing crisis in Australia. But that very day, Anglicare released a report on rental affordability that showed otherwise. The report found there were barely any rental properties left in Australia that low income households could afford. And a few weeks earlier, the property group Domain also warned that Australia was facing "a rental crisis." "All capital cities are now operating in a landlords’ market, the first time this has happened since Domain records began," it said. "The rise in investor activity, as well as overseas migrants who will rent upon arrival, will spiral rental demand further and worsen conditions for tenants." Is a rental crisis not a housing crisis?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-01/do-politicians-want-to-re…
# Australia, Rent, Share houses, Affordable housing, Home ownership, Housing affordability, International.Regulation of private renting
Committee of Public Accounts, House of Commons (No paywall)The private rented sector in England has doubled in size in the last 20 years and now houses 11 million people. However, the sector is failing far too often to provide safe and secure homes for renters, with 13% (589,000) of privately rented properties currently posing a serious threat to the health and safety of renters, costing the NHS an estimated £340 million each year. Tenants are unable to realise their right to a safe and secure home due to an inaccessible and complex regulatory framework and the threat of retaliatory eviction.
# International, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Health, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Local Government, Minimum habitability standards.More affordable housing with less homelessness is possible – if only Australia would learn from Nordic nations
Andrew Scott, Heather Hoist and Sidsel Grimstad The Conversation (No paywall)Housing is expensive in Australia. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Higher quality, more affordable housing is a matter of policy choice. A key problem is Australia’s housing market is too skewed towards treating housing as a financial asset, rather than a basic human need. There is almost a universal consensus among economists, for example, that negative gearing favours the interests of investors to the detriment of others, but both major parties are scared to change the policy. One way to break the policy stalemate is to consider policies shown to have worked in other countries.
https://theconversation.com/more-affordable-housing-with-less-ho…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Share houses, Affordable housing, Home ownership, Homelessness, Housing market, International.‘This isn’t safe’: NSW renters fight twin battles against mould and landlords
Jordyn Beazley The Guardian (No paywall)Once a month Paul sends his family out of the house. With a mask on and vinegar solution in hand, he gets to work scrubbing the mould off the roof and walls of his home. It’s in his bedroom, in the kids’ bedrooms and play room, the lounge room, the kitchen. A few days after the clean, it starts to reappear and Paul spot cleans the growth until it’s time for next month’s deep clean. Mould has been an issue in his Wollongong home since he moved in with his family a year ago. “It just keeps coming back and we’re getting no help from the real estate agent or the landlord.” ... Reports of mould spreading in homes has soared amid the deluge of rain and flooding across Australia’s east coast. The issue hits renters hardest, with some landlords refusing to do anything about it. “We hear from a lot of reports from tenants who’ve been struggling with mould and report it to their landlords or agents, and they will suggest it’s the tenant’s fault,” said Jemima Mowbray, policy and advocacy manager at the Tenants’ Union of New South Wales.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/29/this-isnt…
# NSW, Rent, Health, Mould.War of words breaks out following new report into Queensland’s housing crisis
The Guardian (No paywall)The Queensland and federal governments are trading blows over the state’s housing after another report on the crisis. A new report from the Queensland Council of Social Services (Qcoss) says more than 50,000 households are currently on the waiting list for social housing. Qcoss warns the list could grow by 10,000 if the federal government proceeds with plans to scrap the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS). “Women and children are returning to domestic violence situations and living in cars with newborns because there is nowhere else to go,” Qcoss chief executive Amy McVeigh said. “We need more homes.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/28/war-of-wo…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Homelessness, Housing market, State Government, Women.Locked out: housing has become a path to wealth, but renters have been left behind
Peter Hannam The Guardian (No paywall)Scott Morrison’s comment last month that “the best way to support people renting a house is to help them buy a house” was seized on by some as a “let them eat cake moment”. ... Groups from the Australian Council of Social Service to the Committee for Sydney have led calls to address housing affordability that have produced little substantial policy from the major parties, at least federally. ... As one senior member of the NSW government told me recently, housing has gone from an essential “roof over our heads” to a commodity for wealth accumulation and speculation. Federal and state policies had largely served to steer ever more money into the sector, favouring those already in the market.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/30/locked-ou…
# Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.The RBA will raise interest rates — but not to the alarming levels the experts are predicting
Ian Verrender ABC (No paywall)Australia now finally is captive to real estate. We aren't the only country to have allowed this to happen. But we are one of the most egregious examples. Our banking system, which for decades has prospered on the back of soaring property prices, has become hostage to a $9 trillion monster. And while our politicians for years berated each other over relatively insignificant levels of government debt, they conveniently ignored Australia's real economic Achilles heel: household debt. That's now hobbled our central bank. It can't raise rates to anywhere near the level it may require without causing utter chaos. Perverse as it may seem, our perilous personal debt situation could be the saving grace for those who recently geared themselves up to the eyeballs. We simply can't afford to have so many go broke!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-02/rba-will-raise-rates-but-…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.The European Responsible Housing Awards 2022: the finalists for Helsinki announced
(No paywall)For the fourth edition of the ERHIN awards, a joint initiative of Housing Europe, the International Union of Tenants (IUT) and DELPHIS, we received 70 submissions across five categories from 20 countries, and so, deciding on five winners and finalists was a challenging task for the Jury. We are delighted to announce the finalists of this year’s European Responsible Housing Awards.
# International, Public and community housing, Climate change, Housing affordability, Housing market, Human rights, Older people.