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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
Could public housing solve the housing affordability problem?
The Drum ABC (No paywall)In many Australian cities and towns, it's becoming harder and harder for young Australians to purchase a new home. On an average income, it would take over 10 years to save the 20 per cent deposit you need for a typical home. Could public housing provide a solution? Excellent discussion ... runs for just under 20 minute, but it is well worth the time. And, as a bonus, Ellen Fanning, host of the current affairs ABC program, The Drum, writes article entitled: 'Thinking big helped Australia solve a housing crisis in the 1940s. We can do it again' in 'The Guardian' at: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/24/thinking-big-helped-australia-solve-a-housing-crisis-in-the-1940s-we-can-do-it-again]. She writes: 'Recently on ABC TV’s The Drum, we explored a notion that for decades has preoccupied housing researchers like Chris Martin, senior research fellow in the City Futures Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. Martin is convinced by the idea of a massively expanded public housing sector, which could at once wipe out the waiting list and expand the eligibility criteria. “What if you could provide for a range of tenants, from the neediest Australians to essential workers who couldn’t otherwise afford to live close to where they work, right through to middle income earners, unable to afford their own home but able to pay more substantial rents, which would help subsidise the whole system?” he wonders. Expanding the eligibility in this way would help end the problem of a marginalised, shrunken public housing system, wasting away on what Martin calls “starvation rations”.' [Read her full story]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvyOjr6Zy_c&ab_channel=ABCNews%2…
# Must read, Hot topic, Video Australia, Aboriginal renters, Domestic violence, Public and community housing, Rent, Repairs, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Older people, Pets, Regional NSW, Short-term holiday letting, Women.A New Effort in San Francisco Aims To Debate Rent at the Bargaining Table
(No paywall)On April 11, tenant representatives from the Veritas Tenants Association gathered at the mailbox at 150 Larkin St. across the lawn from San Francisco City Hall. They dropped 15 letters to their landlord, Veritas Investments, the largest landlord in San Francisco and the subject of lawsuits alleging tenant harassment, into the mailbox. “We will show what it means to unionize the biggest private landlord in S.F.,” tenant Madelyn McMillian said. “We will be bargaining on a full range of issues affecting our lives.” ... The letters presented majority approval of tenant associations in 15 Veritas buildings and asked that Veritas formally acknowledge the unions under a new San Francisco “Right to Organize” ordinance, which went into effect April 11. It requires landlords to recognize tenant associations in their buildings, attend meetings on request at least four times a year and bargain with tenant unions in good faith. Failing to comply with the ordinance will result in rent deductions. The ordinance was approved unanimously by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on March 1 and signed into law by Mayor London Breed in March. (Portside)
https://portside.org/2022-04-20/new-effort-san-francisco-aims-de…
# Must read International, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Housing market.Julia grew up on a street where 'everyone knew your name'. But when she told people her address, alarm bells rang
Bridget Judd ABC (No paywall)Julia's street proved the old adage it takes a village to raise a child. So when she reached high school and told her classmates where she lived, she was surprised to be met with three words. "Oh, I'm sorry." Just over 800,000 Australians live in social housing across the country.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-22/australia-stigmatisation-…
# Australia, Public and community housing.A Cage by Another Name
Sasha Plotnikova (No paywall)Under the guise of housing, LA’s tiny home villages serve to contain and banish unhoused people. On a long weekend in October of 2021, I gathered with a small group of people on the hot asphalt of a former access road surrounded by an 8-foot tall fence. We stood among 117 prefabricated sheds that had been installed on the site, each smaller than a 70-square foot (6.5 m2) prison cell—the minimum recommended by the American Correctional Association. Directly to our east was a freeway, and to our west was a park, little-used due to noise and pollution. Over the top of the fence, we could see a hornet’s nest hanging from one of the trees closest to the camp. We were at the open house of a new “Tiny Home Village” in the rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood of Highland Park, funded and built in the summer of 2021 by the City of Los Angeles and operated by Christian nonprofit Hope of the Valley (HOTV). The stated purpose of the sheds was temporary housing for 224 tenants transitioning out of houselessness. (Failed Architecture)
# Must read International, Health, Homelessness, Housing market, Welfare.Design, policy and stigma: Lessons from Australia's golden age of public housing
Jonathan Green ABC (No paywall)For decades public housing in Australia has stood as a symbol of economic disadvantage and social marginalisation, but it wasn't always this way. As Mira Adler-Gillies explains, public housing was once built for working families, using innovative and progressive design principles. Listen to the full report. (Blueprint For Living, ABC Radio National)
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/blueprintforliving…
# History, Audio Australia, Public and community housing, Housing market.Public housing tenants answer your questions to tackle stigma
Carol Raabus ABC (No paywall)When Nickolas Koutsoudakis lived with his mum in a housing commission property, he didn't feel welcome in some parts of society. [Read on] (ABC Everyday)
https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/public-housing-tenants-answer-yo…
# Australia, Public and community housing.At last, we have a chance to fix the housing crisis – and that’s down to Michael Gove
Vicky Spratt (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Standing before a packed room of housing policy experts and journalists at an event hosted by the charity Shelter, the Housing Secretary began to speak. His focus? The urgent need to build more social housing and to tax landowners properly to make sure councils have enough money to fund it. “Even the most – how can I put it – Thatcher-worshiping, home ownership-fetishising, capital-accumulating members of this audience… you want more social housing,” he said. “Because you want people to be in decent homes where they can pursue the jobs that they love and save one day for a home that they might want to call their own.” The words could easily have been spoken by someone on the left, but they came from Michael Gove. (inews.co.uk)
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/at-last-we-have-a-chance-to-fix-the-…
# International, Public and community housing, Housing market, Local Government, Tax.Australia's overheated property market has become a target for hackers — and they're scamming millions
James Purtill ABC (No paywall)The scammers' first email to Kelly and her husband arrived in the small hours of the night, when they were sleeping. "Due to the ongoing bank audit on our account," the email read, "please see attached our subsidiary trust account details for the payment of $25,000 deposit." The email address looked legitimate — it was the real estate agent's. Kelly and her husband, both young engineers and "tech savvy", were at the pointy end of buying a house in Western Australia. ... According to national figures, plenty of others are falling for the scam too. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) Scamwatch receives on average about two reports per week of payment redirection scams in real estate.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-04-24/scammers-hackers-…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents.