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
Statement on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
International Union of Tenants (No paywall)The International Union of Tenants condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demand that all Russian forces leave Ukraine immediately. The attack on Ukraine is a flagrant violation of international law and of Ukraine’s territorial integrity as a sovereign and democratic state. ... As a tenant organisation we are part of the broader civil society, and we know that only a peaceful and democratic society can fully live up to the human rights, including the right to housing and the right to organise. All these values are acutely threatened by the Russian military aggression against Ukraine.
https://www.iut.nu/news-events/iut-statement-on-russias-invasion…
# International, Human rights.Dream on, Australia: budget exposes fantasy of our ‘home-owning democracy’
Nicole Gurran, Emma Baker and Peter Phibbs The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)For a government professing concern about home ownership, new supply and affordability, the measures in this week’s budget fell flat – benefitting few, largely ignoring renters, and extending underperforming existing policy. ... Australia’s roughly 8 million renters have largely been left in the cold. Our 500,000 very low-income renters will remain in rental stress, and our public housing waiting lists will remain essentially unchanged. While about 1.2 million negatively geared landlords continue to claim rental losses, pleas to increase the Commonwealth Rental Assistance subsidy (currently about $4.7 billion a year) have been ignored. There’s no real additional commitment to social housing, aside from a $2 billion extension to the affordable housing bond aggregator, extending the amount available for non-profit providers to borrow via the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation. This will support an estimated 10,000 new social housing units, against a current waiting list of about 160,000 households.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/dream-on-australia-budget-expose…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Welfare.Flood victims told to leave emergency housing in Byron Bay to make way for Easter holiday-makers
Lani Oataway and Joanne Shoebridge ABC (No paywall)At least 60 victims left homeless after the northern NSW floods have been ordered by the government to leave emergency accommodation and make way for Easter tourists. The Department of Communities and Justice has written a letter advising people to "check out" by April 4. The departments's deputy secretary Paul Vevers said the only accommodation the government could find to move people to was in Grafton, Brisbane and the Gold Coast. ... "When Easter is over, we will transport people back again, and we will put people back in emergency accommodation, and they will be able to remain there for as long as they need," he said. Also, read Gavin Butler's article entitled: 'Flood Victims Are Being Kicked Out of Crisis Housing to Make Way for Tourists' in 'Vice' at: [https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkp8nk/flood-disaster-victims-kicked-out-tourists-byron-bay-australia]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-01/flood-victims-told-to-lea…
# NSW, DCJ Housing, Homelessness.Budget favours higher earners as homelessness services slashed by nearly $40m
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)Homelessness services will be nearly $40m worse off under the federal budget and may have to shed hundreds of jobs. ... Jenny Smith from Homelessness Australia told Guardian Australia that unless it was made up by extra contributions from the states, the federal funding gap would mean between 400 and 560 jobs would probably be lost from the sector after July next year. “Homelessness services provide crisis responses, support to people trying to find a permanent home, and they provide support for people with serious mental illness,” Smith said. “This affects every homelessness service provider in the country, funded by a state or territory government. It’s breathtaking, really. That’s fewer people to answer the door, and taking support away from people who are relying on it.” This article also looks at .... For a further article on the same theme, check out Norman Hermant's article entitled: 'Concern $250 budget payment won't be enough to properly address cost-of-living pressures for low-income Australians' on the ABC at: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-02/concern-budget-cost-of-living-payment/100957880]
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/01/budget-fa…
# Australia, Families, Federal Government, Homelessness, Women.Victoria to subsidise rent for 2,400 new homes in attempt to ease housing crisis
Benita Kolovos The Guardian (No paywall)Families earning up to $132,000 will be able to rent homes from the Victorian government as part of a scheme it says will help ease housing affordability concerns in the state. On Friday, the housing minister, Richard Wynne, will announce the affordable housing rental scheme, which will make about 2,400 homes from the government’s $5.3bn “big housing build” available to rent. In metropolitan Melbourne, rents will be set at least 10% below the median market rent of the area – and capped at 30% of the median income in Melbourne. In regional Victoria, creating extra supply is the priority for the scheme. Rents will be set at the median market rental price for that area, as well as limited at 30% of the median income in regional Victoria. Also, read the article entitled: 'New Victorian housing scheme to ease rental stress' in 'rent.com.au' at: [https://www.rent.com.au/blog/victorian-housing-scheme].
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/01/victoria-…
# Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Housing market, State Government.ABC's Drum discusses social housing ...
(No paywall)Listen to Dr Chris Martin of City Futures Research Centre, University of NSW, at the 26 minute mark.
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/drum/series/0/video/NC2207H044S00
# History, Audio NSW, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Home ownership.‘There are 60 other applicants for every house’: the rental crisis pushing single mothers to extremes
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)Fierce competition leaves sole parents in precarious housing market offering three months’ rent in advance and having to give up pets ... When Liang’s landlords told her last year that they were going to sell the house she lived in, they gave her more notice than most – a full six months. It was the only thing that allowed her to get ahead. “I was scared,” Liang told Guardian Australia. “In my local area people were posting [on social media] that they’d applied for 50 houses and been knocked back for all of them. I’m not even in a two-income family. I was worried about becoming homeless.” So Liang, 49, who works in hospital-based healthcare in Melbourne, started saving as much as she could. ... Tenants around Australia are straining under the weight of pandemic-era rent rises, with triple digit increases in parts of regional New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, and costs of living soaring beyond the reach of wage increases. Single parents, 82% of whom are sole-parenting mothers, are particularly feeling the strain.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/02/there-are…
# Australia, Rent, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market.Loose building standards let homes overheat in summer, stay cold in winter, passive house advocate says
Emma Wynne ABC (No paywall)When Carlos Acuna and his family moved to Perth 10 years ago, they "quickly fell in the love with place". ... "But the one thing that really impacted us, and impacts a lot of expats, is how uncomfortable the homes are here." ... but the family found the houses they rented in Australia the coldest they had ever experienced. "[The houses are] cold, they're ice chests," he said. ... After years in rented houses, both old and new and that were all hard to keep at comfortable temperatures, he decided to build a highly insulated, airtight house that used passive heating and cooling design to keep the indoor temperature at between 20-25C all year round.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-02/how-passive-house-technol…
# Australia, Minimum habitability standards.