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
Could rent control help to ease Australia's housing crisis?
Michelle Gately ABC (No paywall)Families are living in tents, caravans, cars, hotels or sleeping rough as Australia's rental crisis continues to worsen. With flooding in Queensland and New South Wales wiping out thousands of homes and rising fuel costs adding to household budget pressures, rental affordability won't change in a hurry. While there's no easy solution, industry experts believe government intervention is needed, but to what extent? One suggestion is rent control, a measure that divides opinion. UNSW researcher Chris Martin believes the right form of regulation is needed in the short-term to improve rental affordability and keep people in their homes. "It's been off the agenda in Australia for far too long and governments have been afraid of it," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-17/could-rent-control-help-t…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents.March 2022 News
Shelter NSW (No paywall)In this month's edition:
Reimagining the economics of public housing estate renewal and the role of government - new research
Planning matters - Shelter NSW submissions
Newtown boarding house fire - Residents Hardship Fund established
Healthy Homes For Renters - Better Renting Summer report launch!
Shelter NSW at the AHURI National Housing Conference 2022
WelcomeMat 2.0 – improved online affordable housing portal now open
March 29 is Budget Night – email the Federal Treasurer
National Shelter appoints new CEO - Emma Greenhalgh
https://mailchi.mp/shelternsw/shelter-nsw-march-2022-ebulletin?e…
# NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Campaigns and law reform, Estate renewal, Federal Government, Health, Housing market, Planning and development.A ‘hovel’, but it’s home: Sydney’s boarding houses point to affordability crisis
Megan Gorrey The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Warwick Mudge, 51, describes the Petersham boarding house where he has lived for seven years as a “wreck” and a “hovel”. On the flipside, he says, it’s cheap for Sydney’s inner west, the shops are within strolling distance, and the train station’s so close “you can spit on it”. ... Mr Mudge is among residents who have made a home inside one of the city’s boarding houses as NSW grapples with a widespread housing affordability crisis. ... The precarious conditions for residents of boarding houses across Sydney have come under the spotlight this week after a fire that was allegedly deliberately lit destroyed a Newtown building, killing three people. ... The incident prompted Inner West Council mayor Darcy Byrne to write to Premier Dominic Perrottet pushing for the state and local governments to conduct an urgent review of boarding house regulation and management. ... Tenants’ Union of NSW chief executive Leo Patterson Ross said, under the current regulations, there was often little accountability for boarding house owners, and boarders did not have the same rights as tenants.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/a-hovel-but-it-s-home-sydney…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market.Out of sight
Che Chorley and Steve Vivian ABC (No paywall)In the crowded homes of the Northern Territory’s remote communities, residents are trying to keep their hopes of a better future alive. On most afternoons in the community of Rockhole, Evelyn Andrews can be found holding court in her front yard, sat beneath the shade of a tree. At house number 21, she shares her home with between 10 and 15 other people. “We love it in the community, we’ve got the river right there and the kids are safe,” she says. “But we need some more houses.” Evelyn’s community of Rockhole sits just outside Katherine, the Northern Territory’s third-biggest town, in Jawoyn country about 340 kilometres south of Darwin. For the first two years of the pandemic, remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory were untouched by coronavirus. But in November, the virus began to spread through remote communities. Rockhole was one of the first to be hit. [Read on]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-19/remote-housing-homelands-…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Housing market, Personal stories.Better than sleeping rough’: Newtown boarding house fire puts spotlight on sector
Luke Henriques-Gomes The Guardian (No paywall)Advocates call for reform including a licensing regime and better enforcement of existing regulations after tragedy that killed three men. ... Chris Martin, a housing policy expert at UNSW, says some [local councils] are also mindful that closing a place down can mean “making a group of people homeless”. Martin would like to see an accreditation regime to regulate who can operate boarding houses. The idea was floated in an ongoing review of the Boarding Houses Act, which is being overhauled to include other similar settings as the “Shared Accomodation Act”. Martin says it has not been picked up by government. ... [John] Engeler, of Shelter NSW, believes only community housing providers should have rights to run boarding houses.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/20/better-th…
# NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Housing market, State Government.Aboriginal people in WA’s public housing system are fighting against a relentless tide of ‘punitive policy’
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)[Nannette Knapp’s eviction for non-payment of rent from public housing] and the debt that came with it, triggered nearly a decade of homelessness and despair. Her story is one of hard-won resilience and a desire to fight against tremendous odds: the systemic poverty instigated and perpetuated by what her advocates describe as punitive government policy. ... Until she had paid off the debt, she was told, she would not be eligible for another house. She did not believe she would be able to pay it off, as her only income was Centrelink payments. ... “Aboriginal people can’t compete in the private market. They often have a lot of trauma or they’re looking after extra kids. They’ve got very poor health and hardly have any money,” [WA housing advocate Betsy] Buchanan says. “It’s a discriminatory system. It discriminates against Aboriginal people at every turn. You can’t ‘try hard’ against those odds.” ... Guardian Australia has separately spoken to numerous Aboriginal people living homeless in Western Australia. Debt to the Housing Authority is a frequent complaint. Those who are barred from access to housing thanks to such debt often lodge with other family members who have existing public housing tenancies, leading to overcrowding. The overcrowding increases the likelihood of damages to the property or neighbour complaints against the tenant, which in turn increases the likelihood of further debt or eviction.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/20/aborigina…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Discrimination, Public and community housing, Rent, Homelessness, State Government, Welfare, Women.Housing stress weighs on voters as cost-of-living election looms
Dana Daniel The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Forty per cent of renters in most Sydney and Melbourne electorates are suffering financial stress, new data shows as the major parties prepare to fight an election on cost-of-living concerns. Labor electorates, including marginal seats, are strongly affected by renters under financial strain, data from the University of NSW City Futures Research Centre reveals, with between 61.5 per cent and 76.5 per cent of renters financially stressed in the top five NSW and Victorian seats. ... More than 150 community and faith organisations and unions have signed a joint letter by Everybody’s Home to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, calling on the government to use the March 29 budget to improve housing affordability for Australians struggling in the rental market.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/housing-stress-weighs-on…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.‘There is a whole lot more to negotiate’: how Covid-19 has changed housemate hunting
Maddie Thomas The Guardian (No paywall)Screening potential flatmates is always a risky business, even without the added pressure of a pandemic. ... Jemima Mowbray, policy and advocacy manager at the Tenants’ Union of New South Wales, says questions about what kinds of risk people are comfortable with have become essential in recent months. “In lockdown, there were clear restrictions in place. But now you have to make your own decisions and there is a whole lot more to negotiate,” says Mowbray. “People want to have a friendly conversation, and it might be easy to get along with someone, but you need to establish the ground rules, how you live and what you are comfortable with … Covid makes that really clear.”
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/mar/21/there-is-a-…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Rent, Share houses, Coronavirus COVID-19.