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
Window to save ourselves from climate change 'rapidly closing', IPCC warns
Michael Slezak ABC (No paywall)The world’s climate scientists and governments have declared climate change is now a threat to human wellbeing and warned we are about to miss the window to “secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”. The finding comes in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the impacts of climate change and how we can adapt to them. The new report found the scale of the impacts from climate change threatened to overwhelm Australia's — and the world's — ability to adapt in the coming decades, with some impacts requiring rapid and radical transformations in how we live and operate, combined with immediate and sharp cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. ... Regardless of our actions now, the report says regional and urban areas will face irreversible changes that will impact millions of people's lives, including sea level rises that will destroy and displace homes and infrastructure ... The report found if the sea level rose by 1.1m — which could happen early in the next century — up to a quarter of a million residential buildings would be exposed to inundation as well as thousands more commercial and industrial buildings. [Read on] Read Nick O'Malley's article entitled: '"Atlas of human suffering": More drought, fire and flood, less snow and coral, UN report says' in 'The Sydney Morning Herald' at: [https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/more-drought-fire-and-flood-less-snow-and-coral-un-report-says-20220228-p5a0cw.html] Read Adam Morton's article entitled: 'Climate scientists warn global heating means Australia facing more catastrophic storms and floods' in 'The Guardian' at: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/28/climate-scientists-warn-global-heating-means-australia-facing-more-catastrophic-storms-and-floods]. Also, read Alice Bell's opinion piece entitled: 'The IPCC climate report is grim – but there is still room for hope' in 'The Guardian' at: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/28/ipcc-climate-report-grim-hope].
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-28/ipcc-adaption-report-aust…
# Must read Australia, Climate change, Federal Government, Housing market.Single mother evicted from rental after three weeks
Abbey Halter (No paywall)“It was brutal. It was looking close to homelessness and if it wasn’t for my family and friends helping me out financially … I don’t know what would have happened.” March 2020 will go down in history as an uncertain and frightening time for most of us, but for this Canberra single mother teetering on the verge of homelessness, it was so stressful she “could barely see”. (Canberra Weekly)
https://canberraweekly.com.au/single-mother-evicted-from-rental-…
# Australia, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Personal stories.Airbnb to offer free housing to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees
Gorgina Quash The Guardian (No paywall)Airbnb has said it will offer free, temporary housing for up to 100,000 refugees from Ukraine, joining a swathe of companies offering support and donations following the Russian invasion. The home rentals platform’s nonprofit set up to provide housing relief during international crises, Airbnb.org, will partner with resettlement agencies to house Ukrainian refugees across the world. The cost of the stays will be covered by Airbnb, donors to its refugee fund and hosts offering discounted or free accommodation.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/28/airbnb-to-off…
# International, Short-term holiday letting.Poverty fell during first year of COVID but has now increased
Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Hundreds of thousands of Australians who escaped poverty through the early stages of the COVID-19 recession due to government support have returned to a financially precarious position even as the economy has strengthened. Research headed by the University of NSW and released on Wednesday reveals the coronavirus supplement and the JobKeeper program were key factors in pushing the proportion of Australians living in poverty below 10 per cent. It had been 11.8 per cent in 2019. But the end of JobKeeper and the supplement, despite a $25-a-week increase in the base JobSeeker payment, has seen the proportion of Australians living in poverty rise to 14 per cent, or more than 3.8 million people. Read ACOSS's media release with a link to the full report at: [https://www.acoss.org.au/media-releases/?media_release=new-acoss-and-unsw-sydney-report-shows-how-poverty-and-inequality-were-dramatically-reduced-in-2020-but-have-increased-ever-since]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/poverty-fell-through-the…
# Hot topic Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Families, Welfare, Work, employment.Indigenous Australians face considerable barriers to achieving successful housing outcomes
Megan Moskos, Linda Isherwood, Michael Dockery, Emma Baker and Ngoc Thien Anh Pham AHURI (No paywall)AHURI News ... This research examines the characteristics of successful tenancies for Indigenous people to understand ‘what works’ for securing successful housing outcomes. It explores the successful initiatives in sustaining tenancies for Indigenous people and what particular elements contribute to this success, including for different types of housing—private and social housing, and across different locations—urban, rural and remote. You will find a helpful link at: [https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/374]
https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/news/Indigenous-Australians-fa…
# Research alert Australia, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Rent.Govt asked to intervene over shocking living conditions at Windang's Oasis Village caravan park
Kate McIlwain Illawarra Mercury (No paywall)The NSW Government has been asked to intervene in the increasingly fraught situation at Windang's Oasis village, after interactions between the caravan park's owner and residents reached breaking point. According to the Affiliated Residential Park Residents Association (ARPRA) body, which represents the residents, many of the elderly and frail people living in the park have reached a point of "absolute despair". "One of the most concerning things I've seen in my 18 years representing residents across the state happened at this park late last year," ARPRA CEO Gary Martin said. "We got calls to say that in six or seven of the properties, sewage was coming back up the toilet and we contacted the operator and there was no response. ... Recently, the tribunal ordered that all site fees should be paid into a special trust account, instead of to S&Q Assets, to be administered by NCAT so that maintenance can be undertaken. Wollongong MP Paul Scully told parliament last week that "enough is enough" and asked an administrator should be appointed by the NSW Supreme Court to run the Oasis Village.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7637793/govt-asked-to-…
# NSW, Land lease communities, Repairs, Tribunal NCAT, Utilities electricity water gas, Local Government, State Government.Rent control: A review of the evidence base
Kenneth Gibb, Adriana Mihaela Soaita and Alex Marsh (No paywall)Rent controls have a long history in the UK and continue to generate impassioned debate about their efficacy. Problems associated with rental unaffordability have encouraged renewed interest in rent regulation and there are policy design developments regarding rent control actively underway in Scotland. This evidence review looked at academic and grey literature from the period 2000 to 2020. It is an attempt to understand the continuing academic interest in rent regulation and to distinguish the range of views about its impacts. The review incorporates a range of both economics analysis and wider social science evidence. This is a systematic evidence review of the literature and as such generates important findings that we believe add value in ways that other forms of analysis cannot. The international dimension is essential because there is no contemporary UK evidence on the impacts of rent control. Yet the literature demonstrates that we need to be cautious regarding the appropriateness of international comparisons (even within welfare regime clusters) and the relevance of contemporary evidence for the UK. (UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence)
# Research alert International, Rent, Housing market.‘Chronic failure’: Sydney’s rental market approaching crisis level
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Sydney’s rental market has been described as a “chronic failure”, with the city’s vacancy rate dropping to its lowest level since November 2017. Freshly opened international borders have heaped further pressure on an already strained rental market, where the vacancy rate fell to 1.7 per cent in February (down from 1.9 per cent in January), according to Domain’s latest Rental Vacancy Rate Report. ... Domain’s chief of research and economics, Dr Nicola Powell, said Australia was on the verge of a rental crisis. ... Senior research fellow at UNSW’s City Futures Research Centre, Chris Martin, said it was not enough to call it a “crisis” anymore. “It’s been happening for so long and getting worse for low-income people in private rentals,” Dr Martin said. “It is a chronic failure of the private rental sector.” He suggested caps on rent increases in tight rental markets to protect renters from being priced out, rather than waiting for rental properties to be added to the market. That causes distress and hardship for an extended period while people wait for supply. We should be looking at the regulation of rent. “It’s pretty straightforward, if the rent is going up by more than two per cent for a certain number of quarters, it gets capped.” The vacancy rate was only telling part of the story for renters, who have struggled with less choice and compromising on quality over the years, according to Leo Patterson-Ross, chief executive of the Tenants’ Union of NSW. “It is true to say we have been in a crisis for many, many years, and we are sinking deeper into it because we’re not taking the goals of housing the community of NSW seriously,” he said. “People are often pushed into making pretty deep compromises. That hides what’s happening, so it hides people experiencing the worst part. “[People] are making those compromises on their quality and that really means their safety. It’s on pretty fundamental things like thermal comforts, cost of utilities, the cost of disease spreading.”
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/chronic-failure-sydney-s-re…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent, Housing market.