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
An End to the Housing Market as We Know It
Jeff Ordower (No paywall)Tenant organizing has been one of the bright spots of organizing during COVID. With families across the country facing evictions, organizers have shut down eviction courts, engaged in on-the-ground defense of tenants facing evictions, and passed significant tenant protection legislation. This past fall, organizers in Saint Paul, Minnesota, won a campaign to pass the strongest rent control initiative in the country, with annual rent increases capped at three percent. (The Forge)
https://forgeorganizing.org/article/end-housing-market-we-know-it
# International, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Coronavirus COVID-19.Aged care workers are facing a 'crisis level of exhaustion' as the COVID-19 pandemic continues
Ellen Coulter and Laura Kewley ABC (No paywall)Mr Sewell is the chief executive of Warrigal, an aged care provider with 11 homes across New South Wales and the ACT. ... Seeking nurses, Mr Sewell contacted the local public health unit before a 10-day process of filling out paperwork and being bounced between state and federal departments. A Commonwealth case manager eventually found him two nurses, but Mr Sewell says the stress for families and staff who thought their home was going to close in the meantime was "really a big worry". "It's really very frustrating when the assistance is so slow, so sluggish. So bureaucratic," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-03/aged-care-workers-crisis-…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Housing market, Older people.Solar panels on public housing could save tenants $750 a year: report
Josh Dye The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Emily Brooks’ electricity is being disconnected on Friday because she can't pay the bill. The single mother, who lives in public housing in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, says it’s a “never-ending” struggle to afford her energy costs. ... A joint report by the University of NSW and the Australian Photovoltaic Institute says adding solar panels to the nation’s 440,000 social housing dwellings could improve the inequity inherent in the renewable energy system by saving low-income households at least $750 a year while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The institute is a not-for-profit organisation supporting the uptake of solar panels. ... The NSW government has retrofitted 5300 public housing dwellings with three-kilowatt rooftop solar systems since 2017, at a cost of $26 million or $4900 per home. Another 750 homes will have panels installed by June, and each of the homes gets new airconditioning units. In choosing which dwellings get rooftop solar, the government is prioritising homes in hotter parts of the state and homes with wood-fired heaters and old gas heaters.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/solar-panels-on-public-housi…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Utilities electricity water gas.Housing concerns greater in Sydney than London, New York, poll shows
Matt O'Sullivan and Pallavi Singhal The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Housing has emerged as a bigger issue for Sydneysiders than for people in New York and London, as a poll reveals overwhelming fears in Australia’s largest city about the cost of living and housing affordability. ... Housing and the cost of living rate also rate higher as an issue in Sydney than they do nationally. ... Sophie Kerrigan, 23, an office worker who lives with her mother in Newtown, said the prospect of her ever buying a house was becoming increasingly unlikely. Even with a great job and stable income, I can’t save enough money for a decent house deposit. Anybody who did not have their parents to help them purchase a property would struggle to break into the housing market.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/housing-concerns-greater-in-…
# NSW, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Could Australia learn from Singapore to make housing more affordable?
Michael Janda ABC (No paywall)Singapore is an island city-state with about 300,000 more residents than greater Sydney, but far less than 10 per cent of its land area. Yet, according to economist Cameron Murray, it has managed to boost home ownership for 25-34-year-olds from 60 to nearly 90 per cent over the past four decades, at a time when the percentage of Australians that age who own a home has plunged from 60 to 45 per cent. So, how have they done it? "What Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, provides mortgages, and allows buyers to use their compulsory retirement savings [what Australians call superannuation] for both a deposit and repayments," Murray says.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-06/could-australia-learn-fro…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, International.Second step on Sydney’s property ladder, from unit to house, is now a giant leap
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)The price gap between Sydney houses and units has more than tripled in the past 30 years, making the plight of the upgrader just as hard as their first crack at the property market.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/second-step-on-sydney-s-pro…
# NSW, Strata, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing affordability.NYCHA to Prioritize Collection of Long-Term and High-Dollar Arrears Accounts
(No paywall)From New York ... Today, as part of NYCHA’s effort to re-imagine how it approaches evictions, the Authority announced that 90 percent of the 34,000 rental non-payment cases that existed in housing court as of March 2021 have been resolved without judicial intervention. Moving forward, NYCHA will prioritize cases for accounts that owe significant amounts of arrears that extend past two years. To date, there are 2,300 such accounts comprising an estimated $44 million in past-due rent. (New York City Housing Authority)
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nycha/about/press/pr-2022/pr-20220203…
# International, Eviction, Public and community housing, Rent, Tribunal NCAT, Coronavirus COVID-19.‘Living in swelter boxes’: January 27 the deadliest day for heatwave deaths
Miki Perkins The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)January 27 is the deadliest day in Australia for heat-related deaths, with heatwaves posing a greater threat to life than any other natural hazard including bushfires and floods. ... Most of the fatalities that occurred indoors happened in older houses, highlighting the need for governments to find inexpensive ways to support people living in public housing or renting to adapt their homes to extreme heat.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/living-in-swel…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing, Climate change, Health, Minimum habitability standards.