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
Vulture landlords and the justice-washing of housing struggle
David Kelly, Kate Shaw and Libby Porter (No paywall)Activism in St Kilda in the 1970s and ‘80s produced community-centred provision of housing for low-income households ... It resulted in a portfolio of truly affordable housing and a small local non-profit to manage it—a model since emulated in other council areas in Australia. Port Philip council protected the local affordable housing stock it had through the establishment of the housing trust, but was powerless to subvert a future where its own creation became the bedfellow of vulture funds. By policy design and necessity under the neoliberal economic regime, CHOs must expand or be swallowed up by a bigger entity. As they become small empires, CHOs maximise public subsidies by attracting private capital. Private investment funds now have optimal conditions for entry into the new social housing market, with minimal capital expenditure, guaranteed market rent, a not-for-profit managing the tenancies and full control of the assets after 10 years. Governments have created a social housing market that delivers dividends to private capital, dressed up as a solution to the deepening housing crisis. (Overland)
https://overland.org.au/2021/12/vulture-landlords-and-the-justic…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Landlords and agents.Living conditions of rental properties must improve
Kayla Canberra Times (Paywall)You shouldn't have to choose between heating for bone chilling days in winter or air conditioning for more frequent and severe heatwaves in summer - but that's exactly what I was forced to do. In early 2019, myself, my partner and our beloved cat secured a rental in Orange, NSW. Our condition report indicated our ducted gas system and split air conditioning worked fine. Turns out neither worked reliably. ... That's why I am taking part in Better Renting's Healthy Homes for Renters campaign. It's calling on the federal and state governments to implement minimum energy efficient requirements for rental properties.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7542769/living-conditions…
# Australia, Rent, Utilities electricity water gas, Health, Housing market.New Zealand has adopted a radical rezoning plan to cut house prices – could it work in Australia?
Eva Corlett and Caitlin Cassidy The Guardian (No paywall)From New Zealand ... Councils won’t be able to block townhouses or apartments under a sweeping reform aimed at improving affordability – but will it work? And could the idea cross the Tasman? ... The country has been in the midst of a housing crisis for more than a decade, driven by multiple factors including restrictive planning law, a lack of housing supply, an unchecked property investor market, and a widening gulf between income and housing costs. ... Last year, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha, visited New Zealand and called the housing situation “a human rights crisis” and “a dark shadow that hangs over the country”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/15/new-zealand-has-ad…
# International, Housing affordability, Housing market, Planning and development.Housing is both a human right and a profitable asset, and that’s the problem
Brian Doucet The Conversation (No paywall)From Canada ... It seems like everyone is talking about housing these days. For many, it is in a state of crisis. But for others, it is a market doing exactly what it should be doing: making money. The crux of the housing problem is that it is both a basic human right and a commodity from which to extract wealth. Most housing debates largely ignore this contradiction.
https://theconversation.com/housing-is-both-a-human-right-and-a-…
# International, Housing market, Human rights, Landlords and agents.How your income and where you live increase your likelihood of getting COVID-19
Dr Youqing Fan, Alan Morris and Awais Piracha The Fifth Estate (No paywall)If you suspected that poorer areas in Sydney were far more likely to bear the brunt of COVID it looks like you are right. New research shows that in some areas people were not able to work from home during lockdown because the areas comprised a high proportion of labourers or admin workers and so were more likely than others to fall ill.
https://thefifthestate.com.au/urbanism/planning/how-your-income-…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Housing market, Local Government, Planning and development, Work, employment.‘We’re not stopping’: an interview with the ITV journalist exposing poor housing conditions
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Over the past eight months, Daniel Hewitt and a small team at ITV News have been investigating social housing conditions across England. What they have found has often been shocking. ... And what about the future of the investigation? The answer will not come as a surprise: “We’re not stopping. We plan to continue to shine a light on the treatment of tenants and the conditions they are living in, and keep questioning what is being done about it.”
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/were-not-stoppin…
# International, Public and community housing, Repairs, Health, Minimum habitability standards, Mould.‘Silence taken as acceptance’: State will intervene in tardy councils over housing
Angus Thompson The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The NSW government will intervene in the decision-making of councils that hold up rezoning bids in a drastic push to unclog the housing supply pipeline. Councils will be given maximum timeframes to assess planning proposals for new apartment blocks and residential precincts or risk forfeiting hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from developers.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/silence-taken-as-acceptance-…
# NSW, Housing market, Local Government, Planning and development, State Government.That reverse mortgage scheme the government is about to re-announce, how does it work?
Colin Zhang and Ning Wang The Conversation (No paywall)Many Australians have never heard of the Pension Loans Scheme, and many more assume it’s just for pensioners, which is understandable given its name. That’s why the government is poised to rename it the Home Equity Access Scheme and make the interest rate it charges more reasonable, in the mid-year budget update on Thursday. The soon to be renamed scheme is best thought of as a reverse mortgage where instead of paying down a home loan each month, the homeowner borrows more against the home each month, paying off what’s borrowed when the home is eventually sold.
https://theconversation.com/that-reverse-mortgage-scheme-the-gov…
# Australia, Home ownership, Older people, Welfare.