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
Disabled people under-represented and under-reported in housing sector, NHF research finds
Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Data from 174 social landlords, submitted using a new equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) tool developed by the industry body, showed the representation of disabled people across staff, executive and board members was just 8% for each category. This compared with disabled people making up 24% of the population by housing stock location – a finding that Kate Henderson, chief executive at the NHF, described as “the most shocking” to come out of its analysis. “This is a shortcoming we urgently need to address – especially given that a higher proportion of people in social housing [compared with other tenures] are disabled,” Ms Henderson said.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/disabled-people-under-repre…
# International, Public and community housing, Disability.Government faces legal challenge for ‘misleading public’ over Everyone In scheme
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Lawyers are arguing that the government ended its Everyone In scheme without consulting charities and is in breach of the “transparency principle”
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/government-faces-legal…
# International, Federal Government, Homelessness.One graph that shows why it’s harder for Millennials to buy a house
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Home ownership is looking further out of reach for anyone without family wealth, as property prices soar and wages fail to keep up. One graph from the Reserve Bank lays bare the challenge facing today’s first-home hopefuls, showing the extraordinary growth in housing prices compared to incomes over the past 30 years. In the early 1990s, housing prices hovered around 2.5 times household disposable incomes, but now, the same metric tracks about 5.5 times.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/one-graph-that-shows-why-it…
# Australia, Families, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market.Tel Aviv: poverty and eviction in the world’s most expensive city
Bethan McKernan and Quique Kierszenbaum The Guardian (No paywall)In one of Tel Aviv’s most affluent neighbourhoods, a collection of ramshackle one-storey homes with rusting roofs known as Givat Amal Bet still sits in the shadow of the high-rise towers looming above. Israel’s economic centre has recently been named the world’s most expensive city to live in, overtaking Paris and Singapore in the 2021 rankings compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. As the Mediterranean city’s reputation as a global tech hub continues to attract foreign investment, however, and prices for goods and services soar as Israel’s economy makes a strong recovery from the pandemic, locals fear the widening gap between rich and poor is pushing out working-class residents and creating damaging new social divisions. ... The community is still fighting a decades-long legal battle for compensation with development companies, the state and the Tel Aviv municipality, but the last of the neighbourhood’s residents were forcibly evicted from their homes last month. ... Gentrification is a problem in cities across the world, but Israel’s recent political paralysis has compounded Tel Aviv’s housing crisis. No public housing has been built in the last two years, even though 30,000 people are on waiting lists.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/12/tel-aviv-poverty-e…
# International, Eviction, Public and community housing, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Older Australians are already bamboozled by a complex home-care system. So why give them more of the same?
Stephen Duckett and Hal Swerissen The Conversation (No paywall)More than a million older Australians need care at home each year. More than 1,000 agencies provide services to them. Despite the federal government allocating significant extra funds to home care in the last budget, there is still a raft of problems with current home-care arrangements. As we show in our new report, “Unfinished business: practical policies for better care at home”, the federal government is placing too much emphasis on expanding the market of services, and not enough on supporting people to access timely and quality services. You also can read the article about their report in 'The Sydney Morning Herald' at: [https://www.smh.com.au/national/expanding-home-care-is-risky-without-a-workforce-plan-20211212-p59gtq.html] You will find a link to their report at: [https://grattan.edu.au/report/unfinished-business-practical-policies-for-better-care-at-home/]
https://theconversation.com/older-australians-are-already-bamboo…
# Research alert Australia, Federal Government, Older people.Our Latest Mortgage Stress Mapping
Martin North (No paywall)This is a succinct summary of our latest mortgage stress analysis, based on our surveys. We also add some additional comments about how to address stress at a household level. (Digital Finance Analytics)
https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/our-latest-mortgage-str…
# Video Australia, Families, Home ownership, Housing market.Pandemic, rental crisis drive demand for Port Macquarie soup kitchen, but volunteers are up to the task
ABC ABC (No paywall)Ross Matthews knows what it's like to fall on hard times. The retired chef went through a period of homelessness after being impacted by flooding on the New South Wales Mid North Coast nearly 10 years ago. "My little car went under, and I was in it … I progressed from there," he said. Mr Matthew said he turned to the Port Macquarie Anglican Soup Kitchen for warm meals and a place to connect with others. ... Now it's Mr Matthews who serves the meals. "I was homeless and I got back on my feet and decided to pay back for what I got, so I have been here ever since," he said. ... Port Macquarie Anglican Soup Kitchen coordinator Kerri Attenborough-Bourke said there had been a notable, consistent surge in demand over the past six months. "We are seeing more and more families come through, we are seeing a lot more elderly," she said. "The rents in Port Macquarie are quite extreme, so we are seeing not only the vulnerable but also the financially vulnerable."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-11/volunteers-keep-soup-kitc…
# NSW, Homelessness, Personal stories, Regional NSW.From Airbnb to tiny homes on trailers: Short-term accommodation booming in regional SA
Dylan Smith and Emma Pedler ABC (No paywall)It was the skyrocketing demand for short-term accommodation that first prompted Amanda and Tim Hogg to list their family home on Airbnb and move into a caravan. Now, the boom in regional tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic has helped them take their business even further. "We have built tiny homes that are on trailers so they are not a permanent fixture in the ground, and they can be moved," Amanda Hogg said. "We can place them on private properties, and take them off if we need to, but we can also have ocean views at a small cost."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-09/airbnb-tiny-homes-accommo…
# Australia, Short-term holiday letting.