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
Why we clutter, and what to do about it
Jane E Brody The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Many of us took advantage of the long, lonely hours of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns to cleanse our closets, drawers and cabinets of clothing from a bygone era, packaged foods long past their expiration dates and files no longer relevant. At first, I was among them and enthusiastically tackled the low-hanging fruit: ill-fitting dresses and suits, shoes I could no longer walk in, hundreds of empty plastic and glass containers. It did feel good initially, but I soon lost interest in decluttering and lacked the mental and physical energy to tackle what remained. ... Check over 'Decluttering tips'.
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/why-we-c…
# International, Home.‘Sprint at full speed’: Evergrande races to revive projects
Bloomberg News The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)China Evergrande Group said it has resumed construction at most of its housing projects as authorities push the debt-laden developer to pay migrant workers and deliver apartments. Nearly 92 per cent of Evergrande’s property projects have so far restarted, compared with just about 50 per cent at the beginning of September, according to a company statement released Sunday night. The number of workers involved in the projects that have resumed building has risen 31 per cent from September to 89,000. “As long as we do a good job in restarting work, production and construction, we’ll be able to deliver houses to buyers, resume sales and operations and pay off debts at all costs,” the statement cited Chairman Hui Ka Yan as saying at a company meeting.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/sprint-at-full-speed-eve…
# International, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Push for cooler rooftops to put ceiling on rising temperatures
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)Roofs across most of Australia are set to burst with pops of colour as governments of every hue are lobbied to mandate lighter roofs on new homes as a weapon to battle the impacts of global warming. A number of groups are pushing for the change as part of the updating of the National Construction Code (NCC), which could make cooler roofs mandatory by September 2022.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/push-for-cooler-rooftops-to…
# Australia, Climate change, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Planning and development, State Government.How did I survive care and being homeless? I was luckier than the sharp, funny kids I grew up with
Daniel Lavelle The Guardian (No paywall)My first time at rock bottom came early. I was an infant when my mum fled with me and my brother to a refuge, to escape violence at home. This period of fear was brief, but it left an indelible mark. The chaos and trauma from these years manifested in my flailing limbs during desperate temper tantrums, in which my mum would hear every epithet I could think of while her whole bookcase crashed down our stairs. {read on]
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/dec/28/how-did-i-s…
# International, Health, Homelessness, Personal stories.The Land-Hoarding Elite Should Be Paying the Rest of Us Rent
Philip Goff (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... If you want to change things in a democracy, you need to persuade people. If you want to bring about radical change, you have to find ways of embedding radical policies in the common-sense morality of the average person. High taxes on the wealthy, for example, will never be voted in whilst taxation is seen by many in the UK as ‘the government taking our money off us’. ... I think there is a way of inspiring popular support for radical change. All it requires is a sustained focus on the blatant injustices in our current model of land ownership. ... Half of England is owned by just 1% of the population ... [whilst] individual homeowners hold just 5% of the country’s land, while the aristocracy owns 30%. (Novara Media)
https://novaramedia.com/2021/12/29/the-land-hoarding-elite-shoul…
# International, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Tax.Johnson has a chance to end homelessness now – if he dares to seize it
Simon Hattenstone and Daniel Lavelle The Guardian (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... [Gyula Remes's] death (the second in 10 months in the same underpass) sparked outrage in parliament. The next day, the then secretary of state for housing, communities and local government James Brokenshire ... told parliament: “Every death of someone sleeping rough on our streets is one too many. Each is a tragedy, each a life cut short. We have a moral duty to act.” However well-intentioned Brokenshire’s words, the government reneged on this duty. In 2019, the number of deaths among homeless people in England and Wales rose for the fifth year in a row to a record high of 778. Meanwhile, the number of people who were entirely homeless or living in temporary accommodation and hostels in England soared to 280,000 in 2019 from a low of 40,000 in 2009 and 2010.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/28/boris-john…
# International, Federal Government, Homelessness.NSW social housing renewal program dwarfed by Victoria, Queensland
Lucy Cormack The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A 2016 state government plan to build 23,000 social housing properties in 10 years has so far delivered less than 2 per cent of its target as the number of people on the housing waiting list surpasses 53,000. ... [And] a recent report into the impacts of COVID-19 on housing argues NSW is falling behind states such as Victoria and Queensland, which have made unprecedented funding pledges for social housing construction in response to the pandemic. ... Respectively, the states will contribute a net additional 8300 and 4300 social homes, but NSW will add only 402 homes in the same period, according to government data obtained for the report through a freedom of information request.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-social-housing-renewal-p…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Housing market.Is this your house? Corley photographic collection of Queensland houses needs your help
Sally Eeles ABC (No paywall)2813 Ipswich Road in Darra is not officially an address anymore — just a patch of grass beside the busy Ipswich Motorway in Brisbane's south-west. But delve into the State Library of Queensland's (SLQ) Corley Explorer website and you'll discover that in the 1960s it was the site of a cherished family home, built after work and on weekends by English immigrant George Brown for his wife Margaret and their daughters. Mr Brown made the bricks, built the walls, the floors and did all the carpentry, electrical and plumbing work. It is just one of the stories sparked by a single black-and-white picture, taken by the late photographic duo Frank and Eunice Corley more than 50 years ago.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-28/corley-explorer-photograp…
# History Australia, Home, Home ownership.