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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
What Clover Moore is planning to do in her fifth term as Sydney's Lord Mayor
Paige Cockburn The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Despite housing being a state government responsibility, Ms Moore says she will pressure developers to include more social and affordable housing in their plans, to keep people living in the city. The council wants 7.5 per cent of all properties in the City of Sydney to be affordable or social housing by 2030. Ms Moore's critics, including fellow Sydney councillors, say this isn't good enough, and more money should be tipped into the city's affordable housing fund.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-05/clover-moore-wins-sydney-…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Local Government.‘Twelve square metres is tiny’: The reality of ‘affordable’ housing in Sydney
Andrew Taylor The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Essential workers such as nurses, police officers and firefighters could be asked to stay in rooms as small as 12 square metres to live near their place of work as part of an affordable housing policy that opponents describe as offering substandard accommodation. ... Boarding houses are touted by developers and the state government as a solution to Sydney’s affordable housing crisis but have been criticised in the past by residents and Sydney mayors. ... Chris Martin, a senior research fellow at the City Futures Research Centre at the University of NSW, said developments such as the Elizabeth Bay proposal were not traditional boarding houses “but really small blocks of very small flats”. “Twelve square metres is tiny, isn’t it?” he said. “That’s not much more in there than a bed and typically a little sink and cooker top, and walled off toilet and shower.” ... Dr Martin said rooms in these new types of boarding houses were much smaller than even a studio apartment, and were not required to meet ventilation and solar access standards otherwise required for residential flats. Yet rooms tend to cost about as much as an older-style studio apartment, although rents had fallen during the pandemic. “I think there are questions to be asked about the extent to which this ‘tiny amount of space’, which isn’t ordinarily allowed by our planning system for what it calls residential flats, should be allowed in the name of affordability,” he said. ... Jenny Leong, housing spokeswoman for the Greens, said key worker housing that does not have more than a place to shower and sleep denies its residents the right to a home.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/twelve-square-metres-is-tiny-the…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Planning and development, State Government, Work, employment.Surge in loans to property investors raises prospect of regulator intervention
Jennifer Duke and Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Investors are piling into the nation’s priciest property markets and crowding out first home buyers in numbers not seen for years raising the chances of more intervention from prudential regulators. Lending to property investors reached $9.7 billion in October 2021, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows. The 1.1 per cent jump marks the 12th consecutive growth month in landlord loans. This is the highest level since a record $10.1 billion in April 2015.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/surge-in-loans-to-proper…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Almost 700 people died while homeless last year, official estimates show
James Wilmore Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... An estimated 688 people died while homeless in England and Wales in 2020, new official figures have shown. Despite the total being an 11.6% fall on the previous year and the first decrease since 2014, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) warned the figure was not “statistically significant” as it was likely to be an underestimate due to the pandemic. The ONS said the Everyone In scheme, designed to accommodate rough sleepers during the height of the pandemic, had made it more difficult to officially identify people who were homeless through its mortality records. Around 37,000 people have been provided with emergency accommodation since March 2020, the ONS said. The 668 figure still represents a 43% increase on the number of deaths registered in 2013, when records began.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/almost-700-people-died…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.Shifting the Affordable Housing Narrative Through Arts and Culture
Brandon Duong (No paywall)From United States ... Housing activists want to use this political moment to shift long-standing narratives surrounding housing. From film to theater, here are some arts strategies that might work. (Shelterforce)
https://shelterforce.org/2021/11/22/shifting-the-affordable-hous…
# International, Affordable housing, Renting culture.Foyer Oxford offers young people facing homelessness a bright future
Emma Wynne ABC (No paywall)When Kim graduates from Notre Dame University later this month with a double degree and majors in politics, social justice and behavioural science it will signal the start of a new chapter. But just over a year ago, her life wasn't going so well. Kim was trying to get through university without the parental support most young people rely on as they establish adult lives. "I have a childhood history of family domestic violence, and that definitely snowballed into a mental health crisis," she says. Thanks to "an amazing social worker" Kim heard about Foyer Oxford, an apartment building run by Anglicare, Foundation Housing and North Metropolitan TAFE in the Perth inner-city suburb of Leederville and was able to move in. Foyer Oxford provides secure, affordable housing to young people along with personalised support to help them get into work and study.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-04/foyer-oxford-helping-youn…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Personal stories, Young people.Home for now: Noe Valley family chooses eviction fight over SF flight
Denise Sullivan (No paywall)From San Francisco ... Whether you love or loathe the holiday season, few would choose to spend this time of the year fighting an eviction. Yet that’s how the year’s ending for Michelle Foy and Fernando Martí of Noe Valley as they prepare for a January trial. “If we win, the court will have ruled the eviction wasn’t intended in good faith. If we lose, we’ll have to leave, or tie ourselves down ‘til the sheriff arrives,” said Martí, who has lived in one of the Victorian’s two flats since 1998. Foy joined him in 2002, and it’s the only home their 12-year-old child has ever known. (San Francisco Examiner)
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/home-for-now-noe-valley-family-c…
# International, Eviction, Housing market, Personal stories.What Sydney’s 2011 median house price can buy today
Kate Burke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Sydney house prices have soared to new heights, with the cost of a typical home more than doubling over the past decade. The median house price in Sydney reached a record high of almost $1.5 million in the September quarter, Domain figures show, having climbed more than 30 per cent over the year to September. Prices are now about 40 per cent higher than they were five years ago in the previous boom
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/what-sydney-s-2011-median-h…
# NSW, Housing market.