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
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.A House for Artists review – perky, punchy affordable housing that inspires on all fronts
Rowan Moore The Guardian (No paywall)Substance, spirit and a sense of community distinguish this block of rental flats for cash-strapped creatives in Barking east London, designed by Apparata, with a little help from Grayson Perry. ... Your typical new block of flats is something like this: corridors and lobbies, often windowless, lead to flats where everything is the minimum required by regulations. There is little wit or thought in the layout or pleasure in individual spaces – just the pursuit of the shortest route to squeezing in the maximum possible accommodation – nor in the stuff of which the building is made. The external walls, whether finished in skinny brickwork or some other cladding material, have a just-stuck-together feeling. There is no sense of substance, just an expedient assemblage of building products, which, if you tap them, will probably sound dull and hollow. You have to trust that these outcomes of opaque technical and regulatory procedures won’t burn or leak or fall off, but you have no particular reason to do so. A House for Artists in Barking, east London, designed by the young architectural practice Apparata, sets out to be the opposite.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/dec/12/a-house-for…
# International, Affordable housing.Letting agent prompts tenants to buy landlord Christmas gift: 'GROSS'
Tom Flanagan (No paywall)A Queensland real estate agency has defended sending tenants an email asking if they wanted to gift their landlords a hamper for Christmas. Renters were sent the email by their agent Kanik & Co which listed a range of hampers priced between $50 and $115 which could be given to their landlord. ... Housing policy expert and CEO of the Tenants Union of NSW, Leo Patterson Ross, told Yahoo News Australia it was unfair to suggest landlords had faced the same financial burden during the pandemic. "In the area where this agency operates rents have risen 20 per cent over the last year and property prices 24 per cent. The landlords are doing very well," he said. "It is gross to claim that renters and landlords have both had a tough year." (Yahoo!news) You can read the same story at: [https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/13/tenants-asked-to-consider-buying-their-landlords-a-christmas-present-despite-increase-in-rents], [https://junkee.com/landlord-present-tenants/317743] and [https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/real-estate-renter-landlord-christmas-gift/].
https://au.news.yahoo.com/letting-agent-prompts-tenants-send-lan…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Landlords and agents.Tenants and apartment owners to benefit from new solar power scheme
Nick O'Malley The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The third of Australian households now locked out of solar power because they are renters or lack suitable roof-space for solar cells could soon save money and cut greenhouse gas emissions under a shared solar power ownership model. In Lismore an alliance of community groups raised money to have 35.5 kilowatts of solar cells installed on the roof of the offices of North Coast Community Housing, with the extra cash from excess power generated being returned to tenants and community groups such as Brunswick Marine Rescue. Each of the households who were part of the scheme received a credit of about $580 on their annual power bill last year. ... Felicity Stening, managing director of Enova Community Energy, ... says a similar model has worked well in the United States but has not yet taken off in Australia, in part due to regulations that have not kept up with new ownership models. You can read a similar article by James Purtill of ABC Science at: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-12-14/solar-gardens-cheap-renewables-savings-renters-apartments/100690556]
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/tenants-and-ap…
# NSW, Rent, Strata, Utilities electricity water gas.Productivity Commission review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement
Productivity Commission (No paywall)As part of its mandate to review nationally significant sector‑wide agreements, the Productivity Commission will conduct its scheduled review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA). ... Under the NHHA, state and territory governments are required to have publicly available housing and homelessness strategies and contribute to improved data collection and reporting. The Review will seek to determine the extent to which the NHHA is meeting its objectives. ... The Review’s final report is expected to be released by 30 June 2022
https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/michael-sukkar-2019/…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Federal Government, Homelessness, Housing affordability, State Government.