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
If health and education are essential services in Spain, why not housing?
Irene Baque The Guardian (No paywall)A renters’ movement in Catalonia is saving families from eviction and trying to fill the gap left by the state. Since 2019, people threatened by eviction have been able to turn to the local chapter of El Sindicat de Llogateres, a renters’ union founded in Barcelona and active across Catalonia. Read the story and watch the video!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/nov/11/heal…
# Must read, Video International, Eviction, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Homelessness.NSW renters now able to access $4500 support payment, as eviction moratorium ends
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)Renters in NSW who have lost work due to the coronavirus pandemic can now directly access up to $4500 in rental support, as the state’s four-month eviction moratorium comes to an end. The original scheme has provided more than $34 million in rental rebates to landlords since July, for more than 15,360 tenancies, said minister for better regulation Kevin Anderson. It has now been further extended and simplified – scrapping the requirement for a landlord to apply – to ease COVID-related financial stress. ... It is hoped opening applications up to tenants will help clear rental arrears, and help to avoid disputes and recovery action for rent during the three-month transitional period that will follow the end of the eviction moratorium on Thursday. “This is a really good move and we’re very very pleased to see it,” said Leo Patterson Ross, chief executive of the Tenants’ Union of NSW. “It will make a big difference for a lot of people who have been left frustrated and not getting the support that they needed [from their landlord or property managers] during the last few months.” ... However some tenants had been fearful of seeking support via their property manager in the first place, Mr Patterson Ross noted, concerned they could be deemed a risky tenant and face a no-grounds eviction down the track. He said no-ground evictions had also made it too easy for landlords to sidestep around the moratorium, and needed to be reformed.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/nsw-renters-now-able-to-access-45…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, State Government.Housing should be for use value, not exchange value
John Menadue Pearls and Irritations (No paywall)Housing policies should reflect the sort of society we want to live in, not the quest for wealth accumulation. A home is not a commodity.
https://johnmenadue.com/john-menadue-housing-should-be-for-use-v…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, Human rights, Planning and development.Byron real estate's new heights: $750K price tag for cabin in council caravan park
Bruce MacKenzie ABC (No paywall)The Byron Shire Mayor says the $750,000 asking price for a cabin in a beachside council-run caravan park is another sign of a property market gone mad. The two-bedroom cabin at Suffolk Park is being offered for sale on a local real estate website, but the purchase price does not include the land. Councillor Michael Lyon said current caravan park legislation was designed to allow for affordable housing. But he said the council could not interfere with the sale process. "It's perverse, it was certainly never intended that way," Cr Lyon said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-12/byron-real-estate-pervers…
# NSW, Land lease communities, Housing market, Regional NSW.COP26, climate change and why housing matters
Duncan Smith Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... The eyes of the world are focused on Glasgow because the Conference of the Parties (COP26) is taking place. ... So why does housing and our homes matter when it comes to climate change? ... Here in the UK, part of the issue is that our buildings are some of the least energy efficient in Europe. About 36% were built were before 1944 and only 17% of our homes were made from 1990 onward. ... Because of our homes’ age and poor energy efficiency as well as how we heat them, about 79,000,000 tonnes of CO2 is emitted every year, year on year, in the UK—directly contributing to climate change.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/cop26-climate-ch…
# International, Utilities electricity water gas, Climate change, Minimum habitability standards.Why building more homes won’t solve the affordable housing problem for the millions of people who need it most
Alex Schwartz and Kirk McClure The Conversation (No paywall)From the United States ... Even before 2020, the U.S. faced an acute housing affordability crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic made it a whole lot worse after millions of people who lost their jobs fell behind on rent. While eviction bans forestalled mass homelessness – and emergency rental assistance has helped some – most moratoriums have now been lifted, putting a lot of people at risk of losing their homes. One solution pushed by the White House, state and local lawmakers and many others is to increase the supply of affordable housing, such as by reforming zoning and other land-use regulations. As experts on housing policy, we agree that increasing the supply of homes is necessary in areas with rapidly rising housing costs. But this won’t, by itself, make a significant dent in the country’s affordability problems – especially for those with the most severe needs. In part that’s because in much of the country, there is actually no shortage of rental housing. The problem is that millions of people lack the income to afford what’s on the market.
https://theconversation.com/why-building-more-homes-wont-solve-t…
# International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Families, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.‘I am panicking’: the vulnerable renters at risk as housing subsidy expires
Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)The end to the National Affordability Rental Scheme could leave thousands at the whim of the private market. ... [Marion Trench] has been renting her townhouse in Bethania, halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, for just under two years, and she loves it. ... [But] Trench is one of 32,000 renters benefiting from the National Affordability Rental Scheme (NRAS), a program developed and implemented by the federal Labor government under former prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2008. NRAS was designed to draw in the private sector to the provision of cheaper housing, by paying property owners a subsidy in exchange for them making new homes available at below-market rents for a decade. ... [And] over the next three years, the vast majority of NRAS properties are going to lose their subsidy – and those renters benefiting from it are starting to feel stressed. ... Community housing advocates say many NRAS renters are likely to transfer across to social housing waitlists when their rent goes up. ... Leo Patterson Ross from the Tenants’ Union of New South Wales says more tenants are calling the organisation, asking about their rights when the rent goes up on their affordable housing. ... Patterson Ross would like to see the federal government reconsider direct capital grants to the states for housing and state tenancy laws overhauled to disallow no-grounds eviction and control rent hikes, both of which he says reduce funding efficacy by making tenancies less sustainable.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/15/i-am-pani…
# TUNSW in the media Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Federal Government, No-grounds evictions, State Government.A broken dream: outer Melbourne has affordable houses but no train or school
Elias Visontay The Guardian (No paywall)When Jade Seenarain and his wife Aideanna bought the plot for their home in Truganina in Melbourne’s west in 2015, the couple thought they were buying into a leafy, suburban dream. ... But three years after moving into their four-bedroom, two-bathroom, double-driveway home, reality bears little resemblance to the life the Seenarains thought they would be living. ... Since the couple moved in, plans for a local primary school have been derailed, and plots of land still lie empty while residents wait for shops, services and infrastructure. Urban planning experts say such problems are common across Melbourne’s outer suburbs.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/15/a-broken-…
# Australia, Climate change, Housing market, Planning and development, State Government.