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
‘I would end up on the street’: Pensioner in legal fight with Gerry Harvey’s trust over home eviction
Charlotte Grieve The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A terminally ill woman has taken on business tycoon Gerry Harvey with a lawsuit to fight a forced eviction from a property that she lived in rent-free with her now deceased husband for more than eight years. ... In an affidavit, Mr Harvey claims the property was never intended for Ms Luker to remain in permanently and while sympathetic to her situation, he now wishes to sell the property. Whether Ms Luker has any legal claim to the land will now be decided by the courts. Ben Butler writes in 'The Guardian' on the same matter at: [https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/09/gerry-harvey-taken-to-court-by-longtime-friends-widow-in-bid-to-stop-eviction]
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/i-would-end-up-on-the-…
# NSW, Eviction, Personal stories.E-news, November 2021
National Shelter (No paywall)Adrian Pisarski, Executive Officer, is retiring; The National Housing Investment Finance Corporation Review; Searching for renters ... and more
https://mailchi.mp/dfddb09ebcc8/enews-november-4834390?e=d6b612f…
# Australia, Campaigns and law reform.Mum’s heartbreak at endless rental battle, with 48 rejections in four months
(Paywall)A mother of three young children has applied for 48 homes in four months – and 48 times her heart has been broken. Paige Robertson-Wood is worried she and the children, aged 10, 8 and 2, will spend a second Christmas without a place to call home. “It’s my children I worry about,” she said. “I think landlords see I’m a single parent with three children and on Centrelink and they think we will destroy their house. “They discriminate against single parents and I’ve been told I should get a babysitter and turn up without the kids, but that is very hard. (The Mercury)
https://www.themercury.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TMWEB…
# Australia, Discrimination, Rent, Families, Homelessness, Landlords and agents, Women.Federal government receives an F on housing in ANU's health inequity report card
Finn McHugh Canberra Times (No paywall)The Coalition has entrenched health inequities by failing on housing during COVID-19, an Australian National University report says. The ANU has released its health equity report card, ranking federal and state responses to the pandemic across housing, employment, and income support.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7502226/anu-gives-coaliti…
# Research alert Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Health, Housing market.Renting in Victoria Snapshot 2021
(No paywall)The purpose of the Renting in Victoria Snapshot 2021 (the Snapshot) is to help improve general knowledge about renting in Victoria and to correct some of the misconceptions that exist about the scale and nature of renting. It can also assist policy makers and service providers. The Snapshot once again provides summary data about what is happening in the Victorian rental sector, utilising available data sets from the Australian Census, the Residential Tenancies Bond Authority, and the main organisations renters turn to for assistance such as Tenants Victoria, Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, welfare agencies and community legal services. (Commissioner for Residential Tenancies, Victoria)
https://www.rentingcommissioner.vic.gov.au/renting-in-victoria-s…
# Australia, Rent, Tribunal NCAT, Housing market, State Government.Australians pushed out of suburbs as house prices race ahead of wages
Sezen Bakan The New Daily (No paywall)Runaway house prices and stagnant wages are killing the Australian dream as plummeting housing affordability pushes younger people out of the suburbs they grew up in, according to the author of a new report. Research principal Mark McCrindle said housing is now so expensive that young Australians cannot afford property in their parents’ suburbs.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2021/11/08/house-prices-prope…
# Australia, Families, Housing affordability, Housing market, Young people.Regional housing crisis needs multistorey developments, more land releases: Taskforce
Bronwyn Herbert, Joanne Shoebridge, and Bruce MacKenzie ABC (No paywall)Multi-level developments in regional cities could free up homes in the suburbs and ease housing pressure, says New South Wales Housing Minister Melinda Pavey. Ms Pavey said the recommendations reflected the pressure the pandemic had put on regional housing markets over the past year. The Regional Housing Taskforce, commissioned by the state government in June, today released its report with five key recommendations in addressing safe, secure and affordable housing.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-09/regional-housing-taskforc…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Housing market, Regional NSW, State Government.Widespread money laundering in property locking out Australians from owning homes, Senate told
Christopher Knaus The Guardian (No paywall)Weak and outdated laws are allowing widespread money laundering in the property sector, making Australia a “destination of choice” for illicit funds and “locking many Australians out of owning their own homes”, a Senate inquiry has been told.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/09/widesprea…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, International.