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
'Astounding’: Aged care providers to get immunity from prosecution
Dana Daniel The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Aged care providers will get immunity from criminal or civil prosecution for using physical and chemical restraints after the federal government amended its aged care bill, prompting outrage from advocates for older Australians. ... Aged Care Matters director Sarah Russell said the amendment would deprive aged care residents of “the civil and criminal protections to which all other Australians are entitled” and urged senators to vote against it. “If a member of the public is restrained without their consent, the perpetrator can be charged,” she said. “In contrast, an aged care resident who is restrained without their consent will have no legal recourse.” Read the same story entitled: 'Amended dignity: our elders denied their human rights again' by Sarah Russell at: [https://www.michaelwest.com.au/amended-dignity-our-elders-denied-their-human-rights-again/]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/astounding-aged-care-pro…
# Australia, Federal Government, Health, Older people.We identified who’s most at risk of homelessness and where they are. Now we must act, before it’s too late
Deb Batterham, Christian A. Nygaard, Jacqueline De Vries and Margaret Reynolds The Conversation (No paywall)Homelessness is traumatic. It affects not just housing arrangements but whether or not someone can get enough food, feel safe and maintain relationships with friends and family. The physical and mental health effects often persist long after people are rehoused, and the community and government costs are high. Much of the current response to homelessness is focused on supporting people after they become homeless or just before they do so. However, to really reduce homelessness we need to prevent those at risk from ever becoming homeless in the first place. ... In our study, people were considered at risk of homelessness if they lived in rental housing and were experiencing at least two of the following: low income; vulnerability to discrimination in the housing or job markets; low social resources and supports; needing support to access or maintain a living situation due to significant ill health, disability, mental health issues or problematic alcohol and/or drug use; rental stress (when lower-income households put more than 30% of income towards housing costs). From here, it often doesn’t take much to tip those at risk into actual homelessness. You can read the AHURI news release at: [https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/news/Between-1.5-and-2-million-Australian-renters-at-risk-of-homelessness-report]. You can read the full report at: [https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/370]
https://theconversation.com/we-identified-whos-most-at-risk-of-h…
# Australia, Rent, Health, Homelessness.Accessible housing: disabled people left behind by ‘shameful’ building code stance in NSW, WA and SA
Stephanie Convey The Guardian (No paywall)Disabled Australians are being left behind in three major states after governments failed to make minimum accessibility standards mandatory for new houses, disability advocates say. New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia say they will opt out of clauses in the forthcoming revised National Construction Code (NCC) that would require all new buildings to have basic accessibility features such as at least one step-free entrance, a toilet on the entry level, and reinforced walls in the bathroom. These features and others, such as a walk-in shower recess and wider door frames and corridors to facilitate ease of movement, were added to the NCC earlier this year after a push from advocates highlighting the difficulties disabled people have in finding homes that meet their basic needs.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/26/accessibl…
# Australia, Disability, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Rental Affordability Index reveals the cost of rent now skyrocketing in some Queensland regions
Jessica Stewart ABC (No paywall)A Sunshine Coast family forced to live out of a caravan are among thousands feeling the brunt of a rental market experts believe is "approaching the point of catastrophe." The latest annual report based on the Rental Affordability Index (RAI) reveals there has been a significant decline in affordability across some regions in Queensland, with the cost of rent now skyrocketing. RAI creator Adrian Pisarski said the new data showed a "pretty dire situation". ... Mr Pisarski said the situation would only get worse, not better, without significant intervention from the federal and state governments. "I think we've been in a crisis for quite a long time and, you know, we're approaching a situation of catastrophe, especially for people like pensioners and people on JobSeeker," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-26/rai-rental-market-approac…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing affordability, State Government.Soaring prices drive call for huge investment in social housing
Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Think tanks, universities and the social services sector have warned Australia’s lowest income earners face a shortage of affordable housing for decades unless the federal and state governments work together on a multibillion-dollar investment in social housing.
Two separate reports from the Grattan Institute and the Australian Council of Social Service and University of NSW released on Monday said up to $20 billion needed to be sunk into low-cost housing to make up for a two-decade shortfall that is now being exacerbated by a huge increase in property prices. ... The director of UNSW’s City Futures Research Centre, Professor Hal Pawson said the states alongside the federal government had to increase their investment across the sector. “State governments generally responded well in their emergency actions to help homeless people and protect vulnerable renters during the worst of COVID. And to their credit, some have gone much further by pledging billions for short-term social housing investment,” he said. “But there is little sign of any positive legacy on the systemic reforms and Commonwealth government re-engagement is fundamentally needed to fix our housing system.” And, you will find a blog by Brendan Coates of the Grattan Institute entitled: 'A place to call home: it's time for a Social Housing Future Fund' at: [https://grattan.edu.au/news/a-place-to-call-home-its-time-for-a-social-housing-future-fund/] You can read Euan Black's story in 'The New Daily' at: [https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/11/28/social-housing-future-fund/]. You also can read Melissa Heagney's story in 'Domain' at: [https://www.domain.com.au/news/social-housing-future-fund-needed-to-address-housing-affordability-grattan-institute-1108430/?utm_campaign=strap-masthead&utm_source=smh&utm_medium=link&utm_content=pos5&ref=pos1]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/soaring-prices-drive-cal…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Housing market, State Government.NSW to lose 3360 affordable homes: See which suburbs get hit the hardest
Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)NSW will lose more than 3000 affordable homes over the next five years as the federal government abandons the Rudd-era National Rental Affordability Scheme, a new report says. A Community Housing Industry Association analysis concludes 3360 properties in NSW discounted for low-income households will revert to market rates in the private rental market by 2026.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw-to-lose-3360-affordable-home…
# NSW, Rent, Affordable housing, Federal Government.House prices depend on interest rates: as one goes up, the other will fall
Michael Janda ABC (No paywall)It's very likely house prices, at least in Australia's two biggest cities, will fall at some point over the next couple of years. That's the view of three of the four major banks, whose businesses are skewed heavily to residential mortgages — so they have an incentive to get this right, if not perhaps to understate the prospect of declines. ANZ is tipping a modest 4 per cent national dip in 2023, Westpac 5 per cent and CBA is the most bearish, predicting a 10 per cent slide. It's also the forecast of many more independent economists and real estate experts.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-28/house-prices-depend-on-in…
# Australia, Housing market.A decade to save – steep hurdles for first-home buyers
Prashant Mehra The New Daily (No paywall)First-home buyers in Australia now need more than 10 years just to save a 20 per cent deposit to own a home, a report says, underlining the worsening housing affordability crisis across the country. The latest ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability report estimates that based on households saving 15 per cent of their gross annual income, it would take a record 10.8 years to save a deposit for a house and nine years for a unit.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/11/26/first-hom…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.