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
Thousands face income hit as disaster payments are cut: UNSW
Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Thousands of people in electorates across Melbourne and western Sydney will be driven back into poverty with the end of special COVID-related disaster payments, and new analysis warns it could stifle the nation’s recovery out of lockdown.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/thousands-face-income-hi…
# Research alert Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Welfare.Access to appropriate accommodation remains problematic for teens leaving Tasmania's Ashley Youth Detention Centre
April McLennan ABC (No paywall)For James*, Ashley Youth Detention Centre (AYDC) in northern Tasmania is like his second home. ... The 51-bed Ashley Youth Detention Centre for youth offenders aged 10-18 years old is set to close by 2025 and is to be replaced with two new facilities: one in the north and one in the south. Both will operate with a therapeutic and preventative approach to youth justice and incarceration. But advocates are concerned that if supported release programs are not improved, then the risk of former residents without appropriate accommodation returning to custody will increase.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-02/concern-mounts-for-tasman…
# Australia, Homelessness, Young people.‘Haves and have-nots’: how the housing crisis is creating two New Zealands – a photo essay
Tess McClure Photographs by Cody Ellington The Guardian (No paywall)Returning home to a country he couldn’t afford to secure a home in, New Zealand photographer Cody Ellingham began to roam suburban streets at night with his camera. In a new series of photographs, he reflects the unease and discomfort of a generation locked out of one of the world’s most unaffordable housing markets.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/30/haves-and-have-not…
# International, Affordable housing, Home ownership, Housing market.New duties for councils to provide support in safe accommodation for domestic abuse victims
Press release (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Domestic abuse victims who need to escape home will be provided with better support in safe accommodation from today (1 October 2021). New regulations and guidance published today set out the level of support councils are required to provide. These include: (1)A clear expectation that expert specialist support is provided to victims in safe accommodation that best supports their needs, whether in refuges or other safe housing. (2) Guidance that states B&Bs or mixed homeless hostels are not the right place for victims to recover from abuse. (3) Councils will support to victims to stay in their own homes, if the perpetrator has left and the home can be made safe. (GOV.UK)
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-duties-for-councils-to-pr…
# International, Domestic violence, Local Government.Agglomeration effects and housing market dynamics
Christian A. Nygaard, Sharon Parkinson and Margaret Reynolds AHURI (No paywall)This research quantifies productivity-related agglomeration benefits arising from the concentration of employment in Australia. Clustering of jobs in cities can improve labour productivity by reducing the costs of exchanging goods and services, labour and ideas, and may allow for better matching of skills to jobs, which in turn may produce higher wages as firms compete for skilled labour. However, cities also typically have higher house prices, which reduce entry and ongoing affordability, and greater pollution and other wellbeing detriments such as crime and noise which may reduce productivity.
# Australia, Housing market, Work, employment.Quality of social housing ‘scandalously poor’, says Gove
Nathaniel Barker Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... [The new housing secretary Michael Gove said:] the quality of social housing, particularly in some parts of the country, remains scandalously poor. “That there are people who are living in conditions which are overcrowded, there are people living in conditions affected by damp and other factors, which hold back the flourishing of children and families.”
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/quality-of-social-housing-s…
# International, Public and community housing, Repairs, Families, Mould.China’s property sector in turmoil as another developer hits trouble
Sofia Horta e Costa and Rebecca Choong Wilkins The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A missed bond payment by a Chinese developer has reignited investor angst about the health of the nation’s property sector.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/china-s-property-sector-…
# International, Housing market, International, Landlords and agents.Guarantor loans jump 71 per cent across Australia in six years: Aussie Home Loans
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Guarantor loans have increased by 71 per cent over six years, new figures reveal, as runaway house price growth prompts more parents to help their children get onto the property ladder. The bank of mum and dad has become prolific in Australia, bankrolling about $35 billion worth of loans and is now the ninth biggest lender in the country.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/guarantor-loans-jump-71-per-cent-…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.