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
Rising house prices offer NSW a recovery opportunity
Editorial The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The long Sydney lockdown has created a strange paradox where house prices have risen even as the economy struggles. ... The problem of rising house prices is not the absolute level of house prices but the fairness for young people looking to buy a house for the first time. It is particularly acute because young people have been most affected by the lockdowns and made the most sacrifices for lockdown. Their incomes have, in many cases, fallen the most.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/rising-house-prices-offers-n…
# NSW, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, State Government, Young people.Governments need to care more about renters and defer less to wealthy home owners, think tank says
Tawar Razaghi Domain (No paywall)Governments need to care more about renters and young home buyers and defer less to older, wealthier home owners who fear change and block new housing supply in their neighbourhoods, one of the country’s top economists said. Australia’s housing affordability crisis has been caused by planning restrictions that pander to NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard), blocking new housing construction, the chief economist at conservative think tank Centre for Independent Studies, Peter Tulip, told Domain.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/governments-need-to-care-more-abo…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market, Planning and development, Young people.Glenlee home in Sydney's south at centre of development tug-of-war
Tony Ibrahim ABC (No paywall)Tucked away in Sydney's southern suburbs, a multi-million-dollar homestead is at the centre of a development tug-of-war. Glenlee, a century-old waterfront home in Sydney's Georges River Local Government Area (LGA), is a time capsule of traditional Indigenous owners, Australia's federation, and a wildlife sanctuary, but that could change.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-23/glenlee-property-centre-o…
# NSW, Heritage listings, Housing market.House prices will keep going up as long as interest rates remain low
Ellen Lutton and Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)House prices are likely to keep rising irrespective of any negative shocks the economy endures due to COVID lockdowns, economists say, as rock bottom interest rates continue to drive buyers to spend up big on property.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/house-prices-will-keep-going-up-a…
# Australia, Housing market.America’s Homelessness Crisis Is About to Get So Much Worse
Liz Theoharis (No paywall)From the United States ... A few snippets from this 'Must read' article ... Over the past weeks, multiple crises have merged: a crisis of democracy with the most significant attack on voting rights since Reconstruction; a climate crisis with lives and livelihoods upended in the Gulf Coast and the Northeast by extreme weather events and in the West by a stunning fire season; and an economic crisis in which millions are being cut off from Pandemic Unemployment Insurance, even as August job gains proved underwhelming. There’s also a crisis taking place in state legislatures with an ongoing attack on women’s autonomy over our own bodies. The Supreme Court let a law go into effect that makes abortions nearly impossible in Texas and turns its enforcement over to vigilantes. And then, of course, there’s the looming eviction crisis that could precipitate the worst housing and homelessness disaster in American history. ... In these ever-less United States, of course, it’s not only the Supreme Court that doesn’t respect the rights of the poor. Consider housing and the lower courts. In recent studies of landlord-tenant court cases in states across the country, landlords typically won 95% of eviction cases in Oklahoma and Hawaii and, in 2017, 99.7% percent of those in Kansas City. According to the ACLU, ”Eviction proceedings historically have been unfair and imbalanced. In the courts, the odds are stacked against tenants: 90% of landlords are represented by legal counsel in evictions, but fewer than 10% of tenants have representation.” ... Even more dire, reports CNBC, “The coronavirus pandemic could result in some 28 million Americans being evicted… By comparison, 10 million people lost their homes in the Great Recession.” These predictions come, in part, from Emily Benfer, the chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force Committee on Eviction and co-creator with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University of the Covid-19 Housing Policy Scorecard. As she points out, “We have never seen this extent of eviction in such a truncated amount of time in our history.” Add to that something else ... (Scheerpost)
https://scheerpost.com/2021/09/17/americas-homelessness-crisis-i…
# Must read International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Human rights, Landlords and agents, Race and ethnicity.AIHW releases 2021 report card on the wellbeing of Australians
(No paywall)Last Thursday, 16 September 2021, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released its 2021 report card on the wellbeing of Australians. You can read their media release at the foot of this entry. But also check out the snapshots which are brief summaries on 43 different welfare topics. Go to: [https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/australias-welfare/australias-welfare-snapshots] Click ‘Housing’ which is then broken down further ... for example, ‘Home ownership and housing tenure’ and ‘Housing assistance’. These provide valuable analyses. It's packed with lots of data. Two examples will suffice. The proportion of households renting from private landlords has had a disproportionate impact on younger households over recent years, with a sharper increase in the proportion of young Australians renting compared with older Australians. While the number of social housing dwellings has increased overall, it has not kept pace with population growth. Indeed, the number has decreased relative to the number of Australian households. Also, check out data insights at: [https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/australias-welfare-2021-data-insights/contents/summary]. In particular, you may wish to download Chapter 5 entitled: 'COVID-19 effects on housing and homelessness: the story to mid-2021’ at: [https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/d468c175-2b22-40c3-abfd-d6b81dc446a5/aihw-aus-236_Chapter-5.pdf.aspx] This chapter is written by Hal Pawson, City Futures Research Centre, University of NSW. His analytical article highlights a number of direct and indirect effects COVID-19 has had on Australia’s housing system and individuals’ housing security. For the most part, the article’s focus is 2020 and early 2021. However, to benchmark statistics for the pandemic period, the article also presents some longer-term trend analysis dating back to the 2010s and earlier. The article reviews the initial predictions (i.e. in early 2020) regarding the pandemic’s impact on the housing system, summarises the key policy initiatives enacted by Australian governments, examines the 2020 crisis impact (including emergency actions taken by state governments to protect street homeless populations) and analyses housing market developments seen during 2020. Elsewhere, Hal Pawson writes: '[This chapter] also contains a new analysis of AIHW SHS data that separately identifies ‘newly arising homelessness’ over the past 3 years, demonstrating a substantial reduction during 2020 (and running into 2021) that I think must be largely attributable to rental evictions moratoriums. This, at the same time that overall SHS caseloads have continued to increase. The chapter also highlights the scale and socially damaging impacts of renewed house price and rent inflation in 2021.' (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare)
https://www.aihw.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/2021-1/septemb…
# Research alert Australia, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Home ownership, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market, State Government.Homeless deaths in Australia’s richest state
Giovanni Torre (No paywall)As Western Australia posts a budget surplus of $5 billion, figures show more than one person a week is dying on the streets of Perth. ... Michelle Mackenzie, chief executive of Shelter WA, says the pandemic drove an increase in street homelessness, as well as an increase in fear and anxiety among homeless people. When the moratorium on rent increases and evictions ended in March, she saw an immediate increase in homelessness. Mackenzie says the number of deaths of homeless people reinforces the need for the state to invest in social housing. ... Dr Betsy Buchanan, who has worked with Aboriginal people as an advocate since 1978, says the housing system is “diabolical”. “I know of dozens of families who have lost someone to the streets,” she says. “Thousands of Aboriginal children have been evicted … These are people I have known since I started working in advocacy over 40 years ago. I know their history. The trauma and humiliation of eviction makes them relive the worst moments of their lives. How could they treat someone like that? It implies a deep-seated racism.”
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/economy/2021/09/18/home…
# Australia, Eviction, Homelessness, Housing market, Race and ethnicity.September 2021 News
Shelter NSW (No paywall)Check out the latest housing news from Shelter NSW:
Housing Affordability and Supply in Australia – what’s the deal?
Housing challenges for Regional NSW
Submission on the Housing SEPP
‘Meanwhile Use’ being considered by the NSW parliament
Save the Date - Shelter NSW Local Housing Forum on October 14!
Women’s safety and affordable homes
2021 Australia Community Sector Survey
Affordable Housing Development and Investment Summit
Recent development submissions for Sydney
'The Private Rental Sector in Australia - Living with Uncertainty'
Energy rebates available
It's not too late to complete the Census!
https://mailchi.mp/shelternsw/shelter-nsw-september-2021-ebullet…
# NSW, Campaigns and law reform.