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
Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All
(No paywall)As cities around the world grapple with a crisis of affordable housing, Vienna has been keeping it at bay. How the Austrian capital got there may offer a model strategy for cities worldwide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41VJudBdYXY&ab_channel=Bloomberg…
# Video International, Affordable housing, Housing market.New Zealand’s pandemic housing policy has baked in Māori inequality for generations
Iain White The Guardian (No paywall)In Jacinda Ardern’s ‘team of 5 million’, some players have been rewarded very differently to others ... [It's] an account of huge and growing inequality. How a government policy designed to respond to the global pandemic and the fear of economic recession has not just created significant wealth, but distributed it in such a concentrated way that it will change the nature of Aotearoa New Zealand for generations to come.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/sep/17/new-…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Planning and development, Tax.Keira St, Wollongong apartment block locked down over COVID
Natalie Croxon Illawarra Mercury (No paywall)A block of 83 apartments in the Wollongong CBD has been deemed a high-risk premises and locked down because of COVID-19 cases within the building. ... "In this building there is a community of residents who move between apartments and use communal areas," Illawarra Shoalhaven LHD chief executive Margot Mains said. "The residents' close and frequent interactions are similar to those in a household and, as a result, all residents of the apartment complex are considered close contacts." ... Wollongong Homeless Hub, which operates out of the building, has had to close its drop-in centre and emergency accommodation as a result. It leases 30 of the block's apartments, most of which accommodate private residents.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7434405/wollongong-apa…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health.Spike in poverty-induced homelessness during lockdown
Chloe Booker The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)As Victoria braced to enter its sixth lockdown, Rick Savickas lay in a Footscray Hospital bed on suicide watch, police outside his door, feeling as though he had nothing left to live for. The 57-year-old had worked his whole life, never taking a handout from the government, until the pandemic struck last year and he lost his casual job at an engineering workshop. ... “Everything spiralled out of control and I got behind in rent, I got behind in bills, I got behind in everything,” Mr Savickas said. “I was in a bad place and I wanted to end it all. I was sick of going through it all again and again.” Mr Savickas was due to be evicted the following day, when a concerned friend dropping off food suggested he ring Lifeline. When he told them he planned to end his life, the police arrived and took him to hospital where he was put in contact with homeless support service Unison Housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/spike-in-poverty-induce…
# Australia, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Homelessness, State Government.Homes that kill: 2 million homes in England pose a serious threat to health or safety
(No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... A lack of action on poor-quality housing is leading to avoidable deaths, with 1 in 10 homes posing a serious risk to their residents’ health or safety. A new report by the Good Home Inquiry warns that it's a 'now or never' moment for transforming the state of the nation's housing, and is calling for a cross-government housing strategy with a ministerial champion. (Centre for Ageing Better)
https://www.ageing-better.org.uk/news/homes-that-kill-two-millio…
# International, Public and community housing, Health, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Race and ethnicity.Letters to Editor
The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Check out the Letters to Editor... 'RBA locks door to housing affordability for young'. Some excellent letters, like the one from Elisabeth Goodsall of Wahrooga who writes: 'Rob Stokes is right that planning alone can’t fix housing affordability. An important lever in controlling housing prices is taxation policies around property. While the vast majority of our politicians are enriching themselves with tax advantages through investment in property, how can we expect them to legislate fairly for policies that will give all a fair go.' Or, Russ Couch of Woonona who writes: 'I know you are from the Liberal Party, Minister Stokes, but why can’t you just say it out loud? Stokes refers obliquely to certain federal policy settings as also contributing to high house prices. I think he clearly means negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. At the last federal election Labor was right to propose changes to these specific measures, and got monstered for it by the Libs. Stokes, you need to call it as it is, and damn the politics.'
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/rba-locks-door-to-housing-af…
# NSW, Federal Government, Housing market, Planning and development, Tax.‘Scared as hell’: COVID-19 cluster emerges in Sydney’s public housing towers
Megan Gorrey The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Hundreds of tenants across three neighbouring social housing towers at Redfern are being tested for COVID-19 after health authorities detected a dozen cases of the virus among residents. NSW Health confirmed the emerging outbreak at one of the Morehead Street unit blocks, which are together home to more than 630 people, amid growing fears the virus is spreading among the inner city’s most vulnerable. The outbreak at 57 Morehead Street, known as the Lawson tower, intensified concern among people who live at the nearby Waterloo public housing estate, where some cases have been detected among its 2500 residents. “They’re scared as hell,” Waterloo Public Housing Action Group chairman Richard Weeks said. “All of a sudden, it just hit us.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/scared-as-hell-covid-19-clus…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health.California Housing Is a Crisis Newsom Can Take Into His Own Hands
Conor Dougherty The New York Times (Paywall)From the United States ... The median home price in California has eclipsed $800,000. Tenants in the state are among the most cost-burdened in the
country. Each night more than 100,000 residents sleep outside or in their cars. A crisis, a disaster, the religion of sorrow, a disgrace — whatever journalists and politicians call it, people across the state, including all the major candidates for governor in the recall vote this week, agree that the situation is untenable. The question is what, if anything, the governor can do about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/business/california-housing-c…
# International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing market, Planning and development.