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
State warned of ‘huge risk’ to vulnerable people
Lucy Cormack The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)NSW risks setting a national reopening precedent that leaves vulnerable people behind, with social services groups warning the double vaccination target of 70 per cent could mask inequity in low-income communities. Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) said it has been unable to access an income bracket breakdown highlighting vaccination rates of the poorest groups, despite multiple requests to the state government and national cabinet. The claim comes as COVID-19 case numbers rise in inner Sydney suburbs like Glebe, Camperdown, Redfern and Waterloo, including among vulnerable groups and in public housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/state-warned-of-huge-risk-to…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health.‘Smells like rent control’: Housing affordability inquiry chair rubbishes affordable housing
Angus Thompson The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A Sydney Liberal MP leading the Commonwealth’s inquiry into housing affordability has equated social housing with “housing commission” and criticised affordable schemes as rent fixing that drive up prices and limit supply elsewhere. ... “Since World War Two, housing commission has had a lot of negative impact on vulnerable communities and I query whether building it actually helps people in challenged communities,” Mr Falinski told the Urban Development Institute of Australia webcast on Thursday afternoon. “Affordable housing in different guises can do different things, but ultimately, it has the problem of reducing supply while increasing costs, and in some cases, looks and smells like rent control, which ... actually means that people pay higher rents.” Check out Alan Morris's 'Letter to the Editor' on 11 September 2021under the heading 'Floored by housing view': 'The comments on social housing by Jason Falinski capture the malevolence and short-sightedness of the federal government. His comment that social housing, which he deliberately labelled pejoratively as “housing commission”, “has had a lot of negative impact on vulnerable communities and I query whether building it actually helps people in challenged communities”, ignores the voluminous research that has clearly illustrated the profoundly positive impact that accessing affordable, secure and adequate housing can have on people who are homeless or who are dependent on the private rental sector and having to use most of their income to pay the rent.' [Viewed at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/curbs-on-freedom-will-create-an-underclass-20210909-p58q9o.html] Also, check the media release from Homelessness Australia, Community Housing Industry Association and National Shelter at: [https://www.communityhousing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/253Y1007.pdf?x53590].
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/smells-like-rent-control-hou…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Federal Government.Young Australians will pay for our debt via higher house prices
Michael Pascoe The New Daily (No paywall)Just as one generation was scarred by the experience of interest rates nudging close to 20 per cent ahead of the 1990-91 recession, another’s mindset is being formed by the experience of money always being extremely cheap. An economist friend who prefers to remain anonymous observed a result of that is that the young will pay for our debt explosion not through the price of money but by high asset prices.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2021/09/13/debt-covid-young-m…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Sydney’s ‘haves and have-nots’: poor access to green space in LGAs of concern
Josh Nicholas (No paywall)The Sydney lockdown has exacerbated inequity in the areas hardest hit by Covid and this is being made worse by a lack of access to green space, according to Guardian analysis of data from the Australian Urban Observatory. The local government areas of concern – which are under the heaviest lockdown restrictions – have some of the lowest access to public open space in greater Sydney. Data from the census also shows a high proportion of larger families in these LGAs, with many of them living in situations of severe overcrowding.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2021/sep/13/sydneys-h…
# NSW, Coronavirus COVID-19, Families, Health, Planning and development.Why have Australian house prices risen despite falling population growth?
Nicole Gurran and Peter Phibbs Domain (No paywall)If you’d asked how to stop house price inflation in pre-pandemic times, pausing international immigration and building a lot of new houses would have been high on the list. ... [But] last year, we saw just how simplistic these claims really are. The number of new migrants and returnees to Australia fell by 244,000 people. But prices continued to rise – houses earned more than wages over the past 12 months. ... It is important to remember that the economics of housing is different to that of bananas. This is because housing is a financial asset as well as a consumption good. So, the largest impact on house prices is the supply and price of finance – not new dwellings. ... The Commonwealth appears to have turned its back on social housing, limiting the capacity of the states in what has traditionally been a joint responsibility. ... Nevertheless, some of the government responses during the pandemic offer new promise. Accommodation was provided for people experiencing homelessness, while increased income support enabled some renters to access better housing or alleviated financial stress. Moratoriums on rental evictions have demonstrated the need for increased tenure security in the private rental sector. ... For the growing number of Australians renting in the private sector, improved rental protections – for instance, an end to no-fault evictions – is critical, and increased support for low-income earners is long overdue.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/why-have-australian-house-prices-…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Federal Government, Housing market, No-grounds evictions, State Government.Life on the public housing waitlist: ‘A never-ending hell’
Josephine Franks (No paywall)There are many nights when Teressa Obrien huddles under a pile of blankets with her cat and cries herself to sleep. It’s been five years since the 57-year-old first put her name on the social housing register. During lockdown, her damp one-bed Richmond flat became a “prison”. She was constantly breathing in the smell of mould, unable to open the sealed windows to let in fresh air. There’s no heater, and with holes rotted through the windowsills and high ceilings, no point in getting one. Instead she relies on the electric blanket her daughter bought her. ... She has no idea when she might get placed. Her priority rating is A17, with A20 the highest. Her doctors have written supporting letters about her health conditions – she has fibromyalgia and stress-induced cardiomyopathy – but to “no avail”. “It just seems like a never-ending hell,” she said. The latest figures show the public housing waitlist hit a new record high of 24,474 in June, about three times what it was three years ago.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/126261307/life-on-the-public-ho…
# International, Public and community housing.Renters, landlords in limbo after COVID crashes dispute tribunal
Tammy Mills The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Thousands of Victorian renters and landlords are in limbo and unable to get a tribunal hearing to sort out disputes, including over bonds, due to disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic. Organisations that represent both renters and real estate agents say the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal is in immediate need of more funding and staff to address the delays, with the tribunal wrestling a mammoth task to move its antiquated system online. ... Though urgent cases involving critical repairs, family violence, extreme hardship, evictions and substantial rent arrears are prioritised, Tenants Victoria and the Real Estate Institute say disputes over bonds and compensation – of which there’s at least 10,000 in the system – take months to be dealt with, or in many cases, are not given a hearing date at all.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/renters-landlords-in-li…
# Australia, Bond, Tribunal NCAT, State Government.New housing model could help three-quarters of homeless people into jobs
Tim Clark Inside Housing (Paywall)A study by De Montfort University found that the new model, called F2W, could help 53,000 rough sleepers into work and potentially save £601m in government homelessness funding.
The scheme was created by Elmbridge-based charity Rentstart and sponsored by housing and social justice charity Commonweal Housing. The study unveiled the results of a five-year pilot project which aimed to break the cycle of homelessness for dozens of individuals in Elmbridge, Surrey. The model provided supported housing, a matched deposit saving scheme and wrap-around employment support to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/new-housing-model-coul…
# International, Public and community housing, Homelessness.