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
‘Terrifying, cold and a lot of loud noises’: Homeless young people falling through safety net
Jewel Topsfield The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Homelessness organisations warn that young homeless people are falling through the gaps, with many existing homelessness services geared towards adults. Melbourne City Mission chief executive Vicki Sutton said a quarter of Victoria’s homeless population were aged between 12 and 24, with 6000 having no safe place to sleep each night. “Despite the alarming number of young people seeking help from homelessness services, they make up only 2.9 per cent of main tenants in current models of social and public housing,” Ms Sutton says.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/terrifying-cold-and-a-l…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Young people.Wall Street is buying up family homes. The rent checks are too juicy to ignore
Hanna Ziady (No paywall)Housing markets are hotter than ever, and big money is getting in on the act. Pension funds, investment firms and Wall Street banks are snapping up family homes in Europe and the United States at a rapid pace as prices rocket higher, looking for alternatives to lockdown-hit office parks and shopping malls, and betting that a permanent increase in remote working following the coronavirus pandemic will keep demand for suburban houses elevated. At the same time, the soaring cost of home ownership means that growing numbers of younger Americans and Brits renting rather than buying houses as they start families and gravitate toward the suburbs. Some of them may find their next landlord is based on Wall Street or in London's financial district. Analysts argue that this will improve standards in the rental sector and offer more choice in desirable neighborhoods. But some tenants who rent from corporate landlords dispute this, alleging substandard services and excessive rent increases. (CNN Business)
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/02/business/family-homes-wall-st…
# International, Rent, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Lockdowns spark city exodus as thousands head to the hills
Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Sydneysiders are abandoning the city in favour of cheaper housing and lockdown-free life in the state’s regions as the coronavirus pandemic up-ends migration around the country. A record net 11,800 people left the nation’s capital cities in the three months to the end of March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Tuesday, with Sydney and Melbourne hit hardest by the pandemic-fuelled drain. ... Of those leaving Sydney, the biggest movement was by people aged between 45 and 64, with a net 2700 ditching the nation’s largest city. They took their children, with a net loss of 2100 people aged under 14.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/lockdowns-spark-city-exo…
# NSW, Housing market, Regional NSW.'Just a nightmare': Calls for more affordable housing to combat growing homelessness in Australia
Biwa Kwan SBS (No paywall)Advocates are calling for federal government intervention to combat the impacts of homelessness in Australia as charities report a surge in demand for their services during the pandemic. At Homelessness Week gets underway, Homelessness Australia says a diminishing provision of affordable housing is pushing more Australians into homelessness, a trend COVID-19 has only exacerbated. ... [CEO Jenny Smith says] "We need urgent government intervention. This problem can be overcome. All it requires is political will."
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/just-a-nightmare-calls-for-more-affo…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Homelessness, Older people, Race and ethnicity, Women.New Zealand commission launches inquiry into ‘massive human rights failure’ on housing
Tess McClure The Guardian (No paywall)New Zealand’s housing crisis has become a “massive human rights failure”, the Human Rights Commission has said, as it launches a national inquiry into the problem. “Successive governments have failed New Zealanders,” chief commissioner Paul Hunt said in a statement as he announced the inquiry. “New Zealand governments have signed up to a critically important human right: the right to a decent home. For generations, they have promised to create the conditions to enable everyone to live in a decent home, but this has not happened.” ... [But the United Nations'] special rapporteur and human rights commission have said it lacks a domestic legal framework establishing and protecting that right. The inquiry will establish a clearer definition of “decent housing” and then make recommendations along those lines. Also, check out the same story at RNZ: [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/448245/human-rights-commission-launches-national-inquiry-into-housing-crisis]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/02/new-zealand-commis…
# International, Rent, Repairs, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Young people.‘One life event away’: Homeless urged to complete the census
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Welfare groups expect next Tuesday’s census to record a significant increase in homelessness, particularly in regional areas because of unemployment and high rents caused by the pandemic. ... Homelessness advocates and welfare groups are working with the Australian Bureau of Statistics to encourage anyone who is homeless - or living in insecure and uncertain housing - to complete the census form accurately. It is the only national record of homelessness. ... Mission Australia’s chief executive James Toomey said contrary to popular belief, only seven per cent of families and people who were homeless were sleeping rough on the streets or in cars. ... At Rev Bill Crews Foundation in Ashfield, staff from the ABS will help visitors lining up for a free meal or the vaccine to complete the census. Rev Crews said the demand for free meals and the need for affordable public housing was “off the charts”. “If I am really blunt, governments know the situation, they really honestly know, they just don’t act upon it,” he said.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/one-life-event-away-homeless-urg…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Health, Homelessness.Climate change: Wales set to build 20,000 low-carbon social homes
Steffan Messenger BBC (No paywall)Plans to build 20,000 low-carbon social homes for rent in Wales by 2026 have been set out by the Welsh government's climate change minister. The hope is to tackle both a housing shortage and the nation's greenhouse gas emissions. Housing associations say it could lead to thousands of jobs and training opportunities. But the Welsh government's opponents have said they would have gone further and built more. All the houses will meet what the government describes as "bold, new quality and environmental standards".
# International, Public and community housing, Climate change, Minimum habitability standards.First-home buyers dropping out of the property market as investors return, new data shows
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)First-home buyers are getting crowded out of the hot property market by stiff competition from investors, downsizers and buyers in between. ... Rising prices have tempted investors back into the market in recent months, attracted by the prospect of future capital growth and the chance to borrow at interest rates that could stay low until 2024. Those same price rises have pushed homeownership further out of reach for some first-home hopefuls, who struggle to save enough to keep up with the increased deposit requirement.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/first-home-buyers-dropping-out-of…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents.