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
Calls for Tasmania's public housing waiting list to be addressed
Adam Langenberg ABC (No paywall)Jason Brown has been on the public housing waiting list for almost three years. He has lived with an acquired brain injury and injuries to his shoulders, neck and back after he was hit by a car 13 years ago. He has been couch surfing and sleeping rough in his car in the greater Hobart area for almost the last two years. Sleeping in his car has worsened an already agonising wait. ... Mr Brown said he had been offered temporary places at multiple emergency and short-term accommodations, but had to turn them down because they won't allow him to take his dog, Billie.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-30/tas-calls-for-homeless-cr…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Pets.Pop goes the rental
Saul Eslake (No paywall)Australia is in the middle of a 30-year property bubble. It is a bubble inflated by government policy, and every time it looks as if it might burst, governments rush to blow it up further. All bubbles pop eventually, but few are maintained as carefully as this one. ... Sadly, there’s no reason to think that political calculus is going to change. Nor, therefore, are the housing policies that have created the system Australia has today. (The Saturday Paper)
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2021/07/23/pop…
# Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Tax.The eviction moratorium is about to expire – and the situation is dire
Emily Benfer and Peter Hepburn The Guardian (No paywall)From the United States ... Over 10 million tenants are behind on rent, and only a fraction of the emergency assistance allocated by Congress has made it to tenants and landlords ... At the end of this week, the federal moratorium protecting renters in the US from eviction will end. As the Delta variant of Covid-19 spreads quickly across the country, and with vaccination rates still low in many areas at highest risk of eviction, millions of families could lose the safe haven of their homes. A surge in evictions will have dire public health consequences, but it could still be avoided. Also, check another story in The Guardian entitled: "US states brace for "avalanche" of evictions as federal moratorium ends' by Amanda Holpuch at: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/29/eviction-moratorium-expiration-renters]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/29/the-evicti…
# Hot topic International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Health, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Juanita Nielsen's suspected murder brought Arthur King back to Kings Cross after his terrifying ordeal
Michael Dulaney ABC (No paywall)Arthur [King] had organised a group of about 50 neighbours to oppose a developer's plans to knock down their homes on Victoria Street in Kings Cross. The fight to save their street was costing some powerful and dangerous people a lot of money. It would ultimately be linked with the suspected murder of Arthur's neighbour, high-profile journalist Juanita Nielsen. Some of Arthur's neighbours entered his apartment and found him missing, the bedroom in disarray and a desk chair thrown on the bed. (ABC Radio National)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-31/juanita-nielsen-murder-ca…
# History NSW, Campaigns and law reform, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Peter Khalil warns of Covid's unequal impact after Blacktown apartment lockdown
Finn McHugh (No paywall)As restrictions thaw across most of Australia, NSW is settling in for a grim winter. The state confirmed another 172 cases on Tuesday, its biggest single-day increase since the outbreak began, as the virus continued to seep through Sydney's strict lockdown. And authorities are facing a balancing act: containing the highly-infectious Delta strain, while avoiding slapping draconian measures on already marginalised groups. The task is complicated by the fact the most disadvantaged are the most likely to work multiple jobs or in frontline services, and live in high-density settings where the virus flourishes. Labor MP Peter Khalil, who grew up in Melbourne social housing, warned they had already borne the brunt of the pandemic. (The Canberra Times)
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7358761/delta-strain-has-…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19.Regional house price growth in Australian towns reaches dizzying new heights
Sue Williams and Maeve McGregor Domain (No paywall)Regional Australia is continuing its dizzying house price growth, with a jump of 4.5 per cent this last quarter alone, and a spectacular 12.5 per cent rise over the past year, latest figures show. It’s being driven by tree- and sea-changers leaving the cities for the main lifestyle areas of the country, either to relocate completely or to buy second homes.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/regional-house-price-growth-reach…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Regional NSW.Australian house prices: Grim picture for housing affordability as pandemic prices skyrocket
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Australian housing prices are booming, with six capital cities hitting record highs for the past three consecutive quarters. ... But there’s a grim flipside: the old chestnut of housing affordability and the prospect that many young people in Australia’s largest cities might never afford their own home.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/australian-house-prices-grim-pict…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Young people.The ruthless decision Albanese had to make
David Crowe The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers decided months ago to use the dead of winter to drop Labor’s old tax policies into a deep crevasse so they could lighten their load on the march to the next election.There is a cost to Labor’s new pragmatism. ... [And] by sacrificing its negative gearing plan, the party has given up a costed policy that was welcomed by many economists as a curb on property speculation. Now it has no answer to the 60 per cent of voters who think younger Australians will never be able to buy their own homes.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-ruthless-decision-al…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Tax.