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
Indigenous public housing tenants fight to end no-grounds eviction in WA
Aaron Bunch National Indigenous Times (No paywall)Two Supreme Court legal challenges in Western Australia could end no-grounds evictions for public housing tenants. Lawyers for two Indigenous public housing tenants will argue the Department of Communities' use of no-grounds evictions and fixed-term public housing tenancies denies procedural fairness and is legally unreasonable. The outcome could have ramifications for more than 1000 public housing tenants on fixed-term tenancies, all of whom could be evicted from their home with no-grounds evictions. Lawyer Kate Davis says WA is the only Australian jurisdiction still using no-grounds evictions against public housing tenants. "We've got a real problem in this state of evictions of families from public housing and the consequences are devastating," she told reporters on Friday. Ms Davis said more than half of the public housing tenants on fixed-term tenancies evicted without grounds were Indigenous.
https://nit.com.au/20-04-2024/10940/indigenous-public-housing-te…
# Must read Australia, Aboriginal renters, Eviction, Rent.‘Property poetry’? Real estate ads and literature have more in common than you might think
Amelia Dale The Conversation (No paywall)A few years ago, I turned some real estate advertisements into poems by adding line breaks:
Fantastic views of the beach, ocean; headland and hinterland; you can see the Haven; you look straight up; the green grass of the Skillion. I was interested, among other things, in asking what happens when we compare the language of real estate copy with more obvious forms of poetry. If you read a real estate ad with the same attention you might bestow on a poem you can observe how it deploys metre, metaphor, and the tropes of landscape poetry. You can note how some advertisements directly reference the sublime or the picturesque, and how others open with a rhyming couplet.
https://theconversation.com/property-poetry-real-estate-ads-and-…
# Australia, Rent.Renters using Facebook Marketplace to find property risk 'disturbing tactics' and scams
Gemma Ferguson ABC (No paywall)When Sarah* secured a sizeable south-east Queensland property for a bargain price on Facebook Marketplace, she had no idea of the nightmare that would follow. Less than two months after moving in, she was woken by strangers knocking on her door at 11pm. "They looked for multiple entrances to get into the property," she said. "The next day, the people came back again." It all began when a paperwork error led her to renting a four-bedroom house with a study, two patios and a spacious garage for just $115 a week in Springfield Lakes, west of Brisbane. The 30-year-old US national found the vacancy on social media and, after facing Sydney's competitive rental market, was planning to share it with a housemate.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-19/qld-facebook-marketplace-…
# Hot topic Australia, Security and safety.As 190,000 households wait for social housing, application numbers are only increasing
Josh Nicholas The Guardian (No paywall)Almost 190,000 households are stuck on social housing waiting lists amid Australia’s housing crisis, according to Guardian Australia analysis of state and territory data. In December there were about 60,000 applications for social housing in Victoria and 57,000 in New South Wales. Queensland had more than 22,000 applications and Western Australia more than 19,000. Smaller states and territories including the Northern Territory, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory had more than 5,000, 4,000 and 3,000 applications respectively. In March South Australia had more than 15,000 social housing applications.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2024/apr/18/as-1…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing, Rent.Bed bugs and cockroaches: the legal battle over conditions in a Melbourne community housing block
Benita Kolovos The Guardian (No paywall)First, there were cockroaches. Then bed bugs. Then came the anger. After years of battling pest infestations at a once-celebrated community housing block just outside Melbourne’s CBD, resident Jack Kramme says he’s had enough. “Initially, I was so grateful to have a secure place to live so I really didn’t care what was going on,” he tells Guardian Australia. “But, to be frank, I’m getting too old for this shit.” After a four-year battle, the 36-year-old has had a win in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Vcat), where it was found his housing provider, Unison, had breached its obligations to keep the Elizabeth Street apartment building in good repair.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/19/elizabeth…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Repairs.Housing Minister John Carey defends social housing eviction record as Supreme Court action launched
Jake Dietsch The West (No paywall)Housing Minister John Carey has defended the Government’s record on social housing evictions as a Supreme Court action challenging the Department of Communities’ ability to evict public housing tenants without grounds begins. The court action — launched Friday by legal centres Circle Green and SCALES on behalf of tenants facing eviction — seeks to bar the Department from issuing no-fault termination notices for tenants in public housing. One of the cases concerns Aboriginal man Barry Garlett, who is arguing his no-grounds eviction denied him “procedural fairness” and therefore his termination notice is invalid.
https://thewest.com.au/news/court-justice/housing-minister-john-…
# Australia, Rent.Build-to-rent increases pressure for law reform to underpin new housing
Carolyn Cummins The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Build-to-rent developers and industry policymakers are applying the blowtorch on all layers of government to get legislative reform for the burgeoning sector strong enough to attract much-needed investment. While the planned reforms are still being refined, build-to-rent projects are being touted as going a long way to help alleviate the housing shortage. The multifamily sector, as it’s known overseas, is still in its infancy in Australia and has become a sought-after asset class globally. Developers such as Mirvac, Lendlease, Greystar and Novus are active in the Australian market where they build apartment towers and rent the units instead of selling.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/build-to-rent-ups-pres…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Does ‘virtue signaling’ pay off for entrepreneurs? We studied 81,799 Airbnb listings to find out
Jacob A. Waddingham, Jeff Chandler & Marcus Wolfe The Conversation (No paywall)The next time you’re searching through Airbnb listings, you may find there’s more to consider than just amenities and price. To stand out from the competition, some Airbnb hosts tout their personal values – such as integrity, empathy and conscientiousness – in listings for their properties. This sort of display has been called “virtue signaling.” Although the phrase can be derisive, we’re using it here as a neutral description of a business tactic: Virtue signalling happens when a business entity communicates to a target audience that it has a purpose beyond providing a service for profit.
https://theconversation.com/does-virtue-signaling-pay-off-for-en…
# Hot topic International, Rent.