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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. 

Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.

See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.

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Archive

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Key topics

At least 2.6 million people face poverty when COVID payments end and rental stress soars

Simone Casey and Liss Ralston
The Conversation (No paywall)

Many Australians whose jobs were decimated by the COVID business shutdowns will soon be waking up to new income shocks and the prospect of rental stress. This is because people whose employers can’t afford to keep them on will suddenly lose more than A$300 per week when the JobKeeper scheme ends on March 28. Worryingly, this income shock will happen just days before the payment to people on the JobSeeker benefit is effectively cut by $100 per fortnight.

https://theconversation.com/at-least-2-6-million-people-face-pov…

# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Welfare.
 

Urban productivity and affordable rental housing supply in Australian cities and regions

Nicole Gurran and others
AHURI (No paywall)

This study examined relationships between urban productivity and affordable rental housing, focusing particularly on the location and availability of affordable rental housing relative to employment and labour markets in Australia’s capital cities and satellite cities. ... The research found that over two decades, the nation’s shortage of affordable dwellings available for low income households in the private rental sector has continued to increase. The shortage is most acute in inner and middle ring areas which offer higher accessibility to greater concentrations of employment opportunities. Consequently, low income renters are either enduring affordability stress, commuting burdens, or both to access employment opportunities.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#inbox/WhctKJWQkpZghcbVXw…

# Research alert Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Housing market, Regional NSW.
 

As home ownership falls, it’s time to make housing a human right in Australia

Josh Burns
The New Daily (No paywall)

Australia’s housing sector is broken. The prospects of entering the housing market as young Australian, as a woman or as a single worker is grim. Power imbalances are rife between renters and landlords. There is a massive shortage of social housing stock and the current crisis accommodation arrangements are leaving too many on the streets. But perhaps, the most frustrating part of all of that is lack of ambition by the Federal Government to do anything meaningful about it. Housing policy has been put in the ‘too hard basket’ for too long and it is time that we made a fundamental shift in how we think about and tackle the issues in Australia’s housing sector.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/202…

# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market, Human rights, Tax.
 

Australia faces shortfall of 173,000 homes affordable to low-income earners: research

Melissa Heagney
Domain (Paywall)

As Australia’s housing affordability worsens, the flood of people to regional cities is adding more pressure to renters on a low income, new research shows. It’s a problem that looks to be growing as the coronavirus pandemic saw thousands of renters and buyers flee the cities to find a new home in regional areas with more room to breathe. ... The research discovered critical shortages in these rentals for low-income earners, showing that even before the coronavirus pandemic, there was a need for 173,000 more affordable homes and units nationwide. The largest number of those — about 60,000 — were in Sydney where 71 per cent of all lower-income earners in private rentals were paying rent they could not afford.

https://www.domain.com.au/news/australia-faces-shortfall-of-1730…

# Research alert Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Coronavirus COVID-19.
 

Fitter, calmer and healthier – are pets the secret to longevity?

Joanna Webber
The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)

If you live in one of Australia’s 5.9 million pet households, you’ll already know how much affection, humour and joy animals can offer. What beats coming home to the slobbery welcome of a tail-wagging woofie or snuggling up with a softly purring puss after a stressful day? The unconditional love pets provide their human companions not only makes us feel good, it’s also physically beneficial. Numerous studies have shown that keeping pets – especially dogs and cats – improves cardiovascular fitness, could help control cholesterol and blood pressure, and reduces stress, loneliness and depression.

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/fitter-calm…

# Australia, Pets.
 

Behind the wall: When the levee breaks

Michael Slezak and Penny Timms
ABC (No paywall)

The Warragamba Dam wall needs to be raised to help prevent the devastating floods seen in Sydney this week — but there is a cost upstream too. ... With a higher dam wall, thousands of hectares of unique World Heritage bushland will be flooded, and according to government documents obtained by the ABC much of that will be severely damaged. Thousands of sites of Aboriginal importance are also in the development’s path. The United Nations World Heritage Committee has warned the project would threaten the World Heritage status of the Blue Mountains, risking what’s known as its “Outstanding Universal Values”. And traditional owners have compared it to a potential Juukan Gorge catastrophe.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-27/warragamba-dam-raising-to…

# Hot topic NSW, Heritage listings, Housing market, Human rights, International, Planning and development, State Government.
 

Loving the idea of tiny house living, even if you don’t live in one

Heather Shearer and Paul Burton
The Conversation (No paywall)

Despite early forecasts of a COVID-driven slump, house prices are now surging in many parts of Australia. This is further widening the gap between the housing “haves” and “have-nots”, and we are seeing related rises in housing stress, rental insecurity and homelessness. In Australia and elsewhere a movement has emerged that supports tiny house living as an important response to the housing affordability crisis. ... Yet, to date, research begun in 2014 shows no appreciable increase in Australia in the proportion of people actually living in tiny houses, including the archetypal tiny houses on wheels.

https://theconversation.com/loving-the-idea-of-tiny-house-living…

# Australia, Affordable housing, Housing market.
 

New Zealand's housing market is even worse than Australia. But at least their government is taking action

Greg Jericho
The Guardian (No paywall)

The Ardern government is taking on speculators and investors. But there seems little chance of such changes here

https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2021/mar/28/i…

# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing market, International, Landlords and agents, Tax.
 

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