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
Disabled woman given eviction notice as sister was reputational risk, royal commission told
Josh Dye The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The chief executive of a disability service provider that tried to evict a client says the action was taken because the client’s sister – who made several complaints – risked damaging the organisation’s reputation, the disability royal commission has heard. Sunnyfield Disability Services chief executive Caroline Cuddihy fronted the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability in Sydney on Wednesday after two days of testimony from family members of Sunnyfield clients.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/disabled-woman-given-eviction-no…
# NSW, Eviction, Disability.Why Noosa can't dump 'junk' houseboats enjoying million-dollar views for free
Jacqui Street, Amy Sheehan, Sheridan Stewart, and Tessa Mapstone ABC (No paywall)The Noosa community is fuming as hundreds of boat owners exploit a loophole in Queensland marine laws and anchor "old junk" houseboats in front of premium waterfront real estate. ... [But] Some Noosa residents are reluctant to demand the vessels be moved on or scrapped, concerned that Queenslanders were living on the water amid a dire shortage of rental properties. They include boat owner Haykey Kaariainen, who was moored in the river waiting for new sails before heading north.
"I'm technically homeless," he said. "Either my van or my boat is my home."
Country councils sell up public land for houses to tackle crisis
Benjamin Preiss The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Regional and rural councils will take out loans for their own social housing projects and are selling off public land to make way for property developments in response to soaring house prices and rents in regional Victoria.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/regional-councils-in-ne…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Housing market, Local Government.How a town Tony Abbott described as having the worst housing in Australia is changing the game
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Housing in the four town camps was overcrowded, the water was contaminated and toilets and plumbing were failing. When former prime minister Tony Abbott visited Borroloola in 2018, he said the housing was “The worst I’ve seen anywhere in remote Australia”. ... [Today] Welcome to Indi Kindi, an outdoor walking-learning early years program that travels from the bush to the river and local library. It’s led and taught by local Aboriginal people - and now a review of the Moriarty Foundation’s program has found it has bridged the gap in early childhood education by reaching 80 per cent of Indigenous preschool-aged children in Borroloola and nearby Robinson River on the Gulf of Carpentaria.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-a-town-tony-abbott-described…
# Australia, Race and ethnicity.Housing, home ownership and the governance of ageing
Emma R Power (No paywall)'Active ageing’ has become core to ageing policy internationally. This paper argues that housing, and specifically home purchase, is fundamental to the governance of active ageing in liberal welfare states such as Australia, the UK, the US and Canada. Specifically, the paper expands understanding of how neoliberally inflected active ageing agendas are advanced in conjunction with housing consumption, and builds new knowledge of the governance of asset-based welfare, the investor subject, and housing marginality, showing how these practices and identities are governed temporally through ideas about what it means to age well. Arguments are advanced through analysis of Australian government ageing and age-connected housing strategies in the 20 years to 2015. These strategies construct three key connections between housing and ageing. First, housing is framed as a base (or location) for active ageing, with secure, appropriate and affordable housing depicted as enabling participation. Second, home ownership is positioned as an individual responsibility. In this framing home ownership becomes a ‘ choice’ and means through which individuals can demonstrate responsibility by self-insuring against the fiscal risks of older age. Third, home ownership is connected to the activation of ideal ageing identities by enabling home owners as productive agers (the home as a form of income) and active consumers (home as a resource to fund prudential and age-defying consumption in older age). Significantly, in framing home ownership as an individual responsibility and choice the importance of structural factors shaping housing access are downplayed. This is a question of key geographical significance, foregrounding an interlinked agenda of not just how, but where, ageing should take place. (The Geographical Journal)
https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/geoj.12…
# Research alert Australia, Home ownership, Housing market, Human rights, Older people.Charles Koch funded eviction push while investing in real estate companies
Andrew Perez and David Sirota The Guardian (No paywall)From the United States ... Billionaire Charles Koch’s foundation has bankrolled three conservative legal groups leading the court battle to eliminate prohibitions against tenant evictions during the Covid-19 pandemic in America. At the same time, Koch’s corporate empire has suddenly stepped up its real estate purchases during the pandemic – including making large investments in real estate companies with a potential financial interest in eliminating eviction restrictions.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/21/charles-koch-fou…
# International, Eviction, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Disability royal commission hears of eviction attempt on severely disabled woman
Josh Dye The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A Sydney-based disability care provider is under scrutiny by the disability royal commission over allegations of physical abuse and neglect of vulnerable clients under its care. ... The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability heard on Monday that in June 2018 Sunnyfield sought to terminate their agreement with Melissa. The eviction notice, which would have rendered Melissa homeless, was issued because of an ongoing dispute with Melissa’s older sister and legal guardian Eliza.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/disability-royal-commission-hear…
# NSW, Eviction, Disability.ParentsNext program leaves single parents wondering about next steps to secure rental properties
Gladys Serugga ABC (No paywall)Single parents on a federal government income support program say mandatory reporting requirements introduced this year are locking them out of the housing market. Bridie Stirling has moved four times in eight months with her four-year-old son. She said a lack of rental vacancies in regional Australia, and the stigma associated with income support linked to a parenting employment program, had left her struggling to break into the market.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-24/single-parents-say-parent…
# Australia, Rent, Federal Government, Housing market, Welfare, Women, Work, employment.