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
Bailiff evictions of renting households at six-year high, says MoJ
Robert Booth The Guardian (No paywall)Bailiffs are evicting more renting households than at any time in the last six years, the Ministry of Justice has said, as protesters chanted for rent controls outside the HQ of Britain’s biggest listed private landlord. More than 100 members of the London Renters Union (LRU) set off red and blue smoke canisters as they descended on the glass and steel office of the property firm Grainger, which rents out more than 10,000 homes in the UK bringing in a 28% pretax profit margin on nearly £100m a year in rent. MoJ figures released on Thursday showed county court bailiffs evicted 2,682 households in England and Wales in the first three months of this year as a result of landlords issuing section 21 “no fault” eviction notices. This was the highest level since the start of 2017 despite the government first promising to end the practice in April 2019.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/16/bailiff-…
# Hot topic International, .New report for the Labour Party recommends vital changes to the private rented sector
Nationwide Foundation (No paywall)Last year, the Labour Party commissioned Stephen Cowan to review the private rented sector and recommend a framework for improving renters’ rights and raise standards. On Wednesday (15 May), this crucial independent report was published. The report sets out a vision for changes to the private rented sector, going beyond what is currently proposed in the Renters (Reform) Bill, and seeking to take a more holistic approach to addressing issues across the PRS. We met with Mr Cowan as he was preparing the report and shared a range of evidence from our funded partners. We’re pleased to see our insights and recommendations referenced throughout, as well as references to our funded projects, including our Affordable Housing Commission work, research completed by Julie Rugg, and the Renters Reform Coalition.
https://nationwidefoundation.org.uk/new-labour-report-recommends…
# Legal significance International, Rent.The Notting Hill slums where I grew up were replaced by social housing – but right to buy wrecked it
John Bird The Guardian (No paywall)I write in response to your article (Something is stirring in England: right to buy looks imperilled, and not a moment too soon, 12 May). Whoever wins the election will face a housing crisis that is not easy to fathom a way out of. Right to buy, along with buy-to-let mortgages, has created wealth for some at the expense of others. Social renters and “Generation Rent” are left out of the equation. I was born into the slummiest part of London’s Notting Hill. So slummy that it could not be saved for the middle-class colonisation of Notting Hill that overran the former poor housing stock and transformed it to a romcom film set. In the 1970s, the local authority pulled down not just our house but our street, and the streets around it, replacing it with a large social housing estate.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/16/the-nott…
# Hot topic, History International, Public and community housing, Rent.Landlord fails in Tenancy Tribunal bid to evict disabled car crash victim
Jeremy Wilkinson NZ Herald (No paywall)A landlord has failed in their attempt to evict a cognitively impaired car crash victim for failing to keep his rented house clean. The social housing provider, which specialises in providing accommodation for those with mental health and addiction issues, hoped to kick the man out despite not having anywhere else for him to live. The provider took the man to the Tenancy Tribunal earlier this year hoping to have him evicted after he failed multiple inspections and ignored orders to clean the house. The tenant, who had lived in the two-bedroom unit in Waikato since 2018 without incident, was involved in a car accident in 2021 and suffered a serious head injury.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/landlord-fails-in-tenancy-tribunal…
# Must read International, Discrimination.California college students experiencing homelessness speak out
CBS News (No paywall)VIDEO: California: College can be stressful with studying and meeting deadlines, but some students are struggling with a different issue: housing. Federal data shows more than 1.5 million college students in the U.S are homeless, highlighting the nations affordable housing crisis. The situation is even more dire in California, where 10% of California State University students are experiencing homelessness. Here’s how some of them are dealing with it.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/california-college-students-experi…
# Video International, Security and safety.Suburbs that renters could afford with the budget’s extra help
Jim Malo The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Tenants receiving the to-be-expanded Commonwealth Rent Assistance payment will have scant options when looking for affordable properties, even after the payment goes up later this year. The expanded payment will mean its recipients will be able to afford rent for a typical home in just two suburbs around the country, but only if they spend 40 per cent of their income on rent. The two towns – Cobar, 700 kilometres from Sydney, and Millicent, 400 kilometres from Adelaide – have median asking rents for units of $200 a week, on Domain data. They are the two cheapest analysed suburbs for renters in the country.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/suburbs-that-renters-could-…
# Must read, Hot topic Australia, .These Melburnians dreamed of a ‘communal approach’ to housing. The local council had other ideas
Benita Kolovos The Guardian (No paywall)When a group of Melburnians banded together with a plan to build their dream homes, they did not envision the barriers they would face from local council. The proposed development of 21 townhouses overlooking a creek in Eltham, on Melbourne’s fringe, promised environmentally-conscious design, plenty of shared space and respect for heritage and the local neighbourhood. According to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, it was the type of project that “could and should have been supported and fast-tracked”, an “exemplar of an innovative approach” to dealing with the state’s housing crisis. Instead, the Brougham Street co-housing project was “met with substantial delays and opposition” from the local Nillumbik Shire council and residents group, in what VCAT said was a growing issue across the state.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/12/m…
# Hot topic Australia, .What's the link between low rental vacancy rates, housing crises, and unoccupied home taxes?
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)Last week's federal budget included a special chapter on Australia's housing crisis. It was 42 pages long, and contained over 20 graphs, with Treasury officials taking time to explain the problems in our housing system. One graph showed Australia's rental vacancy rate hit a record low recently. But what is the vacancy rate actually signifying? If you think it's telling you about the total stock of rental properties in Australia's housing markets, that's not quite right. 'Vacancy' and 'unoccupied' are not the same thing. To visualise what we're talking about, this is the graph Treasury officials used in the budget to show the decline in rental vacancy rate. They say the number of dwellings available for rent has been falling in Australia since early 2020.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-19/housing-crisis-low-rental…
# Must read Australia, .