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
NYC’s affordable housing lottery a ‘mythic’ option for many homeless residents as wait times jump
David Brand Gothamist (No paywall)New York City’s homeless shelter population is swelling, but one method for moving people into permanent housing is taking longer than ever to complete.
The median timeline for shelter residents moving into city-financed apartments reserved for them has nearly doubled since 2020, according to city data.
Last year, it took about seven months for someone to move into those apartments after the approval process, the annual mayor’s management report shows. But in the 2020 fiscal year, it took less than four months. That timeline is considered to be a "critical indicator" of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development's performance.
https://gothamist.com/news/nycs-affordable-housing-lottery-a-myt…
# Hot topic International, Public and community housing, International, Planning and development.NYC Has More Housing Than Ever Before Yet It’s Still Not Affordable
Cate Corcoran The Brownstoner (USA) (No paywall)Can we build our way out of an affordable housing crisis? Developers, elected officials, policy experts, and others say more housing is needed to keep pace with a growing population and bring down prices.
But a look at historic data shows New York City today has more homes per person than in any decade since 1940, the earliest year for which figures are available. Yet housing is more unaffordable than ever.
The data suggests that merely adding units alone won’t solve the problem.
https://www.brownstoner.com/real-estate-market/affordable-housin…
# Hot topic International, Housing market, International, Planning and development.The Overhead: Evictions
Spacing Radio Spacing (CA) (No paywall)Spacing and the Balanced Supply of Housing research node proudly present The Overhead: Understanding Canada’s Affordable Housing Crisis, a special podcast series.
Evictions can completely upend your life. At best, you have to begin the search for a new home in an increasingly expensive and competitive housing market. At worst, you can’t find an affordable replacement. It’s a scary situation, even in the best circumstances.
http://spacing.ca/national/2023/06/09/the-overhead-evictions/
# Hot topic, Audio International, Eviction, Housing affordability, International.Gove slams housebuilders hoarding almost a million plots of land as ‘completely unacceptable’
Vicky Spratt and David Parsley itv News (Paywall)Housing secretary Michael Gove has slammed developers for sitting on land rather than building new homes after an investigation by i found they are hoarding more than a million building plots.
Known as land banking, the practice has led to calls from politicians and experts to force developers to increase construction numbers, be taxed on unused land, or face compulsory purchase orders in an effort to increase construction and ease the UK’s worsening housing crisis.
The calls come as new home completions have hit a 15-year low.
https://inews.co.uk/news/gove-slams-housebuilders-hoarding-almos…
# Hot topic International, Housing affordability, International, Planning and development.London renting: 'I can't rent anywhere affordable as a single mum'
Tarah Welsh BBC (No paywall)Blanket bans on renting to people with children will be outlawed when the Renters Reform Bill comes in to effect, but it is an issue that still very much exists and one that is even preventing some families from viewing certain properties.
For the past 16 months, an exasperated Sharon Morey has been keeping a video diary as she searches for a two-bedroom property to rent for her and her 10-year-old daughter.
"It's so stressful, it really, really is, I just want a home," she tells me. "I just need my own space."
"Having a home is a basic."
In the time Sharon's been searching for a property in Biggin Hill, rents have gone up.
Enough Already: Beyond the YIMBY-NIMBY Divide
Ian Volner The Baffler (No paywall)MAYBE IT WAS the unseasonable warmth in New York this winter, but it does feel as though the discourse around affordable housing has become just a touch overheated of late—like surface-of-Mercury, gas-station-coffee, control-rods-jammed-in-reactor-Number-Four hot. There have been threats and counterthreats; posts have been deleted, accounts banned. A little sampling of recent blue-bird chatter, just for flavor: “psychotic YIMBcels”; “Frankly sickening nimby”; “YIMBY clowns”; “First time to sit tomorrow with a NIMBY. Any tips other than violence?” It gets worse from there. The dispute between, on the one hand, advocates of housing development as a means to bring down prices (at least for renters), and those who favor sweeping regulations on the other, has come to resemble a wonkish, extremely online sequel to the Hatfields and the McCoys, right down to the prevalence of beards among the principal antagonists. Of course, this time around, what’s at stake is a lot bigger than swilling moonshine.
# Hot topic International, Affordable housing, International, Planning and development.The economic case for affordable housing
Gerald Koessl Social Europe (No paywall)Much applied economic analysis and policy-making in recent decades has been based on the belief that under (perfect) market conditions unregulated markets lead to the best economic outcomes, in terms of the allocation of products and services to society at large. Developments in the housing market—and in particular the crisis of affordability—have however placed a big question-mark against this assumption.
The impacts of the housing crisis are no longer felt only by those households struggling with its cost but also by the economy as a whole. As a recent report from the European Commission explains, inflated house prices and rents can lead to a misallocation of resources, away from productive (job-creating) investments towards unproductive assets.
https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-economic-case-for-affordable-hou…
# Hot topic International, Affordable housing, International, Planning and development.Minns to turbocharge Sydney’s density with affordable housing bonuses for developers
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Developers will be given stronger incentives to build higher, denser housing developments that override local environment plans under the Labor government’s first major reform to help solve Sydney’s housing affordability crisis.
Premier Chris Minns will on Thursday unveil a suite of incentives for large private developments containing at least 15 per cent “affordable housing” – that is, homes typically offered at 20-25 per cent below the market rate for 15 years, often managed by not-for-profits.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/minns-to-turbocharge-sydney-…
# Hot topic, New policy announcement NSW, Campaigns and law reform, Planning and development, State Government.