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
Flexible designs for multi-generational homes
Matilda Marozzi ABC (No paywall)While Alf Lee is in the privileged position to have bought property, he doesn't think his kids will be so lucky given the soaring house prices in Melbourne. So when it was decided his ageing parents would sell their house and move in with Alf, his wife Emma and their two children, the family wanted to create a home where the three generations could continue to live together — with privacy — as their lives change.
"My parents don't want to feel as though they've lost their independence," Alf says. (ABC Everyday)
https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/designing-multi-generational-hom…
# Australia, Families, Housing market.Meet the landlords forced to bribe tenants to leave properties
Rachel Mortimer and Melissa Lawford (Paywall)I even offered to pay the deposit on a new rental to get rid of them', one buy-to-let investor said ... 'I even offered to pay the deposit on a new rental to get rid of them', one buy-to-let investor said. (The Telegraph)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy-to-let/meet-landlords-f…
# International, Landlords and agents.July 2021 News
Shelter NSW (No paywall)Check out the latest housing news from Shelter NSW:
NAIDOC week
Waterloo South estate renewal proposal - Minister for Planning gives the green light for next stage
Shelter NSW in the news
NSW Budget – horses or houses? Where’s the priority?
NSW Government proposals on public exhibition
Internship at Shelter NSW
Zest Awards
https://mailchi.mp/shelternsw/shelter-nsw-july-ebulletin?e=91e8d…
# NSW, Campaigns and law reform.Plan to make it harder to kick tenants out a ‘breach of human rights’
Felicity Caldwell The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A Greens plan to make it harder for landlords to kick tenants out would breach the Queensland Human Rights Act, Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch claims. But Greens MP Amy MacMahon has dismissed the claims as “nonsense”. ... The Greens’ plan would cap rent increases to once every 24 months by no more than CPI, ban rental bidding, and end “no grounds evictions”, even when a fixed-term contract was due to expire or the owner wanted to sell the property. ... “[End of fixed term] means Queensland families can get kicked out of their homes without good reason,” alliance member and Tenants Queensland chief executive Penny Carr said.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/queensland/plan-to-make-it-harde…
# Hot topic Australia, Eviction, Human rights, No-grounds evictions, State Government.Statement by NSW Labor leader Chris Minns
The Guardian (No paywall)At 14:27 Saturday, 10 July 2021 ... NSW Labor leader Chris Minns has issued a statement calling for a new economic support package to assist businesses through the lockdown. He’s called for rent relief, a tourism support package, and support for workers, among other things. Here's the original Twitter at: [https://twitter.com/MinnsChris/status/1413674737880891395/photo/1]
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2021/jul/10/aust…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.The shifting tides of Australian tourism in the face of COVID-19: A visual analysis through Airbnb
William Thackway and Christopher Pettit City Futures (No paywall)There are many new challenges facing our cities and regions brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic. These include the impact of global mobility and multiple prolonged lockdowns restricting interstate travel since the pandemic reached Australia in March 2020. Consequently, for the year ending December 2020, the number of international visitors to Australia dropped by 80% from 8.7 million tourists in 2019 to 1.7 million in 2020. Concurrently, domestic overnight visitors have fallen by 38% from 117 to 73 million trips. However, while the foreseeable outlook for international travel is bleak, domestic tourism has experienced a comeback, with domestic travel figures for the end of 2020 nearing 2019 rates. So, who have been the winners and losers of this changing travel landscape? To investigate how travel patterns have shifted within Australia, we looked at changes in Airbnb activity in major tourist areas.
https://blogs.unsw.edu.au/cityfutures/blog/2021/07/the-shifting-…
# Australia, Housing market, Short-term holiday letting.Charities warn thousands at risk of returning to the streets as ‘Everyone In’ hotels close
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)More than one thousand people in London are at risk of returning to the streets as emergency accommodation used to house rough sleepers during the pandemic is wound down, charities have warned. Figures published by Homeless Link show that 2,512 individuals are still living in hotels and other emergency accommodation in London following the government’s effort to house rough sleepers during the pandemic in a scheme known as Everyone In. Homeless Link warns that many of these people could end up returning to the streets when the Everyone In programme ends, alongside thousands of others living in hotels across the country. It comes one day after Inside Housing reported that the government told councils to close the hotels they were using to house rough sleepers by the end of June, unless they had a direct agreement with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to keep one open.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/charities-warn-thousan…
# International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.Committed to committal
Giles Peaker (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... This was an appeal by the landlord, Saakib Khan, of an order sentencing him to six months imprisonment for contempt of court for breach of an injunction. The injunction ... was to prevent Saakib Khan from evicting or attempting to evict the tenant and from interfering with his quiet enjoyment of the property and from threatening him with violence or harassing, pestering, or intimidating him. ... The Court of Appeal dismissed the challenge to sentence: 'I have come to the very firm conclusion that, bearing in mind the circumstances and the cynical disregard which the appellant had for the injunction and the court proceedings, though this was a stern sentence, it was not manifestly excessive. The deliberate breach of the terms of the injunction was serious. It had particularly serious consequences in that the respondent and Ms Launders would be rendered homeless during the time of the COVID pandemic. ...' (Nearly Legal: Housing Law News and Comment)
https://nearlylegal.co.uk/2021/07/committed-to-committal/?utm_so…
# Legal significance International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Landlords and agents.