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
Philosophy Espresso: The ethics of landlords
Damon Young ABC (No paywall)Philosopher Damon Young presents a second season of short reflections on everyday life, examining a range of everyday issue like why we get upset when children swear, whether diets foolish and what it means to truly love your neighbours. This episode ponders the ethical obligations of landlords to their tenants.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/philos…
# Audio Australia, Human rights, Landlords and agents.To return to the office or not? How your choice could change the shape of our cities
Alison Cheung (Paywall)Australian cities are at a critical juncture, with changing demands and expectations from workers and inner-city residents in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis set to dictate what our urban landscapes look like for generations to come, planning experts say. (commercialrealestate.com.au)
https://www.commercialrealestate.com.au/news/to-return-to-the-of…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Planning and development.The People the Suburbs Were Built for Are Gone
Shayla Love (No paywall)From the United States ... But the suburbs, in the sense of the idyllic American pastoral Trump and Carson referenced, have been changing for some time—not necessarily the physical homes, stores, roads, and offices that populate them, but the people who live there, along with their needs and desires. Read on ... (Vice)
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3gx5b/the-people-the-suburbs-we…
# International, Housing market, Planning and development.There is a vaccine against homelessness: It's called affordable social housing
Juha Kaakinen (No paywall)When the current COVID-19 epidemic really hit the world and was recognized as a pandemic, most countries sooner or later launched a simple advice or order of prevention: Stay at home. A simple and effective measure of precaution for those lucky ones who have a home, but not for the people experiencing homelessness. (OECD Forum Network)
https://www.oecd-forum.org/posts/there-is-a-vaccine-against-home…
# International, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Housing market.Labour government: Prioritising the interests of middle-class landlords over struggling working class tenants
John Minto (No paywall)From New Zealand ... Yesterday’s government announcement on new state housing is a pathetic response to the biggest housing crisis in New Zealand since the 1940s. At a time when the country needs an industrial-scale state house building programme, the government building just 1,600 new state houses per year – the same number built by National in its last term. ... The last time we had a housing crisis this big – in the late 1940s – a Labour government built 10,000 state houses per year. 75 years later Labour can only manage 1,600 per year. Pitiful. (The Daily Blog)
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/01/22/labour-government-prioriti…
# New policy announcement International, Public and community housing.Budget to give extra boost to public housing as report shows decline
Ian Bushnell (No paywall)The number of public housing properties in the ACT has declined during the past decade despite a growing population and a property boom that has forced more people into an increasingly unaffordable rental market with the highest rents in the country. ... Social welfare advocates estimate the ACT now has a shortfall of 3000 public and social housing properties, and 1600 homeless people, although the ACT Government estimates there are only about 50 who are sleeping rough. (RiotAct)
https://the-riotact.com/budget-to-give-extra-boost-to-public-hou…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Homelessness.Caravan communities: older, underinsured and overexposed to cyclones, storms and disasters
Jonatan A Lassa The Conversation (No paywall)Communities living at the margins are often more vulnerable to disaster risk, a problem likely to be exacerbated by climate change. ... People with long-term tenure at caravan parks likely experience higher levels of disadvantage than the population as a whole; many are unemployed or in lower paying jobs, and contending with serious health issues.
https://theconversation.com/caravan-communities-older-underinsur…
# Must read Australia, Land lease communities, Climate change, Housing market.Australian housing system ‘broken’ with more than half of low-income renters facing rental stress
Christopher Knaus The Guardian (No paywall)Demand for homelessness services has soared with more than half of all low-income renters facing rental stress, a new report shows, prompting warnings about the looming cuts to the jobseeker payment. The Productivity Commission’s report on government services, released on Wednesday, found no progress has been made in improving access to homelessness support or rental stress in the past decade.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jan/20/australia…
# Must read, Research alert Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.