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
Tenancy rights tested in Tasmania after social housing provider changes locks with cat inside
Adam Holmes ABC (No paywall)Lorraine Jordan had lived in a social housing property with her son for seven years, but when he moved out, everything quickly changed. She had turned the three-bedroom house in Launceston into a comfortable home, keeping it well-maintained and adorning it with sentimental items, family heirlooms and photos of her children. Her son was the original tenant, but Ms Jordan's disability support pension (DSP) had been factored into the overall rent payment, she had been listed as an "approved occupant" in 2017, and she did not want to move out.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-02/social-housing-tasmania-d…
# Must read Australia, Eviction, Public and community housing, Rent.VIDEO: Tasmanian social housing tenant scores Supreme Court win
ABC (No paywall)The court case came down to the definition of 'tenant', and could grant greater rights for thousands of people living in social housing across Tasmania.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-02/tasmanian-social-housing-…
# Video Australia, Public and community housing, Rent.Struggling to pay your rent? The government has just announced new financial support
Beat ()The Victorian government has announced a $15 million expansion of financial counselling services, aimed at supporting residents experiencing mortgage and rental stress across the state. The funding, to be distributed over three years among 16 organizations, will create 37 frontline service support positions. The expansion includes specialized services for First Nations communities through Aboriginal Community Controlled Organizations, as well as targeted support for primary producers and small businesses in Western and Northern Victoria.
https://beat.com.au/struggling-to-pay-your-rent-the-government-h…
# Australia, Rent.Facing the demolition of her Melbourne home, Ella gets a new flat – in another tower slated for destruction
Benita Kolovos The Guardian (No paywall)When Ella* was told that the Melbourne public housing tower she lived in was being demolished, she didn’t imagine she’d have to move into another one facing the same fate. But about a year after the Victorian government announced that her building would be among the first to be torn down as part of a plan to rebuild the state’s 44 public housing towers, she received a letter asking her to do just that. “It was a big shock,” says the single mother of two, speaking through a translator to Guardian Australia.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/16/facing-th…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing.Middle-income Australians experiencing rental stress with a third of pay spent on housing, report shows
Cait Kelly The Guardian (No paywall)Even Australians on median incomes are in rental stress, a new report has found, with households on middle incomes spending 33% of their wages on housing. Last year saw the smallest annual rental increase since 2021, going up 4.8% over the year – down from 8.1% in 2023, CoreLogic’s report found. But since the onset of Covid, rents have increased by 36.1% nationally, equivalent to a rise of $171 a week, or $8,884 a year at the median level. Housing advocates say out-of-reach house prices and growing rents mean the system is in crisis. With 10,000 new people accessing homelessness services each month, they are calling for governments to introduce a cap on rent increases.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/15/australia…
# Hot topic Australia, .Renters Rights
Australian Greens Mirage News (No paywall)The Greens (WA) have announced a list of key demands to strengthen renter's rights and shift the power balance away from property developers, landlords and real estate agents. Housing will be a top priority for the Greens (WA) in the next term, with recent data showing Western Australia is now the epicentre of the national housing crisis1 after four years of the Cook Labor government.
https://www.miragenews.com/renters-rights-1401408/#google_vignet…
# Must read, Hot topic Australia, .'There is no surplus after the cost of our rent'
Susana Mendonça and Lauren Stanley BBC (No paywall)Andy Coley's story is an increasingly familiar one for London families in the private rental sector. The 48-year-old spends £2,200 a month renting a three-bed house in Hither Green, south-east London, with his wife and children. "The cost of our rent means there's no leftover surplus of anything," Mr Coley said. "It's all being spent on the week to week and month to month. Any spare money gets sucked into the now and not the future." His experience echoes the findings of a survey by pollsters Ipsos, commissioned by London Councils, which found that 75% of Londoners put the cost of living as their top concern last year.
# Must read International, Rent.Nearly 1m children in UK at risk of poverty due to housing costs – report
Donna Ferguson The Guardian (No paywall)Nearly 1 million children in the UK are at risk of falling into poverty or will face financial hardship as a result of rising rents, shortfalls in government housing support and underinvestment in new social housing, according to a new report. The study by the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank suggests the government’s failure to commit to raising the local housing allowance (LHA) will push 90,000 more families into financial hardship or poverty over the next year. It estimates 925,000 children are expected to be affected by shortfalls in government housing support by March 2026.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/03/children-poverty…
# Must read International, Rent.