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
Residents and supporters unite to fight boarding house eviction
Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)In a scenario that has played out too many times, a group of boarding house residents in Selwyn Street Paddington is being told to leave to make way for unaffordable housing. The group of 28 residents is being threatened with eviction so that 4 luxury apartments can be built. Neighbours in their community and supporters have mounted an admirable campaign to save the residents, and are also working to make sure they get housing if they are evicted. Homes NSW has promised to help. This weekend a group of the residents and supporters gathered in Whitlam Square in Darlinghurst to demand the NSW Government acquire the boarding homes and save these renters from eviction and displacement.
https://www.tenants.org.au/news/residents-and-supporters-unite-f…
# Must read NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Eviction, Rent.Wagga mother's desperate roadside plea for housing aid
Amy O'Halloran ABC (No paywall)Next to a busy roundabout in the New South Wales Riverina city of Wagga Wagga, a family has pitched their tent with a sign in a desperate plea for help. Pensioner Cathy McGrath says she can afford a rental but feels she is not being taken seriously by private agencies. "[Many] applications later, one reply, got nothing, and I've been through every housing commission and no one will help me," Ms McGrath said. "I'm defeated. To be honest, I'm really at my lowest. I don't know what to do." Ms McGrath has been sleeping rough in Wagga for more than a year with her partner, who is on unemployment benefits while he tries to find work, and her 16-year-old daughter Chloe.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-21/rental-market-tight-and-h…
# Must read NSW, .Pine Street paradise: Inside Lismore’s squatter central
Lexie Cartwright news.com.au (No paywall)It’s known as “squatter’s lane” – a row of homes less than 1km from its city’s CBD that have become a slice of paradise for up to 50 people living rent-free. More than 600 properties deemed unsafe following the devastating 2022 Lismore floods were purchased by the NSW Government via its Reconstruction Authority (RA) throughout 2023. Today, almost all of those houses across Greater Lismore are still dormant, boarded up and fenced off while they await demolition or relocation. It’s been an agonisingly slow rebuild for residents, a process Mayor Steve Krieg described as a “total cock up.” In the thick of it all is Pine Street, also dubbed “squatter’s lane” by Mr Krieg. The State Government bought 15 of the properties on the street, which are now occupied mostly by foreigners who have ignored two previous attempts to evict them.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/pine-street-parad…
# Must read NSW, Disasters, Eviction, Rent.NSW Government to sell off surplus properties
Aidan Devine realestate.com.au (No paywall)The NSW Government has released 11 low yielding properties up for auction as part of a land audit program aimed at addressing the housing crisis. The properties spread around Sydney were deemed as “surplus” by the government departments that owned them and had been sitting vacant. Together they will go to auction at a centralised event in April, with some expected to change hands for up to $3m. Many of the sites had first been offered to Homes NSW and Landcom but were released to the public after these government owned groups rejected the sites.
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/nsw-government-to-sell-off-su…
# Hot topic NSW, .Ombudsman weighs in on Kariong development controversy
Coast Community News (No paywall)The NSW Ombudsman is investigating claims that the Department of Housing and Industry (DPHI) published misinformation on its website regarding a controversial development at Kariong. Community group Coast Environmental Alliance (CEA) and Traditional Custodians have been campaigning to stop a housing development planned by Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council (DLALC) on the site due to the ecological and cultural values of the area. The group recently took aim at the Department, claiming that information on the public planning website was “dishonest, deliberately misleading and blatantly supporting the developer”. Indigenous spokesperson for CEA, Jasmin Ertl, said the fact that the department was now under investigation was very much welcomed by the group.
https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/central-coast/news/2025/02/omb…
# Hot topic NSW, .Free Sydney support program for hoarding braces for end of funding
Myles Houlbrook-Walk ABC (No paywall)Shane Wilson knows the visceral feeling of being in a home beset by squalor. His apartment in inner-city Sydney had become overrun and close to unliveable, to the point where property managers were warning he could face eviction. "It was embarrassing, to be honest, yeah, and I was a bit depressed about it. I felt sick over it," he said. "Food scraps and that, and cockroaches, spiders." But recently they are all largely gone, and he's looking forward to doing something he hasn't been able to do for some time. "Friends are asking me, nagging me, 'Can we come over to your place?' [I said], 'Yeah, but don't [get] rowdy'," he said. Mr Wilson found that the turning point for him was a referral to a program called Making Space, which is provided by Mission Australia.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-26/sydney-support-program-ho…
# Must read NSW, Rent.‘It’s disgusting that they can get away with this’: here’s how eviction can affect tenants’ lives
Alan Morris, Joelle Moore, Thi Thanh Mai Giang and Yiran Li The Conversation (No paywall)For people relying on rental properties to keep a roof over their heads, there are few things more scary than the possibility of being evicted from their home. The paucity of official statistics makes it difficult to know exactly how common evictions are. In 2019–20, 13.8% of private renters moved due to their lease being terminated or not renewed. Besides a report or two, we know little about what happens when households face the possibility of being evicted, or are actually evicted. Our research examines these consequences. Through in-depth interviews with 53 private tenants in New South Wales and Queensland, we found these experiences negatively shaped people’s lives well into the future. Here are four themes we identified.
https://theconversation.com/its-disgusting-that-they-can-get-awa…
# Must read, TUNSW in the media Australia, Eviction, Rent.Inconsistent and outdated: We must revamp rent assistance, not just raise it
Rachel Lane The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)A report released last week by the Grattan Institute has recommended a 50 per cent increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance to “lift retirees out of poverty”. The report, Renting in retirement: Why Rent Assistance needs to rise, recommends increasing the maximum rent assistance payment by $53 a week for singles and $40 for couples, and indexing the rate in line with rent for the cheapest 25 per cent of homes in capital cities. The recommendations would cost about $2 billion a year, with about $500 million going to retirees.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-retirement/inconsistent-a…
# Australia, .