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
The Making Of Co-op City, America’s Biggest Housing Co-op
(No paywall)Co-op City in the Bronx is the size of a small city — as well as a decades old housing co-op and an island of comparative affordability. How did it come about? Annemarie Sammartino, author of "Freedomland," explains in her new book.
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/the-making-of-co-op-city-amer…
# History International, Public and community housing, Affordable housing.Beneath the streets of Seoul are hidden semi-basement flats known as banjiha. But these homes can be deadly
James Oaten and Yeni Seo ABC (No paywall)As you take your first step into Jung Won-young's home in Seoul, the floor sinks. Sticky tape has been plastered over the laminate in an attempt to hold it together, weeks after record flooding left it bubbled and cracked. Further inside the 71-year-old's underground flat, the water damage is much worse. Black mould scars the ceilings and walls of the two dimly lit rooms that make up his small home. "It smelled really bad," Jung Won-young said. "I couldn't cook. I couldn't enter the kitchen. I only had one or two meals a day almost for a month. "My mental health was devastated." Mr Jung's semi-basement home is one of about 200,000 in the South Korean capital, known locally as a banjiha. The homes are tucked under apartment buildings, often with the smallest of windows peering out to the street to provide a narrow stream of natural light. Parts of these homes are often windowless. Banjiha were never designed to be lived in, but over the years they ended up housing some of the city's most disadvantaged people. They have become a symbol of rampant inequality in one of the world's richest cities.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-22/seoul-banjiha-the-deadly-…
# International, Health, Homelessness, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Mould.Housing, Indigenous and domestic violence services to receive extra $560m in federal budget
Paul Karp The Guardian (No paywall)Community organisations such as housing, Indigenous and domestic violence services will receive an extra $560m over four years in Labor’s first budget since its re-election. The partial indexation of funding revealed by the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, aims to help community services keep up with rising costs. The Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss) and Australian Services Union had both called for a 5.5% increase in payments to community organisations, as surging inflation puts services already under strain from high demand during Covid at risk.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/23/housing-i…
# Australia, Domestic violence, Public and community housing, Race and ethnicity.To Airbnb or not to Airbnb: is it ethical to rent property to holidaymakers during a housing crisis?
Dwayne Grant The Guardian (No paywall)Karla Costello has seen the headlines. More than 50,000 Queenslanders waiting on the social housing register. A Brisbane real estate agency urging landlords to increase rents by more than double the inflation rate. The state’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, hosting a housing summit in a bid to solve a residential property shortage that shows no signs of abating. Costello appreciates how fortunate she is to have a roof over her head. She also sleeps better at night knowing her Gold Coast investment property is no longer a transit lounge for holidaymakers. ... After returning their property to the long-term rental market, she has been spared the internal conflict she knows would have come from hearing the Queensland government this week announce it would launch an investigation into how the short-term letting market is affecting the state’s housing crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/23/to-airbnb…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Short-term holiday letting.I’m turning 30 in a shabby share house in Fitzroy. And I’m fine with that
Tim McGlone The Guardian (No paywall)My dad turned 30 in 1990, by which time he’d found my mum, accrued a kid, a dog and a house with a large back yard for the dog and kid to run around in. A life, in other words. That was 30 back then. This month I turn 30, when I’ll celebrate with about 20 mates, a lot of beers and an Oasis cover band I’m hiring to play at the expensive, rundown share house in Fitzroy I rent, which has hardly any back yard. This is also 30.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/17/im-turning…
# Australia, Share houses.Rising cost of aged care and big wage unknown put squeeze on government
Rachel Clun The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)A pre-election promise to boost aged care spending by $2.5 billion is just the tip of a growing fiscal iceberg confronting the federal government as it grapples with increasing pressures on the nation’s finances while improving the quality of services for Australia’s elderly. Aged care reform was one of Labor’s key election pledges. It said it would outlay the extra $2.5 billion to fix the sector over the next four financial years, its second most expensive promise after childcare.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/rising-cost-of-aged-care…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, Older people.How will our stretched housing market cope with surging immigration?
Abul Rizvi Pearls and Irritations (No paywall)Respected ABC commentator Alan Kohler has recently raised this issue in an article provocatively titled Labor’s immigration and housing policies are an explosive combination. Kohler says “there is now a massive discrepancy between the demand for labour, the immigration needed to fill it, and the available housing”, pointing to the 2.2 million visas granted since June 2022 and the national rental vacancy of 51,437 and 37,626 in the capital cities.
https://johnmenadue.com/how-will-our-stretched-housing-market-co…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.Social housing standards have slipped forcing emergency measures to be taken
Chaminda Jayanetti (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Government has announced an increase in inspections of social housing and drive-up competency amongst staff, following cases of tenants forced to live in squalid conditions while their housing providers failed to make necessary repairs. Social housing providers will have to ensure that all their staff – from neighbourhood housing officers to senior management – have the right skills, experience and knowledge to deliver a high-quality service for residents. The new standard will be set out and enforced by the Regulator of Social Housing, which will also have a legal duty to publish a plan on its commitment to regularly inspect the largest landlords, including details on how often these will happen. The move comes as a result of amendments to the Social Housing Regulation Bill which completed Report Stage in the House of Lords this week.
https://newstartmag.co.uk/articles/social-housing-standards-have…
# International, Public and community housing, Repairs.