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
Knowing rough sleepers by name key to solving street homelessness
Jewel Topsfield and Rachael Dexter The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Paul’s pathway off the streets and into a home started with something simple but powerful: his name was added to a list. The 48-year-old was sleeping outside a 7-Eleven three years ago when he was approached by out-reach workers from Port Phillip Zero — a pilot aimed at ending street homelessness — and added to a register of rough sleepers in the municipality, called the By-Name List. “I’ve more or less been homeless since I was 12 and I left my foster parents,” Paul says. But once Paul was added to the By-Name List, a multi-agency team — including the council, St Kilda police, housing providers, health services and Indigenous organisations — worked together to find him housing and support.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/people-aren-t-in-the-sh…
# Australia, Homelessness.Luxury high-rise apartments ‘inappropriate’ for homeless program
Rachael Dexter and Jewel Topsfield The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The luxury of the 20-storey Botanic Melbourne apartment building in Southbank hits you as soon as you walk into its opulent lobby: there are modern sculptures, a patent leather couch and a grand golden curved staircase leading up to a boardroom. But one of the new building’s first tenants, Josh Olds, says life at Botanic became nightmarish in July last year after the state government used 13 apartments to house former rough sleepers as part of the From Homelessness to a Home program. ... In July 2020, the state government announced a groundbreaking $150 million program to move more than 2000 homeless people – who had been temporarily put up in hotels during lockdowns – into long-term housing. They were also provided with wrap-around support services, such as drug and alcohol counselling and mental health assistance. A review of the program, obtained by The Age, said the provision of stable housing was transformational for the majority of people involved. Also, read the article by the same journalists entitled: 'Will the political will to end rough sleeping be sustained beyond the pandemic?' at: [https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/will-the-political-will-to-end-rough-sleeping-be-sustained-beyond-the-pandemic-20220913-p5bhr6.html] and the Editorial in 'The Age' at: [https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/housing-scheme-to-help-most-vulnerable-deserves-long-term-support-20221007-p5bo5p.html]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/luxury-high-rise-apartm…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, State Government.Property Council calls for fresh look at affordable housing scheme
Cara Waters The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Eight months after a campaign by the Property Council drove the Andrews government to shelve a plan to pay for affordable housing through a levy on developers, the lobby group is calling for more low-cost homes – and might agree to foot some of the bill. “Our sector is very open to having another conversation about a contribution scheme,” Cath Evans, the council’s interim Victorian executive director, said on Tuesday.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/property-council-calls-…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Housing market, Landlords and agents, State Government.Milan Taraba, chairman of the Czech Tenants’ Association: interview
International Union of Tenants (No paywall)On the occasion of International Tenants’ Day, Milan Taraba, chairman of the Tenants’ Association in the Czech Republic was invited to public television. Here is a translation of the interview. [Read on]
https://www.iut.nu/news-events/milan-taraba-chairman-of-the-czec…
# International, Public and community housing, Rent, Utilities electricity water gas, Affordable housing.Tesla chair Robyn Denholm buys $27.5m pad in Cremorne Point
Lucy Macken Domain (No paywall)Newly minted billionaire and chair of Tesla Robyn Denholm has smashed Sydney’s north shore apartment record books, buying a $27.5 million penthouse in Cremorne Point. ... Denholm’s new digs is one of eight in the landmark block that was built in 1913 as a luxury hotel but was rundown and used as a boarding house in the 1980s ...
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/tesla-chair-robyn-denholm-b…
# NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Housing market.Mysteries of inflation measurement
Cameron Murray (No paywall)One thing that has puzzled me during this global inflation wave is the lack of attention to how consumer price indexes (CPIs) differ between countries. This really matters if you want to make sense of what is happening. ... there is a massive category called 'Owners equivalent rent' that gets a 24% weight in the United States CPI for urban consumers but zero in Australia's CPI. In Australia, we only include the cost of new housing construction to represent the price of housing for owner occupiers ... And, a bonus, listen to the podcast entitled: 'Do expensive houses make us all rich'.
https://fresheconomicthinking.substack.com/p/mysteries-of-inflat…
# Audio Australia, Families, Home ownership.Passion project: the passive house that raised the roof on sustainable living
Ali Heath The Guardian (No paywall)... what started life as a wedge-shaped piece of derelict wasteland – situated next to a 10-storey apartment block, double-storey housing site and a busy train line in Coburg, Melbourne – has been transformed by the couple into a modern passive house.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/oct/08/passion-pro…
# Australia, Climate change, Families, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Number of families homeless or at risk of homelessness up 23% in past year
Grainne Cuffe Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Number of families homeless or at risk of homelessness up 23% in past year. Research by the current affairs programme also found that in the first three months of this year, around 26,000 households were put in accommodation outside of their borough after being made homeless – three times the number in the same period 10 years ago. It found that the number of homeless households living in temporary accommodation is rising: up by 23% in the past five years.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/number-of-families-homeless…
# International, Rent, Homelessness.