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
Urgent call for basic safety standards to be introduced for temporary housing for homeless
Erin Somerville ABC (No paywall)After a close call with a fire in their motel room, a couple experiencing homelessness says some short-term accommodation sites are failing to meet basic safety expectations, putting lives at risk. When Edward Richards and his partner, Jessica Hall, found themselves homeless after leaving their social housing complex in Tasmania, they travelled north for a fresh start. They had hoped an Albury motel they accessed through a NSW government-supported service for the homeless would be a safe place to stay until they got back on their feet. Instead, they said, they were shocked to find the site did not have a working smoke alarm when a fire broke out.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-26/homeless-people-fear-for-…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Security and safety.International students not to blame for rental crunch
Rachel Hayter ABC (No paywall)AUDIO: International students are not to blame for the housing crisis, according to new research from the Property Council. They've commissioned a report, which has found the rental crunch is being driven by a rise in solo-person households and second bedrooms being converted into home offices.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/am/international-students…
# Must read, Hot topic, Audio Australia, Rent.Landlords charging Centrepay transaction fees to vulnerable tenants against scheme policy
Christopher Knaus and Lorena Allam The Guardian (No paywall)Landlords are wrongly making vulnerable tenants cover the costs of administering the government-run Centrepay debit system, in one case passing it on to a blind disability pensioner. A Guardian Australia investigation has revealed multiple failings with Centrepay, a system allowing businesses early access to welfare payments, prior to money hitting a welfare recipient’s bank account. The system, designed to ensure recipients budget for essentials such as electricity and rent, has seen hundreds of thousands of dollars wrongly diverted from vulnerable Australians to a major energy company, AGL, and used to help prop up a disgraced Christian rehabilitation centre practising gay conversion practices and forced baptisms.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/19/centrepay…
# Must read Australia, Discrimination, Rent.Residents challenge plans to demolish Melbourne public housing towers
Lyndal Rowlands Al Jazeera (No paywall)Melbourne, Australia – The residents of dozens of public housing towers in the southern Australian city of Melbourne heard the state government was planning to demolish their homes on the news. “Everyone found out from the TV, from the news, with the rest of Victoria,” Sara*, a resident of the first group of towers to be knocked down, told Al Jazeera. Sara’s home, among a cluster of 14-storey towers in the inner-city suburbs of Flemington, North Melbourne and Carlton, will be one of the first to go after the Victorian government last year announced its plan to demolish all 44 of the state’s remaining public housing towers. Built under public housing schemes in the 1960s, the blocks are located in parts of the city closely eyed by property developers as Melbourne’s house prices continue to soar.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/4/23/residents-question-…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing, Rent.‘It’s not the 19th century’: tenants in new social housing block in Victoria say they go weeks without flushing toilets
Cait Kelly and Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)Tenants in one of Victoria’s newest community housing blocks say they have gone weeks without being able to flush their toilets and months without being able to get a signal for TV, while their concerns over cracks in the building have gone unaddressed. The $140m development in Dunlop Avenue in Ascot Value is the first development to open from the government’s Public Housing Renewal Program – now known as the Big Housing Build – and was heralded as the “most advanced” social housing project in the state when it was completed in March last year. The estate was previously public housing, managed directly by the Victorian government. Since its redevelopment, the 200-dwelling complex offers only community housing managed by third-party not-for-profit provider Evolve and rent-controlled affordable housing.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/27/its-not-t…
# Must read Australia, Security and safety, Utilities electricity water gas.‘It’s not the 19th century’: tenants in new social housing block in Victoria say they go weeks without flushing toilets
Cait Kelly and Stephanie Convery The Guardian (No paywall)Tenants in one of Victoria’s newest community housing blocks say they have gone weeks without being able to flush their toilets and months without being able to get a signal for TV, while their concerns over cracks in the building have gone unaddressed. The $140m development in Dunlop Avenue in Ascot Value is the first development to open from the government’s Public Housing Renewal Program – now known as the Big Housing Build – and was heralded as the “most advanced” social housing project in the state when it was completed in March last year. The estate was previously public housing, managed directly by the Victorian government. Since its redevelopment, the 200-dwelling complex offers only community housing managed by third-party not-for-profit provider Evolve and rent-controlled affordable housing.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/27/its-not-t…
# Must read Australia, Public and community housing, Security and safety, Utilities electricity water gas.Our housing system is broken and the poorest Australians are being hardest hit
Rachel Ong ViforJ The Conversation (No paywall)Just when we think the price of rentals could not get any worse, this week’s Rental Affordability Snapshot by Anglicare has revealed low-income Australians are facing a housing crisis like never before. In fact, if you rely on the Youth Allowance, there is not a single rental property across Australia you can afford this week. How did rental affordability get this bad? Several post-COVID factors have been blamed, including our preference for more space, the return of international migrants, and rising interest rates. However, the rental affordability crisis pre-dates COVID.
https://theconversation.com/our-housing-system-is-broken-and-the…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Residents of Eureka seniors' village challenge rent rise — and win
Adam Holmes ABC (No paywall)VIDEO: Rent rises at one of Australia's largest providers of independent living units for seniors have been found to be "unreasonable" by Tasmania's regulator. Julie has lived in a senior village in Hobart for almost a year. But with the rent going up by $50 a week, she can no longer afford it. "It was just out of the question for me." On an aged pension, it left her with $300 a fortnight for living expenses, so she's moving into social housing, but fears others in the complex don't have that option.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-26/residents-of-eureka-senio…
# Hot topic, Video Australia, Rent.