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
‘Stupidly expensive’: Sydney rents hit record highs
Kate Burke Domain (Paywall)Sydney tenants are facing record high house and unit rents as low rental vacancies drive up competition and prices for homes. House rents jumped $30 per week to a record median of $650 over the September quarter, new figures show, while unit rents increased $25 to $550 — returning to the record set in 2018, the Domain Rent Report for the September quarter, released on Thursday, shows. ... Tenants’ Union of NSW chief executive Leo Patterson Ross said renters were struggling to afford increasing rents and energy costs. Some were staying in poor quality homes, while others were pushed into homelessness and the level of renter distress was much higher than in the past. “[More] people are calling about things like “no grounds’ evictions and rent increases,” he said. “We’re getting calls ... from people facing a 20 or 30 per cent rent increase.” Patterson Ross said a lack of affordable, well-located homes was the fundamental issue, and called for all political parties to head to next year’s state election with solutions.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/stupidly-expensive-sydney-r…
# NSW, Rent, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market, No-grounds evictions, Sydney.Government urged to halt ‘without cause’ evictions after Perth man’s Federal Court win
Hamish Hastie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)The West Australian government is being urged to stop evictions of public housing tenants without reason, or risk a deluge of litigation following an injunction being granted in the Federal Court. After receiving a without grounds eviction notice in August, Noongar man John Abraham lodged a racial discrimination complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission. Also, rad Alice Pennycott's opinion piece entitled: 'WA Housing Authority should work to sustain tenancies, not fast-track evictions' in 'The Sydney Morning Herald' at: [https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/wa-housing-authority-should-work-to-sustain-tenancies-not-fast-track-evictions-20221006-p5bnsp.html]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/government-urged-to-halt-without…
# Legal significance Australia, Discrimination, Public and community housing, No-grounds evictions, State Government.Regional housing crisis solutions involve community partnerships, research finds
Kimberley Price and Fiona Parker ABC (No paywall)New research has identified a key to long-term affordable housing in regional Australia could be community partnerships to reflect each region's values. The University of Melbourne-supported report, An Intergenerational Visioning of Affordable Housing in a Regional Context, used the Murray River border towns of Echuca-Moama as a case study. Identifying tourism, population growth post-pandemic and increasing lease and house prices, Dr Jenny Weller-Newton completed a series of community consultations. High school students, people experiencing homelessness and older people identified possible housing solutions, including "the need for growing medium density developments and repurposing some buildings that could be developed into smaller apartments".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-11/regional-housing-crisis-s…
# Australia, Affordable housing, Housing market.National Rental Affordability Scheme's end prompting homelessness fears for single mother
Tobi Loftus ABC (No paywall)Melanie Richardson's fear that she might end up living in a car with her two autistic children in central Queensland is never far from mind. The mother of two rents a home in the Gladstone suburb of Tannum Sands through the federal government's National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS), which provides subsidised rentals to people on lower incomes. The scheme was set up by the former federal Labor government in 2008, but axed by the former Liberal government in 2014, with the last subsidised properties set to exit the scheme in 2026. "We did find out that the NRAS program was ending not through our real estate agent, but through talking to neighbours," Ms Richardson said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-12/single-mother-terrified-o…
# Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Homelessness.Black women endure legacy of racism in homeownership and making costly repairs
Robin Bartram The Conversation (No paywall)As a sociologist who has spent the past 10 years studying housing conditions in the U.S., I led a research team that conducted interviews with homeowners who are struggling with basic maintenance such as rotting wood siding and floors, mold, crumbling brickwork, outdated plumbing and leaking ceilings.
https://theconversation.com/black-women-endure-legacy-of-racism-…
# International, Discrimination, Home ownership.Damning aged care audit reveals abuse and neglect of residents across Australia
Christopher Knaus The Guardian (No paywall)Aged care residents have been left with festering wounds, abused for wanting to use the toilet, overcharged, and wrongly blocked from attending funerals due to Covid-19, a new audit has found. The Older Persons Advocacy Network (Opan) audited 27,000 calls made by aged care residents, families and carers to aged care advocates in recent years, finding inadequate staffing was “a major factor in poor-quality aged care and inadequate access to care”. The report includes shocking details of abuse and neglect in aged care in the past 12 months, including, in one case, staff ignoring a wound for so long that doctors deemed it “required amputation”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/12/damning-a…
# Australia, Housing market, Older people.Private sector involvement in social and affordable housing
Richard Benedict, Nicole Gurran, Catherine Gilbert, Carrie Hamilton, Steven Rowley and Sha Liu AHURI (No paywall)AHURI Report ... This research investigates models for engaging private sector investors and developers in financing or delivering social and affordable housing, across different market segments and tenures in Australia and internationally. It also identifies key existing and potential players, and financial, regulatory, or development barriers to wider participation. ... This study highlighted that a range of established and emerging affordable housing product types can be supported through collaboration with private not-for-profit and for-profit partners. These strategies include public private partnerships, mixed tenure developments, tax subsidies for affordable supply, home ownership schemes, build to rent and inclusionary planning mechanisms. These depend on different combinations of government subsidy, policy settings, and regulation, and are suitable for delivery across a variety of different development contexts.
# Research alert Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Home ownership, Landlords and agents, Planning and development, Tax.AHURI evaluates NSW Homelessness Industry and Workforce Development Strategy in NSW
Homelessness NSW AHURI (No paywall)Homelessness NSW has released its evaluation of the Homelessness Industry and Workforce Development Strategy 2017-2020, undertaken by AHURI’S Professional Services team. ... Overall, the evaluation found that the Strategy was implemented and delivered well, with most managers (85%) thinking it was effective or very effective in responding to sector needs. The evaluation found that all programs collaborate with other organisations in formal and informal ways, which facilitates better services and better client outcomes and allows services to support each other. The impact of COVID-19 on the sector was also widely acknowledged.
https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/news/ahuri-evaluates-nsw-homel…
# Research alert NSW, Homelessness.