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
US Treasury eases rules on unspent COVID aid to boost affordable housing
David Lawder Reuters (No paywall)WASHINGTON: The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday announced new steps to boost the supply of affordable housing by unlocking billions of dollars in unspent COVID-19 aid funding to state and local governments to support a wider array of housing projects.
The initiatives are part of a Biden administration drive to address a key economic challenge facing Americans: lack of housing affordability. This is in turn [contributing to inflation](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/supply-still-matters-why-us-housing-inflation-relief-may-be-short-lived-2024-02-28/) and negative voter sentiment on President Joe Biden's handling of the economy.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-treasury-ease-rules-covid-…
# International, Public and community housing.Six months after Maui wildfire, 5,000 survivors still stranded: ‘We’re tired of broken promises’
Nina Lakhani The Guardian (No paywall)Every afternoon Diana Tevaga rushes back from work to her hotel room to feed her pitbull, Pe’a, and tabby cat, Kenzie, bracing herself for another dispiriting evening searching online for an affordable apartment in Maui. Tevaga, 41, has been living in a hotel since losing her home – a rent-controlled apartment she’d shared with her mother and pets – in the catastrophic Lahaina wildfire on 8 August. Before the fire, she spent evenings with her nephews and nieces, who lived in the same neighborhood. Now, Tevaga watches reality TV and eats Red Cross meals with other survivors who have no place else to go.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/08/maui-wildfire-si…
# International, Disasters.‘Desperation for a home’ drives fake claims on rent applications
David Byers The Times (Paywall)UK: Hundreds of would-be tenants every day are doctoring bank statements or fabricating job histories to find homes in an overheated rental market, the UK’s largest tenant referencing agency said. HomeLet, which vets prospective renters on behalf of landlords, said overworked staff had reported a fourfold increase in fraudulent tenancy applications over the past two years. Ninety per cent of the doctored documents it found were edited bank statements that exaggerated income; the rest were found to have a fake job or criminal record.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/desperation-for-a-home-drives…
# Hot topic International, .Tell decision makers to end unfair evictions for all renters now!
Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)We need the NSW Government to get this right. We know that NSW Government decision-makers are currently considering rental reforms – can you email them and tell them to end no-grounds evictions for all renters? It’s been almost a year since NSW Labor formed government, and we haven’t yet seen real progress (such as a Bill in Parliament) to end unfair evictions. A renter in NSW gets a no-grounds eviction every 18 minutes in NSW. And 2 out 3 renters who get no-grounds evictions are on fixed-term agreements. The government needs to end no-grounds now, for all renters – including those on fixed-terms.
# Must read, Legal significance NSW, .NSW reform on ‘No Grounds’ evictions: why changes can’t come soon enough
Leo Patterson Ross news.com.au (No paywall)Did we do something wrong? Should we not have said anything at all? Imagine being told to leave your home without ever being told why. This is what renters in NSW face. This creates fear. It reduces trust in renting and in providers of an essential service even those trying to do the right thing. Transparent and genuine dealings should not be something to be scared of. As we approach a year on from the election, NSW Labor is finalising their plans to reform the state’s eviction laws.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/sydney-nsw/nsw-refor…
# Must read, Hot topic, TUNSW in the media, New policy announcement NSW, .When homes already hit 40°C inside, it’s better to draw on residents’ local know-how than plan for climate change from above
Abby Mellick Lopes, Cameron Tonkinwise & Stephen Healy The Conversation (No paywall)Weather extremes driven by climate change hit low-income communities harder. The reasons include poor housing and lack of access to safe and comfortable public spaces. This makes “climate readiness” a pressing issue for governments, city planners and emergency services in fast-growing areas such as Western Sydney. We work with culturally diverse residents and social housing providers in Western Sydney to explore how they’re adapting to increasing heat. Residents hosted heat data loggers inside and outside their homes.
https://theconversation.com/when-homes-already-hit-40-c-inside-i…
# Hot topic NSW, Disasters.'Key workers’ removed from Ballina Council’s housing project as Mayor seeks full market rents
Echo (No paywall)Ballina Council have removed any doubt that the development of housing on land it owns in Wollongbar is for the benefit of ‘key workers’. In April 2022 Council resolved to sell 18 of the 30 lots it owned in the Wollongbar Urban Expansion Area, and further explore the feasibility of developing and retaining for leasing all or part of the 12 remaining lots ‘for the purposes of providing affordable housing for essential workers in accordance with State Environmental Planning Policy (Affordable Rental Housing) 2021’. This led to the commissioning of a feasibility study and an expression of interest process with prospective tenders who could design and construct the housing, with the Council maintaining ownership.
https://www.echo.net.au/2024/02/key-workers-removed-from-ballina…
# Hot topic NSW, .Dark, damaged and peeling: What $660 rents you in Sydney
Mikaela Wilkes Daily Telegraph (Paywall)“I can’t buy the millennial dream, sure, but I’ll be able to rent it.” This was a sentence that I, a former housing reporter, unfortunately published in June, 2022 shortly before relocating from Auckland to Sydney. Three months later, Sydney’s housing crisis was given an additional moniker: “chronically unaffordable”. Which is an academic way of saying that 35.3 per cent of renters are in housing stress - paying more than a third of their monthly income on housing costs.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/dark-damaged-and-…
# NSW, Rent, Repairs, Security and safety.