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
Rent crisis creating production line of evictions - tenant
Jennifer McKiernan and Caroline Gall BBC (No paywall)A woman fighting eviction says the renting crisis must be addressed as she is seeing a "production line" of families losing their homes.
Sam Lowe, from Oldbury in the West Midlands, said her landlord had started eviction proceedings against her a month after her mother died last year.
She was part of a rally at Downing Street on Tuesday calling for more security for tenants.
A government spokesperson said it was committed to a fairer deal for renters.
Jeremy Hunt ‘ignored UK housing emergency’ in 2023 Budget, say charities
Lucie Heath inews.co.uk (No paywall)The charities, which included Shelter and Generation Rent, said it was ‘outrageous’ that housing benefits remain frozen at levels set in 2020.
The Chancellor has been accused of “ignoring the housing emergency” after his latest Budget contained little support for private renters and people facing homelessness.
In an open letter to Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak, shared with i, a group of national housing organisations said the Budget contained no measures “to support the millions of struggling private renters who are grappling with rapidly rising rents in the cost-of-living crisis”.
https://inews.co.uk/news/jeremy-hunt-uk-housing-emergency-2023-b…
# Hot topic International, Homelessness, Housing affordability, International.Rental Health: Solutions
Kirsty Lang BBC (No paywall)As the cost of rent continues to rise across the UK, Kirsty Lang looks for solutions. This is the first of a series of five programmes which explore some radical alternatives.
Sixty per cent of Vienna’s population lives in subsidised housing. And that reduces the cost of private rental accommodation too. Kirsty finds out the secret of the city’s housing success and gets a tour of a local resident’s home.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001kgq5?partner=uk.co.bbc&ori…
# Hot topic, Audio International, Affordable housing, International, Long-term tenant.Mapping Tenant Vulnerability: New Data Tool Compares NY’s Legislative Districts
Emma Whitford City Limits (No paywall)A new data tool by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University breaks down a trove of housing-related data for each of the state’s Senate and Assembly districts. It comes just over a week before the state budget deadline, in a year dominated by debates over how elected officials should address New York’s affordable housing shortage.
How many renters are your state lawmakers accountable to, and how many faced eviction last year? How many homeowners live in your district? How old is the housing stock there?
These are the sort of questions New Yorkers can answer using a new data tool published Thursday by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.
https://citylimits.org/2023/03/23/mapping-tenant-vulnerability-n…
# Research alert International, Rent, Affordable housing, International.Want to Curb City Crime? Evict Fewer Tenants, Study Says
Roshan Abraham Vice (No paywall)Rising eviction rates aren’t just a problem for renters: a new study adds to evidence that housing instability is a public safety issue that affects everyone.
A growing body of evidence over the past few years shows that evictions have a direct impact on crime rates, including studies out of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Boston. Now, a report published by Cornell University draws some of the same conclusions about New York state.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7ew8x/want-to-curb-city-crime-e…
# Hot topic International, Eviction, Rent, International.We Must Recognize That the Eviction Crisis Is Also a Public Health Crisis
Nitakuwa Barrett Orsak Truthout (No paywall)The mental health impacts of eviction and the threat of eviction are severe for tenants.
For the past several years I’ve worked with a tenants’ rights organization in Austin, Texas, focusing on the intersection of housing and health. Mold and pests are among the most common reasons tenants organize to improve their housing conditions. These both have the potential to cause illnesses, including asthma, allergies and rashes. Tenants also organize for fair housing practices, which include preventing evictions.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/25-03-2023/inside-the-radical-p…
# Hot topic International, Rent, Health, International.Inside the radical plan to build ‘the new state house’ and change renting forever
Duncan Greive The Spinoff (No paywall)Not content with transforming KiwiSaver, Simplicity is now planning to out-build Kāinga Ora. Duncan Greive meets a pair of of unlikely revolutionaries trying to fix housing – a task which seems impossible, even for the state itself.
In September of 2020, a builder named Shane Brealey sat down and typed out a manifesto. It set out “initial thoughts on how we might combine to disrupt the New Zealand housing sector.” He set out an immodest target. “We have the potential to become the second largest home provider after the Crown,” he wrote. Brealey believed he had discovered what he described as the “holy grail” of housing: the ability to build “fast, cheap and high quality”, the three crucial attributes of which only two are usually believed to be possible.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/25-03-2023/inside-the-radical-p…
# Hot topic International, Rent, Affordable housing, International.Through the roof? Housing and the cost of living
James Goddard House of Lords Library (No paywall)This article explores the impact of cost of living pressures on housing costs. Higher inflation, interest rates and rents, coupled with a decline in average real-terms earnings, have increased housing costs for many people. Evidence suggests that the impact is being felt across all housing tenure types, but that tenants in the private and social rented sectors have been most adversely affected.
Statistics from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ ‘English housing survey 2021–22’ showed that 4.6 million households (19%) rented privately. Private renters spent a third of their household income on rent, the highest percentage spent on housing of any tenure type.
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/through-the-roof-housing-and-…
# Research alert International, Rent, Housing market, International.