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
The Politics and Practice of Tenant Organizing
Daniel Denvir The Dig (No paywall)Featuring Shanti Singh, Tracy Rosenthal, René Moya, and Cea Weaver on the politics and practice of organizing tenants.
https://thedigradio.com/podcast/the-politics-and-practice-of-ten…
# Audio International, Campaigns and law reform, Renting culture, Strong communities.Evictions on the rise in the Midwest put public health at risk
Natalie Krebs KBIA (No paywall)The trouble for Rolland Carroll started last fall.
That’s when the 61-year-old said his apartment complex in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, informed him that his federal housing aid for his one-bedroom apartment had been reduced months ago.
He owed more than $2,000 in back rent.
“I was in shock,” Carroll said. “Like, how the heck could I owe this amount of money without you guys saying something months ago?”
https://www.kbia.org/2023-02-01/evictions-on-the-rise-in-the-mid…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Health, Housing affordability, Landlords and agents.Top Five Flaws of Stanford University Study on Rent Control
Patrick Range McDonald Housing is a human right (No paywall)For more than five years, reporters and the real estate industry continue to cite a seriously flawed and misleading study on rent control by Stanford University researchers. At the same time, reporters almost never mention studies by experts at USC, UCLA, and UC Berkeley that found rent control is a key tool to stabilize the housing affordability crisis. What’s going on here? To set the record straight, here are the top five flaws of the Stanford paper, along with key points from the USC, UCLA, and UC Berkeley studies.
https://www.housingisahumanright.org/top-five-flaws-of-stanford-…
# Research alert International, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Housing affordability.Portland, Maine Passed Rent Control. Here’s How.
Sandra Larson Next City (No paywall)When voters in St. Paul, Minnesota, approved rent stabilization in 2021, it garnered national attention, not least for the measure’s notably low 3 percent cap on rent hikes. Rent stabilization efforts are underway now in at least six U.S. cities and states, including Boston, where advocates and the city’s new mayor face a steep uphill climb.
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/portland-maine-passed-rent-co…
# International, Rent, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents.The crown owns no land
Claire G. Coleman The Saturday Paper (Paywall)It’s that special time of the year again, when people talk about reconciliation, treaty, land rights, invasion, colonisation and Australia. The time of the year when racists fume and rant, when anti-racists and post-colonialists tell us they care and want us to be happy; the time of year when many Aboriginal people face the choice: fight or hide. January can be toxic, mostly because it’s the lead-up to the worst of Australian holidays, “Australia Day”. Enough has already been written about January 26 and why not to celebrate it to fill a book.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2023/01/21/the…
# Hot topic, Legal significance Australia, Aboriginal renters, Federal Government, History, Human rights, Land Rights, Race and ethnicity.Government pushing ahead with controversial remote rental change as housing stress plagues Northern Territory
Jesse Thompson ABC (No paywall)The Northern Territory government is pushing ahead with a controversial policy change that will increase the rents of many remote residents. At the same time, new research has laid bare the reality of the Territory's housing problems, concluding the NT faces the nation's worst rates of housing stress.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-31/nt-rents-to-rise-amid-hou…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Rent, Homelessness, Human rights, State Government.‘They miss out’: soaring rents and insufficient support force more uni students in Australia to live with parents
Caitlin Cassidy The Guardian (No paywall)‘Generational shift’ in share accommodation as housing crisis puts young people under ‘enormous pressure.’ When Amelia Grace Wilson-Williams started her university degree, she didn’t imagine it would be spent bunkering down in the family home. But when the undergrad law student at the University of Technology in Sydney began hunting for rental properties in which to live alone or share with fellow students, she realised it was impossible while studying full time and only relying on her student Centrelink payments.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/30/they-miss…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Students, Sydney, Young people.Housing is unaffordable for many even though supply is growing
Kasey Chambers Canberra Times (No paywall)It's been a grim start to the year for Australians in housing stress. Already we've had news that thousands of affordable rentals will be wiped from the market, that rents are surging, and that our population is growing much faster than the rate we're building social housing. This news is playing into a housing market that has never been less affordable or more volatile. Australians are spending record amounts on housing, and more and more people are being plunged into housing stress.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8046397/how-is-it-that-su…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Homelessness.