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
Marilyn is fighting a new apartment complex. Others say this attitude is harming housing affordability
Nicola McCaskill SBS (No paywall)NIMBYs – who say "not in my backyard" to new housing developments – are being shouted down by YIMBYs, who say high-density development is the only way to create a sustainable Australia. How is this outlook impacting access to affordable housing?
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/article/nimbys-aim-to-protec…
# Hot topic, Video Australia, Rent, Housing market, Older people, Young people.How bad do Australians have it? Our rental laws versus the world's
David Aidone SBS (No paywall)Even countries with rent controls face price problems. Here's how our rental laws compare to other parts of the world.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/how-bad-do-australians-have-…
# Australia, Rent, Campaigns and law reform, Housing market, International.The Greens could seize control on housing, and the PM didn’t see it coming
Tone Wheeler The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)For much of the past 235 years, Australia had a binary vibe: Indigenous v invaders; Labor v Liberal; cities v bush; buyers v renters. But seismic shifts are happening. We are moving to a ternary age. As Noel Pearson so powerfully identified, we are Indigenous, “Anglo” and multicultural. The Greens, teals and independents are a third political force. Between the cities and the bush lies a vast suburbia. Every business is learning to put social and environmental issues with the financial: the “triple bottom line”.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/housing-may-be-the-third…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Federal Government, History, Housing market, Young people.Where is the rent ceiling? Housing injustice and the oversupply of landlords
Dan Hogan Overland (No paywall)The problem with feudalism is it can’t be solved with capitalism. Unlike capitalists, landlords don’t offer wages to the tenants they exploit to extract rents. Landlords—as is written in their title—are feudalists whose core business is expanding and conserving rental serfdom.
https://overland.org.au/2023/08/where-is-the-rent-ceiling-housin…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market, International.Lessons From The U.K.’s Transformative Social Housing System
Roshan Abraham Next City (No paywall)UK: Historian John Boughton explains how the U.K.’s council housing system changed millions of low- and middle-income people’s lives – and how privatization has crippled its power. Conversations about social housing often become polarized around examples with widely differing outcomes: robust and fully funded social housing in places like Vienna, Austria, or on the other hand, the often deteriorating and chronically under-funded public housing in the United States.
https://nextcity.org/features/lessons-from-the-british-transform…
# International, Public and community housing, History, International.NYC's eviction hotspots: Tracking the 10K removals since moratorium ended
Neil Mehta and David Brand Gothamist (No paywall)USA: Evictions take a heavy toll on individuals and families, along with broader communities in a city already struggling to house tens of thousands of low-income and homeless people. After a pandemic-spurred moratorium on evictions ended last January, certain sections of the city are emerging as eviction hot spots, where property owners ranging from large firms with thousands of units, to small landlords with a single residence are successfully removing tenants.
https://gothamist.com/news/nycs-eviction-hotspots-tracking-the-1…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing market, Human rights, International.How the housing crisis is hitting tenants hardest
Nimo Omer The Guardian (No paywall)UK: No-fault evictions are rocketing, bills are ballooning and social housing lists are overloaded – what the statistics reveal about renting today and why urgent reform is needed. On average there are 20 people requesting to view each rental property that comes on the market in Britain, more than triple what it was in 2019. In some parts of the north-west, that number inches closer to 30 per property.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/08/tuesday-briefing-f…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Applying to rent, Homelessness, Housing market, Landlords and agents.How a mobile-home park saved its community from a corporate buyout
Kirbie Bennett and Jamie Wanzek High Country News (No paywall)USA: In southwest Colorado, a cooperative and a land trust partnered to preserve affordable housing. On a quiet day this spring, Alejandra Chavez walked into her office at Westside Mobile Home Park in Durango, Colorado. Residents were gathered in the community space, discussing their plans for the park’s future, some leaning on the kitchen’s baby-blue counters while others sat in plastic lawn chairs. A year ago, this building was owned by a New York corporation and was off-limits to residents. But now, residents use the space for yoga, child care and community events.
https://www.hcn.org/articles/south-housing-how-a-mobile-home-par…
# International, Land lease communities, Rent, Co-operatives and resident-led housing, Home, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, International, Rent to buy, Renting culture.