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
Tenant ‘stoked’ with $220pw sleep-out after 55 applications
(No paywall)From New Zealand ... A Wellington tenant is “stoked” to be living in a sleep-out which is considered the fifth bedroom of a house. Breakfast revealed the tenant is paying $220 per week excluding expenses for the sleep-out. They have access to the main house where the kitchen, bathroom, toilet and remaining bedrooms are. Breakfast's Abbey Wakefield said the tenant had applied for 55 other flats before netting the sleep-out, which she described as a "shed". (1 News)
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/01/30/tenant-stoked-with-220pw-slee…
# International, Rent, Share houses, Housing market.How Brad Pitt’s green housing dream for Hurricane Katrina survivors turned into a nightmare
Judith Keller The Conversation (No paywall)From the United States ... Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation built 109 eye-catching and affordable homes in New Orleans for a community where many people were displaced by damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now this housing development is in disarray. The vast majority of the recently constructed homes are riddled with construction-related problems that have led to mold, termites, rotting wood, flooding and other woes.
https://theconversation.com/how-brad-pitts-green-housing-dream-f…
# International, Affordable housing, Mould.Vale Sadie, Glebe campaigner
(No paywall)Active campaigner for public housing in Glebe and advocate for women’s rights in the workplace Sarah Murdoch King – known to most Glebe locals as Sadie (and to some as the “Queen of Glebe”) – died on January 17 just one month after her 100th birthday. (South Sydney Herald)
https://southsydneyherald.com.au/vale-sadie-glebe-campaigner/
# NSW, Public and community housing, Personal stories, Women.Housing funding and rental reforms expected in Levelling Up White Paper this week
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Further details of funding for housing on brownfield land and new rental reforms are expected to be announced this week as part of the Levelling Up White Paper. ... In addition to the funding, the white paper is expected to include a number of changes to the private rented sector, including a national register for private landlords from which “rogue” landlords will be ejected. Private landlords will also be forced by law to bring their properties up to a set of national standards and tenants will be given a new right to redress for complaints about their homes ...
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/housing-funding-and-re…
# International, Public and community housing, Rent, Landlords and agents.Just two weeks to sell a house as Perth prices peak – but so do evictions
Holly Thompson The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Perth home values have had their biggest monthly increase in eight months, over January, with properties taking just two weeks to sell – twice as fast as what used to be considered normal. ... [But] Shelter WA chief executive Michelle Mackenzie said the downside to the spike in prices was that evictions over the past month had also hit a peak. “Landlords are capitalising on the house prices and are wanting to realise their assets by selling and so more renters are facing eviction. There has been a spike in evictions over January and tenants are being forced to leave and then are struggling to find another affordable place. An influx of people now seeking rental properties has also pushed rental prices up. People who have always managed to find an affordable place are now finding it extremely difficult ... It is really heartbreaking. Regional areas are of particular concern at the moment, there are no rentals that are affordable at all.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/just-two-weeks…
# Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market.‘Do what you reasonably can’: Queensland disability homes told to manage Covid alone
Ben Smee The Guardian (No paywall)Queensland authorities abandoned their own contingency plans to protect vulnerable disability housing residents in the event of a Covid outbreak, instead telling accommodation providers to manage positive cases themselves and just “do what you reasonably can”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/02/do-what-y…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Disability, Health.A TikToker Asked A Landlord For References From Former Tenants & They Deleted His Application
Kathleen Farmilo (No paywall)As if you needed any more proof that landlordism is the scum of the earth (sorry not sorry), a TikToker has revealed the wild response he got when he asked a real estate agent for a landlord reference. (Pedestrian TV)
# Australia, Rent, Landlords and agents.Despite 566 deaths from COVID in aged care in four weeks, Minister Richard Colbeck says the sector is not in crisis
Anne Connolly ABC (No paywall)This COVID-19 wave is shaping up as the most devastating for aged care, so far having killed 566 people in just four weeks and infecting 30,000 staff and residents. It will likely kill many more people in nursing homes as the weeks pass. The numbers who will die of malnourishment and neglect because of a lack of staff will never be known. Despite the overwhelming number of infections and deaths, Mr Colbeck told the Senate Select committee yesterday: "I don't accept that the system is in complete crisis."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-03/covid-aged-care-deaths-co…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Housing market, Older people.