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
How Housing Became So Broken
Chris Kohler Youtube (No paywall)Chris and Alan Kohler talk about the housing crisis that is shaping the Australian economy. It's a puzzle, so Chris made Alan a crossword - can he crack it while simultaneously explaining why nobody can afford homes anymore?
# Hot topic, Video Australia, .Support service helping older women navigate the ups and downs of housing insecurity
Claudia Williams ABC (No paywall)For more than a decade, finding a safe and affordable home has felt like a game of snakes and ladders for Meredith. Securing her first social housing unit in her 50s felt like a major step up. She stayed for three years, but living in a noisy environment, where drugs were sometimes visibly present, took its toll. "I realised, even though I would have been beautifully housed for the rest of my life, I couldn't stay there," she said. The search began for a new home, and she landed a winner — an affordable unit in a retirement village on the Sunshine Coast. "I thought I was home and hosed," she said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-05/queensland-older-women-ho…
# Australia, Rent.Of course, widows with investment properties elicit more media sympathy than widows who rent
Rachel Withers Crikey (No paywall)Thank goodness. Labor has finally addressed the most pressing issue facing the nation, unveiling its promised fix to the so-called “widows tax” - so called because the media started calling it that back in June. Won’t the government please think of the widows who wish to continue negatively gearing their investment properties? It’s staggering how much attention the “widows tax” has received in the wake of Labor’s tax reforms, which have otherwise faced (except of course, when Sydneys property values plunged by 0.6%).
https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/08/05/widows-tax-negative-gearing…
# Must read, Hot topic Australia, Rent.Nearly 1,500 properties bought using first home buyers’ 5% deposit scheme converted into investments
Luca Ittimani The Guardian (No paywall)The government’s 5% deposit scheme for first home buyers has enabled the purchase of nearly 1,500 properties that were turned into investments, new data shows. The scheme is also helping hundreds of Australians earning more than $300,000 a year, after Labor stopped excluding high-income borrowers. First-time buyers can borrow 95% of a property’s value and have the government guarantee the loan, waiving costly lenders’ mortgage insurance, under the scheme.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/06/first-hom…
# Australia, .New study shows there’s a growing constituency reshaping Australian politics: renters
Francisco Perales and Ferran Martinez i Coma The Conversation (No paywall)The ongoing housing crisis is having severe repercussions on individuals and families in Australia. It has limited young people’s ability to move out, increased the rate of involuntary lifelong renting, and pushed vulnerable populations into homelessness. These are not the only changes that flow as a result of housing unaffordability. Our new research demonstrates it’s also reshaping how people vote.
https://theconversation.com/new-study-shows-theres-a-growing-con…
# Australia, Rent.Young renter’s mould nightmare exposes grim reality of Australia’s rental crisis
Lydia Kellner realestate.com.au (No paywall)A British woman’s mould nightmare in a Gold Coast sharehouse has exposed a grim reality for renters across Australia, with black fuzz spreading through her bedroom just six weeks after she moved in. Carenza, who recently relocated from England, says nearly everything she owns is now covered in black mould, from her bedding and pillows to her lampshade, despite airing out the room every day. What began as what she thought was just “a little bit of mould” on the floor quickly turned into something far worse.
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/young-renters-mould-nightmare…
# Australia, Rent.A masterful, human-centered defense of rent control
Jennifer Hiatt Planetizen (No paywall)Lauren E.M. Everett’s "Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica’s Rent Controlled Housing" is exactly the book the housing policy debate has been missing. National conversations have focused heavily on solving the housing crisis by reducing regulations and building more housing, but have yet to consider ways to support existing housing affordability. While economists love to argue about rent control using dry numbers and abstract graphs, Everett takes a new approach.
https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/138128-masterful-human-centered…
# International, .Belonging Is Built: The Limits of the Loneliness Agenda
Seth Kaplan Substack (No paywall)Why rebuilding neighborhoods—not expanding programs—is the only scalable response to social disconnection. We are finally talking about loneliness. The Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory declared isolation a public health crisis, comparing its health risks to smoking. Think tanks are launching initiatives. Public officials are drafting strategies. Philanthropies are funding research. Conferences are being convened. The concern is justified. But the movement is misidentifying where intervention will be most impactful.
https://flourishingneighborhoods.substack.com/p/belonging-is-bui…
# International, .