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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See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
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Archive
Tenant News
Tenants' Union of NSW (No paywall)'Renting Matters!' podcasts, Moratorium ends, transition period begins, 'No grounds evictions', The real housing crisis, The emergency in the regions, 'Build Back Better' ... and lots more news
https://us3.campaign-archive.com/?u=29c79d2825cb376b3f0b06385&id…
# NSW, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Rent, Starting a tenancy, Strata, Campaigns and law reform, Climate change, Coronavirus COVID-19, Estate renewal, Housing market, Regional NSW.Introductory Remarks to Parliamentary Inquiry hearing: Housing affordability and Supply in Australia, 17 November 2021
Bill Randolph and Hal Pawson City Futures (No paywall)... Adequate housing supply is a key component of a healthy housing market. But we would argue that the causes of housing unaffordability are complex and call for consideration of both housing supply and housing demand and the underlying drivers on both sides of the market. Boosting home ownership is a key objective that we fully support. But, as argued in our recent report, ‘Housing – Taming the Elephant in the Economy’, Australia’s home ownership system has transformed from its historic function of spreading wealth into a modern day system that concentrates wealth and drives growing inequality. Over-preferencing existing home owners and investors has increasingly excluded young adults from access. ... The Australian Government could play an important role in supporting such diversity. Not only by reforming key tax settings, but also through influencing urban development. [You will find a link to the submission by City Futures in the third paragraph of this article.]
https://blogs.unsw.edu.au/cityfutures/blog/2021/11/introductory-…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Tax.November 2021 News
Shelter NSW (No paywall)Check out the latest housing news from Shelter NSW ...
Sydney. What kind of city do we want?
Regional Housing Taskforce recommendations released
Shelter NSW AGM 2021
Shelter NSW CEO speaks to NSW Parliamentary Committee about social and affordable housing – and ‘meanwhile use’
Sydney Alliance Local Organising for Council Elections
One of NSW’s largest councils one big step closer to an affordable housing contribution scheme
'Housing and Homelessness: The Local Landscape' - City of Newcastle invites you to a forum
Houses are not bananas - the regional housing crisis
Shelter NSW CEO, John Engeler, elected Chair of National Shelter
Housing policy should address climate change, not exacerbate it
Sydney Social Housing - 'Two Point Perspective' Podcast
Hands Off Glebe Community 'Picket'
Sydney Olympic Park 2050 – Have Your Say
https://mailchi.mp/shelternsw/shelter-nsw-november-ebulletin?e=9…
# NSW, Campaigns and law reform.What’s needed to help older tenants age in public housing?
Debbie Faulkner, Julia Verdouw, Peta Cook, Selina Tually, Edgar Liu, Bruce Judd, Helen Barrie and Veronica Coram AHURI (No paywall)The proportion of public housing tenants aged 55 or older across Australia has risen from 20 per cent in 2006 to 37 per cent in 2016, resulting in the need for changes to public housing policy and practice, new AHURI has revealed. Read more, with a link to the full publication, at: [https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/369]
https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/news/What%E2%80%99s-needed-to-…
# Research alert Australia, Public and community housing, Older people.‘Why are we living in such conditions?’: Crown Heights tenants on why they’re striking
Ben Verde (No paywall)From New York ... For Doila George, a resident of 1392 Sterling Place, the final straw came in March when her window jammed, making it unable to close — and adding yet another opening to her dilapidated apartment, which features holes in her kitchen ceiling that send floods of rainwater splashing onto the floor. For months, she tried to get in touch with her building’s management company to get the problems in her apartment fixed, but received no responses and no repairs. In July, she decided she’d had enough. When she mailed her rent for the month, she included with it a letter informing the management company that it would be the last rent she would be paying until her repairs were made. She is yet to receive a response. (Brooklyn Paper)
https://www.brooklynpaper.com/crown-heights-tenants-strike-nov-2…
# International, Rent, Repairs, Campaigns and law reform, Housing market, Landlords and agents.‘Ultimately uninhabitable’: western Sydney’s legacy of planning failure
Anne Davies The Guardian (No paywall)Houses built to the fence line with dark roofs and tiny backyards leave their owners at the mercy of the climate crisis, experts say ... On 4 January 2020, the western Sydney suburb of Penrith was one of the hottest places on Earth at 48.9C. The heat that day, at the foot of the Blue Mountains, gave a brief window into what the future will be like in the city’s outer rings, soon to be home to more than 1.5 million people. Climate change is no longer looming. It’s here.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/16/ultimatel…
# NSW, Climate change, Housing market, Planning and development, State Government.We need to design housing for Indigenous communities that can withstand the impacts of climate change
Tess Lea, Arianna Brambilla, John Singer and Liam Grealy The Conversation (No paywall)Remote Indigenous communities in Australia will experience the impacts of climate change disproportionately to the rest of the country. ... A rapidly warming planet provides a significant challenge to design, deliver, and maintain habitable housing across Australia. Yet, few analyses consider Indigenous housing and climate change together.
https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-design-housing-for-indige…
# Australia, Housing market, Race and ethnicity.Spain takes on private equity landlords as cost of housing soars
Daniel Dombey (Paywall)Spain’s leftwing government is championing rent controls as property costs rise across Europe, part of a proposed housing law that it says will protect vulnerable tenants against investment funds and other big landlords. ... Ione Belarra, leader of the radical Podemos party that supports the bill, said it would right the balance in a sector transformed by the eurozone financial crisis over a decade ago and the arrival of institutional funds. Investment group Blackstone is now Spain’s biggest landlord. “The big investment funds saw a niche here to speculate in the housing business,” Belarra, who is also Spain’s social affairs minister, told the Financial Times in an interview. “Now we are beginning to put limits to this and say to the big landlords that they can keep doing housing business, but not at any price,” she added. “Not at the price that there are evictions, or that people have to pay more than 30 per cent of their income in rent.” Blackstone, which now owns close to 30,000 homes in Spain, declined to comment. (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/9ef1eb29-04a5-441f-ac77-f6a0fb7d2d85
# International, Eviction, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.