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
‘It's dire’: Covid fears for inner-city communities as Redfern Towers struck
Dijana Damjanovic and Nadine Silva SBS (No paywall)Redfern residents are deeply concerned for the safety and wellbeing of their community as NSW authorities confirm an emerging COVID-19 cluster across three public housing towers in the inner-city Sydney suburb.
https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2021/09/16/its-dire-fears-in…
# NSW, Aboriginal renters, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, State Government.Mortgage stress soars as RBA says tax system pushes up house prices
Shane Wright The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Mortgage stress is spiking across key suburban electorates in Sydney and Melbourne despite record low interest rates as spiralling property prices leave two in five households struggling to make ends meet. ... Research by the University of NSW shows the proportion of households in stress has climbed to 42 per cent. [Meanwhile] The Reserve Bank says the way negative gearing interacts with the rest of the tax system is contributing to high house prices. ... [Also] it said the nation’s tax and transfer system encouraged investment in property and discouraged people from selling and moving, which then put upward pressure on prices. The capital gains tax concession, the exclusion of the family home from the age pension means test, the concession tax treatment on inherited family homes all encouraged people to hold on to property even as they got older, putting pressure on the market.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/mortgage-stress-soars-as…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Housing market, Tax.Out Of Time: California Legislators Won’t Extend Eviction Ban
Manuela Tobias (No paywall)California’s eviction protections will almost certainly not be extended once they expire after Sept. 30, the state Assembly Housing chairperson said today. The legislative session ends Friday, so that’s the last day that lawmakers could push off that deadline. But the political appetite just isn’t there to act, according to David Chiu, a San Francisco Democrat who spearheaded the previous efforts to stall the displacement of tenants amid the pandemic. “I believed our eviction protections for tenants should be extended beyond September 30. The delta variant and the end of many unemployment benefits make that even more urgent,” Chiu told CalMatters. “Unfortunately, some of my colleagues feel differently, and there’s not enough consensus for that.” (Capradio)
https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/09/12/out-of-time-califor…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market.Police enforcing strict lock-in a ‘worst nightmare’ for vulnerable Sydney social housing residents
Zena Chamas The Guardian (No paywall)In the middle of one night last week, Saffaa woke up to the sound of a distressed man yelling for help from the fourth-floor apartment above her. “Can you hear me Australia, can you hear me? My words are being suppressed … no one is helping me,” he yelled. Saffaa, who did not want to use her last name, was afraid of what he might do next. ... Saffa hadn’t met any of her neighbours in the Common Ground Towers in Camperdown, but after the building was plunged into a hard lockdown earlier this month, she became determined to do all she could to help them. More than 100 residents in the social housing estate in inner-city Sydney were plunged into hard lockdown on 2 September for 14 days, following the detection of four Covid-19 cases in the building. ... In an open letter, Legal Observers NSW condemned “inappropriate policing” imposed on residents throughout the duration of the lockdown. “The sudden and poorly communicated hard lockdown of Common Ground residence, run by Mission Australia, has left residents confused and distressed,” the open letter read. The letter was signed by organisations including Amnesty International, Shelter NSW and Tenants Union New South Wales. (See Housing News Digest dated 16 September 2021.)
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/15/police-en…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, State Government.California Housing Is a Crisis Newsom Can Take Into His Own Hands
Conor Dougherty The New York Times (Paywall)From the United States ... The median home price in California has eclipsed $800,000. Tenants in the state are among the most cost-burdened in the
country. Each night more than 100,000 residents sleep outside or in their cars. A crisis, a disaster, the religion of sorrow, a disgrace — whatever journalists and politicians call it, people across the state, including all the major candidates for governor in the recall vote this week, agree that the situation is untenable. The question is what, if anything, the governor can do about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/business/california-housing-c…
# International, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing market, Planning and development.‘Scared as hell’: COVID-19 cluster emerges in Sydney’s public housing towers
Megan Gorrey The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Hundreds of tenants across three neighbouring social housing towers at Redfern are being tested for COVID-19 after health authorities detected a dozen cases of the virus among residents. NSW Health confirmed the emerging outbreak at one of the Morehead Street unit blocks, which are together home to more than 630 people, amid growing fears the virus is spreading among the inner city’s most vulnerable. The outbreak at 57 Morehead Street, known as the Lawson tower, intensified concern among people who live at the nearby Waterloo public housing estate, where some cases have been detected among its 2500 residents. “They’re scared as hell,” Waterloo Public Housing Action Group chairman Richard Weeks said. “All of a sudden, it just hit us.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/scared-as-hell-covid-19-clus…
# NSW, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health.Letters to Editor
The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Check out the Letters to Editor... 'RBA locks door to housing affordability for young'. Some excellent letters, like the one from Elisabeth Goodsall of Wahrooga who writes: 'Rob Stokes is right that planning alone can’t fix housing affordability. An important lever in controlling housing prices is taxation policies around property. While the vast majority of our politicians are enriching themselves with tax advantages through investment in property, how can we expect them to legislate fairly for policies that will give all a fair go.' Or, Russ Couch of Woonona who writes: 'I know you are from the Liberal Party, Minister Stokes, but why can’t you just say it out loud? Stokes refers obliquely to certain federal policy settings as also contributing to high house prices. I think he clearly means negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. At the last federal election Labor was right to propose changes to these specific measures, and got monstered for it by the Libs. Stokes, you need to call it as it is, and damn the politics.'
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/rba-locks-door-to-housing-af…
# NSW, Federal Government, Housing market, Planning and development, Tax.Homes that kill: 2 million homes in England pose a serious threat to health or safety
(No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... A lack of action on poor-quality housing is leading to avoidable deaths, with 1 in 10 homes posing a serious risk to their residents’ health or safety. A new report by the Good Home Inquiry warns that it's a 'now or never' moment for transforming the state of the nation's housing, and is calling for a cross-government housing strategy with a ministerial champion. (Centre for Ageing Better)
https://www.ageing-better.org.uk/news/homes-that-kill-two-millio…
# International, Public and community housing, Health, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards, Race and ethnicity.