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
Exiting prison with complex support needs: the role of housing assistance
Chris Martin, Rebecca Reeve,Ruth McCausland, Eileen Baldry, Pat Burton, Rob White and Stuart Thomas AHURI (No paywall)A new report released today, undertaken by researchers from The University of New South Wales, University of Tasmania and RMIT University examines policies and programs relevant to the housing pathways of ex-prisoners with complex support needs in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, including what criminal justice costs and benefits result from current housing assistance settings. The research finds ex-prisoners with complex support needs who receive public housing have better criminal justice outcomes than comparable ex-prisoners who receive private rental assistance only. It also finds in dollar terms, housing an ex-prisoner in a public housing tenancy generates, after five years, a net benefit of between $5,200 and $35,000, relative to the cost of providing them with assistance in private rental or through homelessness services.
https://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/361/_nocache?utm…
# Research alert Australia, Public and community housing, Rent, Health.Push to reinstate Victoria's COVID-19 eviction freeze as Tenant Victoria lockdown survey reveals rental pain
Neelima Choahan ABC (No paywall)Trevor Hines works full time, but he and his family have just $150 left to live on after paying rent this week. Like many Melburnians, the hospitality manager has no work during the lockdown and his only income is $750 in COVID-19 disaster payments. ... And he is not alone. Tenants Victoria, the peak body for the state's renters, conducted a snapshot survey of renters from July 28 to August 3 — just after the fifth lockdown ended. Of the 684 respondents, 69 per cent said they had been financially impacted due to the 12-day lockdown in July 2021. The report has renewed calls for the state government to reintroduce a safety net for renters, including rent relief grants to support renters and landlords and suspending evictions during any COVID-19 lockdowns.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-21/renter-stress-covid-lockd…
# Hot topic Australia, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, State Government.Homeless in a bush camp, told to move on, but with a lack of affordable housing there's nowhere to go
Wiriya Sati ABC (No paywall)As property and rental prices soar in regional areas along the New South Wales coast, a housing shortage has pushed many into homelessness. In a state forest on the NSW Mid North Coast, a group of people have found a community who look out for each other and their camps, but now they have been told they must move on.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-21/lack-of-affordable-housin…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing, Homelessness, Regional NSW, Short-term holiday letting.New NSW laws set to allow more apartment owners to keep pets
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)TV presenter and dog owner Scott McGregor plans to celebrate Tuesday’s change in the law about keeping pets in apartments by bringing home a puppy to keep his – currently illegal – miniature fox terrier Jimmy company. ... The laws that come into effect this week mean bylaws that unreasonably forbid the keeping of pets in strata buildings will be invalid.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/new-nsw-laws-set-to-allow-more-ap…
# NSW, Strata, State Government.Support for tenants ... on ABC Newcastle Breakfast
ABC (No paywall)Listen to Nicole Grgas of Hunter Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service speak about help for those renting during the lockdown. She states: 'This package doesn't prevent a landlord from giving an impacted tenant a no-grounds notice. And so we think the protections don't go far enough.' Go to 1:43:15 point at this link.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/people/jenny-marchant-and-dan-cox/1…
# Hot topic, Audio NSW, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Landlords and agents, No-grounds evictions, State Government.Victoria urged to double social housing build ‘sugar hit’
Rachel Eddie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Victoria’s infrastructure adviser says the government needs to more than double its historic investment in social housing to meet a dire shortfall and catch up to the rest of the country. In its 30-year blueprint tabled in the Victorian Parliament on Thursday, Infrastructure Victoria said the state needed to build an extra 3900 to 4900 homes every year for the next 10 years. The major investment is needed on top of the $5.3 billion Big Housing Build announced last year to fund 12,000 new social and affordable homes in four years.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/victoria-urged-to-doubl…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Housing market, State Government.One bed and a ‘shower-kitchen’: Housing a hurdle for families in Sydney’s west
Natassia Chrysanthos and Angus Thompson The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Eight-year-old Mee Mee Myat would love her own bed one day. She thinks it would be cool if she could hang out in the kitchen without hearing the shower run or toilet flush, too. But her home of the last few years – an old pool house at the back of a property in Blacktown – isn’t big enough to fit two mattresses, so hers sits propped against the fence outside. And she and mother, Su, make meals in what they call “the shower-kitchen”. Crowded housing is at its worst in Sydney’s west and south-west – the parts of the city hit hardest by COVID-19 – and advocates say the pandemic demonstrates the region’s dire need for more affordable housing. Mee Mee and Ms Myat don’t have much room to move. To the left of the foyer is the room where they share a bed and eat. To the right is a room that combines the shower, toilet and kitchen, with a curtain separating them. ... Chief executive of Homelessness NSW, Katherine McKernan, said many families in west and south-west Sydney were living together in cramped conditions because there were no other affordable options. ... Ms McKernan said the government needed to see affordable housing as “critical community infrastructure fundamental to the health of all” and create 5000 properties each year for the next 10 years to meet demand. “If we can’t act on providing affordable housing now when it is the primary response to keeping people safe from COVID-19 and will help the economy, then when?“
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/one-bed-and-a-shower-kitchen…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Homelessness, Minimum habitability standards.Crowded, dirty and a lack of regulation: COVID-19 ticking time bombs in the suburbs
Natassia Chrysanthos The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Here's a story from last year which we're running again ... Boarding houses have become coronavirus ticking time bombs in Sydney's suburbs, with experts warning poor hygiene, chronic health issues and a lack of regulation make them "perfectly suited" to an outbreak.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/crowded-dirty-and-a-lack-of-…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Homelessness.