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.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
Number of renters seeking advice on eviction notices spiked in September, charity says
Niamh Towey Irish Times (No paywall)The number of renters seeking advice from homeless charity Threshold on eviction notices spiked in September this year, new data shows. The September spike came months after an announcement on new rental controls. Some 594 queries relating to Notices of Termination (NoT) were received by Threshold in September. This is the highest number seen since May 2023 when the winter eviction ban ended, and some 611 NoT queries were logged.
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2025/12/30/n…
# Hot topic International, Eviction, Rent.‘My family is being evicted at Christmas, I had to tell my children we couldn’t afford presents this year’
Albert Toth The Independent (No paywall)“We were really hoping that this was somewhere where we could really be long-term,” says Kristina. “Somewhere to recover and heal from what happened to us. But instead, here we go again.” The single mother of two has just received her second Section 21 eviction notice in less than two years. She and her boys must now say goodbye to another home by the end of February. From May, landlords will be banned from using the controversial power under Labour’s new Renters’ Rights Act. Until then, they can still administer these “no-fault” notices to remove a tenant without reason at two months’ notice.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/section-21-evict…
# Hot topic International, Eviction, Rent.England now has a plan to end homelessness – here’s how to test whether it will work
Julia Ellingwood and Michael Sanders The Conversation (No paywall)The UK has proved before that it can end homelessness. The Everyone In scheme during COVID lockdowns accommodated tens of thousands of people in emergency and supported housing, who would otherwise have continued sleeping rough. But this was only temporary. Nearly six years later, the scale of the challenge is immense. In June 2025, 132,410 households were living in temporary accommodation, almost two-thirds of which were families with children.
https://theconversation.com/england-now-has-a-plan-to-end-homele…
# Hot topic International, .From rent to utility bills: the politicians and advocates making climate policy part of the affordability agenda
Dharna Noor The Guardian (No paywall)A group of progressive politicians and advocates are reframing emissions-cutting measures as a form of economic populism as the Trump administration derides climate policy as a “scam” and fails to deliver on promises to tame energy costs and inflation. Climate politics were once cast as a test of moral resolve, calling on Americans to accept higher costs to avert environmental catastrophe, but that ignores how rising temperatures themselves drive up costs for working people, said Stevie O’Hanlon, co-founder of the youth-led Sunrise Movement. “People increasingly understand how climate and costs of living are tied together,” she said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/01/affordability-cl…
# Must read International, Rent.Inside Australia's rental crunch — and what the numbers say about 2026
Cameron Carr SBS (No paywall)Summer may bring more rental listings, but with demand still overwhelming supply, experts say soaring prices are cementing housing affordability as one of Australia's biggest economic flashpoints heading into 2026. Rents for houses remain at record highs across the country, with unit prices not far behind, as Australia enters the peak lease-changeover period. The summer months have long delivered the biggest surge in rental listings, but this year's activity has been intensified by the return of international students, new migrant workers, and local renters searching for more affordable options.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/summer-rental-property-marke…
# Australia, .Real estate agents under the microscope in Australian-first privacy ‘compliance sweep’
Luca Ittimani The Guardian (No paywall)Real estate agencies who ask for phone numbers at open houses, car dealerships that keep driver licences on file, and pubs and bars that scan IDs for entry will be targeted by the privacy regulator in its first “compliance sweep” of dozens of businesses. The crackdown by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner could see businesses fined up to $66,000 if their privacy policies fail to meet legal standards.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/02/personal-data-priv…
# Australia, Privacy and access, Security and safety.Prevention or patch up? Governments must row as well as steer the housing issue
Geoff Edwards The Mandarin (Paywall)Secure, weather-resistant and frugally comfortable housing is so pivotal to well-being that governments should be marshalling all the tools at their disposal to ease the contemporary shortage. Before exploring the five major classes of tools, let’s first examine why some are routinely disregarded. The preference of the business sector for market delivery of housing over public delivery is easily understandable, based as it is on commercial interest, but the persistent, three-decades-long reluctance of governments to build social housing is puzzling.
https://www.themandarin.com.au/305153-governments-must-row-as-we…
# Australia, .Evictions loom as housing tower demo appeal tossed
Callum Goode Yahoo News (No paywall)Residents of public housing towers earmarked for demolition are staring down eviction after suffering another blow in court. A class action against the Victorian government's plan to demolish and rebuild all 44 of Melbourne's public housing towers by 2051 was thrown out by the Supreme Court in April. Towers in Flemington and North Melbourne were the first slated to be emptied for demolition but evictions were halted after an appeal was launched.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/evictions-loom-housing-tower-demo-0332…
# Australia, Eviction, Public and community housing.