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
‘How am I going to pay this?’ Wave of evictions coming as moratorium ends
Clay Lucas The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)From Victoria ... But with the moratorium on evictions ending next Sunday, the 45-year-old is fairly certain her time in her Abbotsford home will soon be up. “I have no idea what I will do if I can’t find a job in the next few weeks,” says Ms Mansor, whose JobSeeker payments will fall to $616 a fortnight, as the supplement added by the Morrison government also finishes. ... Rental groups expect a surge of evictions the moment the moratorium ends, and federal unemployment support schemes such as JobKeeper wind up, also on March 28.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/how-am-i-going-to-pay-t…
# Hot topic Australia, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19.Mr McCormack's 'move to more' campaign to get migration to regions might add to the regional housing crisis
Liam Cormican (No paywall)The federal government's $4.6 million campaign to get more people to live in the regions may add to Nowra's social housing crisis. The social housing waiting list in Nowra is five to 10 years for most property types with around 700 households on the list. Gilmore MP Fiona Phillips said the state of the rental and affordable housing problem was "dire". "We have the lowest rental availability in NSW," she said. (South Coast Register)
https://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/7171672/the-move-to-…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Public and community housing, Federal Government, Regional NSW.‘All of this is mine’: In Mississippi, landlords legally snatch all belongings from tenants during an eviction
Anna Wolfe (No paywall)Mississippi’s Landlord-Tenant Act, amended in 2018 and 2019, provides that as soon as a judge grants an eviction in court, the landlord may immediately assume ownership of all the tenant’s belongings located on the property, even a trailer home. An eviction is almost always ordered automatically if the tenant is even one day behind on rent and there is no guarantee of a grace period that would give them the time to move. These are the harshest eviction statutes in the nation. [Read on] (Mississippi Today)
https://mississippitoday.org/2021/03/17/all-of-this-is-mine-in-m…
# International, Eviction, Rent, Goods left behind, Homelessness, Landlords and agents.Developers rush to beat the clock on affordable housing rule changes
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Developers are racing to beat new planning regulations designed to boost the supply of affordable housing which they warn will make it unfeasible for them to build low-cost accommodation. Advocates for affordable housing say the existing laws around boarding houses have allowed developers to reap government incentives for constructing micro-apartments that are too expensive for low-income earners. ... Shelter NSW policy director Ryan Harris supported the government’s reforms, saying it was a good outcome if developers were no longer offered incentives to build micro apartments they leased for $400 a week.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/developers-rush-to-beat-the-…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Housing market.Could the biggest result of pandemic stimulus and low interest rates be higher house prices in Australia?
Greg Jericho The Guardian (No paywall)House prices keep going up. Regardless of falls in employment or a sharper drop in national production than has ever been experienced, through 2020 house prices around the country rose and once again in Sydney the median price is $1m.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/could-the-…
# Hot topic Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing market.White Bay Power Station the centrepiece of draft plan to revive area
Angus Thompson and Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Restoration of the White Bay Power Station as a cultural building and the reopening of the Glebe Island Bridge to pedestrians and cyclists are at the centre of a NSW government plan to transform Sydney’s industrial harbour into a business, leisure and tourism precinct. A draft strategy, released for consultation on Monday, revives the idea of White Bay as a technology hub previously floated by Google and puts residential development ... back on the table. ... It makes housing a key strategic direction, including affordable housing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/white-bay-power-station-the-…
# NSW, Affordable housing, Planning and development.'Can you help me?': The quiet desperation of New Zealand's housing crisis
Elle Hunt The Guardian (No paywall)With prices soaring, many fear they will never be able to buy. Others will try anything as the crisis threatens to define a generation.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/20/can-you-help-me-th…
# Hot topic International, Coronavirus COVID-19, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market.Renting Is Terrible. Owning Is Worse.
Shane Phillips (No paywall)America conceives of itself as an “ownership society.” Nearly two-thirds of U.S. households own their home, and the idea of renting is inseparable from ownership in the U.S. context. Renting is given meaning by its relationship to ownership—it’s how you live if you can’t afford, or aren’t yet ready, to own. America treats renting as it has treated the minimum wage for the past several decades: unworthy of serious concern, just a phase in young people’s lives, and a long-term outcome only for those unwilling to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This perspective is a big part of why renters enjoy so few protections, and why the U.S. showers roughly $150 billion on homeowners each year but only a fraction of that on renters, despite renters having about half the median household income of owners. [Read on ...] (The Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/why-its-better…
# International, Public and community housing, Rent, Home ownership.