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
Houses are too expensive to buy, but that’s not the problem
Victoria Devine The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)When we talk about housing affordability in Australia, we often frame it as though the system is inherently broken. And if something is broken, it becomes something we need to fix. But I want to challenge that perspective. What if, instead of seeing housing affordability as a problem to solve, we started seeing it as a reality to adjust to? Let me explain. Ever since the postwar housing boom in the 1950s, Australians have come to believe that property ownership should be the default position. That owning the place we call home is the norm. But in many other parts of the world being saddled with a mortgage is not the rule, it’s the exception.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/houses-are-too-expensive-…
# Hot topic Australia, .Who wants to make housing affordable in Australia?
Francisco Silva Law Society Journal (No paywall)2023 poll from the Centre of Youth Policy and Education Practice claimed that 70 per cent of young Australians saw an urgency in fixing housing affordability. Since then, the Australian housing question has not left the public discourse. Earlier this year, the ‘People’s Commission into the Housing Crisis’, convened by advocacy group Everybody’s Home, painted a very concerning picture of the current state of affairs – widely spread housing stress, precarity, and financial hardship that leads to anxiety, uncertainty and inequality.
https://lsj.com.au/articles/who-wants-to-make-housing-affordable…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Forced to move by the Australian housing crisis: three-hour commutes and ‘never mind seeing your family’
Daisy Dumas The Guardian (No paywall)It was Alice and her family’s sixth move in as many years that pushed them over the edge. They’d relocated from their home city of Sydney to the Central Coast and back, paid $700 a week for a Lilyfield rental complete with weeds – inside the house – then moved to a $900-a-week house in Drummoyne, which their landlords promptly sold, making a $1m profit and leaving the family of four high and dry. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” the small business co-owner says. Exhausted, financially depleted and with no trust in landlords, she and her partner stored their belongings, bought a caravan and – with their now six- and 17-year-old children and two dogs in tow – travelled for seven months.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/dec/09/forced-to…
# Hot topic Australia, .Government under pressure to fund and build more social housing amid 'extremely severe' shortage
Alexandra Blucher and Nadine Haynes ABC (No paywall)Rebecca is feeling the housing crisis more than most. For more than two years, the single mother has been staying in Cairns hotel rooms with her big family, including two sets of twins. "I've got seven kids, five of them [are] living here with me," she said. "Having a big family in a small space, it's a lot of noise. "I'm always worried about noise, I'm always worried about complaints, I'm always worried about rubbish and things like that, because we do have a big family." The single mother is priced out of the private rental market and has been approved for social housing. In the meantime, she's supported by a not-for-profit to pay for hotels.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-02/waiting-for-more-affordab…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing, Rent.Share with parents or rent forever: ‘I have put life on hold while trying to buy a house’
Daisy Dumas The Guardian (No paywall)When Phil moved in with his grandfather and parents in 2018, he was a rarity in the neighbourhood. An adult with a full-time job, he was one of just two children on the Logan, Queensland block to have returned home. Six years on and now 30, he guesses he’s one of about 10 adult children back living with their parents. “It’s not a big house,” he says of four adults, plus a cat and a dog, sharing. “Because my grandpa has a schedule – and God help me if anyone interferes with that schedule – we just work around him.” They split bills and groceries and, if money is tight – as it was when he needed four new car tyres – his parents help.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/dec/05/share-wit…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Starting a tenancy.Victorian smoke alarm reforms require landlords to conduct yearly checks on all rentals
Alexander Darling ABC (No paywall)It's a bittersweet day for the Scarff family of Victoria. Simon Peter Scarff, 52, died while trying to escape a fire at his rental property in the western Ballarat suburb of Alfredton in February 2022. The property did not have a smoke alarm installed. "Without a smoke alarm, he made a triple-0 call, but was unable to answer the questions, so the ESTA (Emergency Services Telecommunication Authority) lady despite her best efforts didn't know who or where to send someone," his sister Jo McConville said. On Tuesday, Ms McConville and several of her family welcomed Consumer Affairs Minister Gabrielle Williams to their home.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-21/victorian-smoke-alarm-cha…
# Must read Australia, Disasters.Cheaper housing and better transport? What you need to know about Australia’s new National Urban Policy
Ehsan Noroozinejad & Nicky Morrison The Conversation (No paywall)Imagine a city where everyone can afford a safe home, reach work or school without long, stressful commutes, and enjoy green parks and clean air. This is Anthony Albanese’s decade-long vision for Australia’s cities after last week’s release of the new National Urban Policy (NUP). As Transport and Infrastructure Minister in 2011, he introduced Our Cities, Our Future. Then in 2021, as opposition leader, he pledged a new urban framework. The new NUP now sets the course for transforming Australia’s cities.
https://theconversation.com/cheaper-housing-and-better-transport…
# Hot topic Australia, .Affordable-housing project opens in Bellingen for local women over 55
Jasmine Kassis ABC (No paywall)Scottish-born Margaret Hamill, 81, moved to Australia in 1969 and worked in IT for multiple government departments in Canberra. But for the past decade, she has lived in a van. After retirement, she found herself unable to afford a permanent home. But that will change next week when she and 22 other women move into a new block of units in Bellingen, on the New South Wales Mid North Coast. "I can't wait to sit on the beautiful deck and look at the mountains," Ms Hamill said. "I'm really looking forward to just having a bit more of my own non-essential things around me — photographs and books and music."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-04/bellingen-affordable-hous…
# Must read NSW, .