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
The federal poverty line struggles to capture the economic hardship that half of Americans face
Celine-Mari Pascale The Conversation (No paywall)From th United States ... Chase shares an apartment with three other people, something he finds stressful. And he is not always confident that he can make his portion of the rent. Between the two jobs, Chase earns less than US$16,000 a year. While it may not sound like a lot, that places him well above the federal poverty line for a single person: $12,760. ... Across the country, millions of low-wage workers like Chase struggle to pay their bills each month, despite holding multiple jobs.
https://theconversation.com/the-federal-poverty-line-struggles-t…
# International, Rent, Families, Housing market, Work, employment.Chihuahua driving neighbour barking mad
Jimmy Thomson (No paywall)There can be few things worse in strata that finding yourself living next door to an incessantly yapping dog. Actually, there is: living next door to an incessantly yapping dog and its owners won’t do anything about the yapping and the strata committee won’t do anything about the owners. (Flat Chat)
# NSW, Strata.Revealed: Housing Ombudsman names landlords in latest complaints failure list
Jack Simpson Inside Housing (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... The latest report comes just weeks after the ombudsman published a report that listed the worst-performing landlords on dealing with damp and mould. ... Complaint-handling failure orders are issued by the ombudsman when it has taken reasonable steps to seek engagement from a landlord but residents are still unable to progress a complaint. They may also be issued when there appears to be a systemic issue within a landlord’s complaint-handling. ... Hammersmith & Fulham topped the list at 10.8 findings per 10,000 homes, followed by A2Dominion at a rate of 3, Camden Council at 2.5, and Lambeth Council at 2. Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman, said: “Complaints provide a valuable opportunity for landlords to listen to residents’ concerns, treat them fairly and put things right where they have gone wrong."
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/revealed-housing-ombud…
# International, Public and community housing, Mould.House price growth three times faster than wages over four decades
Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)The price of a typical house in Sydney has multiplied by 17 times in the past 40 years, almost three times faster than wages. Analysis by social research firm McCrindle revealed that wage growth has failed to keep pace with the housing boom across all Australian capital cities. ... The report, titled The Fading Australian Dream, combines current and historical figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, property analytics firm CoreLogic, and economist Peter Abelson. [You will find the report at: https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/blogarchive/the-fading-australian-dream/] ... Joel Pringle, the advocacy manager at the Benevolent Society working on the EveryAGE Counts campaign against ageism, said the insecurity and expense of the private rental market was a big cause of homelessness. “High rents have a big impact on people who have had insecure housing over a long time,” Mr Pringle said. “Housing costs are a huge part of homelessness but also unexpected life events like relationship breakdown or losing a job.” ... People over 55, especially women, were one of the fastest-growing groups of homeless people in the 2016 census, and people aged 55 to 64 are one of the biggest cohorts on unemployment benefits. The EveryAGE Counts campaign is advocating for NSW to adopt the Home at Last program running in Victoria, which provides advice, support and advocacy for older people who are homeless or at risk. You will find a similar report about Melbourne housing affordability plummeting at: [https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-housing-affordability-plummets-women-hit-hardest-20211107-p596po.html]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/house-price-growth-three-tim…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Older people.Housing and homelessness left behind in post-Covid recovery
Kay Harrison (No paywall)‘Building back better’ is not in our sights for housing and homelessness despite the pandemic’s singular opportunity to kickstart overdue investment. That’s according to UNSW School of Built Environment housing policy expert Professor Hal Pawson, who says the pandemic has been insufficient in triggering the housing policy reform needed. ... The pandemic created an extraordinary stimulus for ‘outside-the-box’ policy innovations. Rapidly enacted and large-scale emergency responses challenged wisdom about what was politically and economically feasible. But such interventions failed to recognise or address fundamental housing system flaws, Prof. Pawson says. “As revealed by our work, a remarkable 40,000 homeless people were assisted with emergency accommodation from March to October 2020,” he says. But inadequate social housing infrastructure and income support meant less than a third could be transitioned to longer-term housing ... (UNSW Newsroom)
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/social-affairs/housing-and-hom…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Homelessness, Housing affordability, Housing market, State Government.Alert level 3 restrictions reasonable grounds to refuse viewings, Tenancy Tribunal rules
Jake McKee (No paywall)From New Zealand ... A landlord's claim his tenant was unreasonably refusing viewings of his central Auckland apartment due to Covid-19 risks has been dismissed by the Tenancy Tribunal. The landlord* put his leasehold apartment up for sale but prospective buyers had not been able to view it. The Residential Tenancies Act states a landlord may enter a premise to show it to prospective buyers if the tenant consents, but they can reasonably withhold consent. The landlord went to the Tribunal alleging his tenant was being unreasonable. In emails provided to RNZ by the landlord, the tenant* said he did not consent to viewings because of risks related to Covid-19 and the Auckland region being at alert level 3. A Tribunal order, obtained by RNZ and yet to be made publicly, showed the adjudicator found "the tenant had reasonable grounds to withhold consent". "Acting reasonably, many people would refuse consent in this situation to unknown parties," they said. (RNZ)
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/455003/alert-level-3-restric…
# Must read, Legal significance International, Privacy and access, Rent, Tribunal NCAT, Coronavirus COVID-19.25,000 Section 21 eviction notices have been handed out since Theresa May vowed to scrap them
Liam Geraghty (No paywall)From the United Kingdom ... No-fault evictions allow landlords to evict their tenants without giving a reason but government plans to axe them have now slipped into 2022. It’s been two-and-a-half years since Theresa May’s government promised to scrap ‘no-fault’ evictions but renters will still be facing the prospect of being forced out without a reason in 2022. Since April 2019, more than 25,000 landlord possession claims have been heard in county courts in England and Wales, according to government statistics, with more on the cards in the months ahead. The Big Issue’s Stop Mass Homelesness campaign has been calling for ‘no-fault’ evictions – or section 21 evictions as they are also known – to be suspended to prevent rising homelessness in the next few months following the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. ... Campaigners Generation Rent and Shelter have been among the groups campaigning as the Renters Reform Coalition to end the use of section 21 to evict tenants. Dan Wilson Craw, deputy director of Generation Rent, said: “The longer renters wait for the government to abolish Section 21, the more people will have their lives uprooted at their landlord’s whim. Many more will continue living in squalid conditions, afraid that a complaint will only result in an eviction notice. Renters want long-term homes and reliable landlords, so will be frustrated at yet another delay. (The Big Issue)
https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/25000-section-21-eviction-…
# Hot topic International, Eviction, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, No-grounds evictions.Home should be synonymous with comfort
Kymberly Martin (No paywall)A peak disability organisation is campaigning against the NSW State Government for its accessible housing strategy. “Imagine, for a moment, if you couldn’t use parts of your home, or worse yet, your home was actively dangerous for you to live in,” Physical Disability Council NSW CEO, Serena Ovens told F2L. “That’s the reality for one million people with physical disability in this state.” ... The Australian Building and Construction Board has incorporated minimum accessibility guidelines into the National Construction Code, which sets out national standards across all builds. The guidelines include features such as wider hallways and door frames, hob-less shower recesses, larger bathrooms and level access to at least one entry. ... The NSW Government will actively opt out of these sections of the Code ... (Freedom2live)
https://www.freedom2live.com.au/home-should-be-synonymous-with-c…
# NSW, Disability, Housing market, State Government.