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
From lifeline to 'existential crisis': The high human cost of Victoria's public housing overhaul
Sydney Lang SBS (No paywall)In the middle of a housing and cost-of-living crisis, the Victorian government is in the process of demolishing all 44 of Melbourne's public housing towers. Despite significant pushback and a parliamentary inquiry calling for an immediate halt to works, the Victorian government is pushing ahead with the plans. "Moving house is considered to be one of the most stressful events in a person's life. “For me, it's an existential crisis. You know, as someone who doesn't have a lot, again, to offer her children. You know, there was the certainty of where we're living, which is so that rug has been pulled out from under our feet, and there's not a lot of certainty as the policy has unfolded.”
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/podcast-episode/from-lifeline-to-exi…
# Audio Australia, Public and community housing.'Riches to rags story' highlights challenges for homeless on the Gold Coast
Danielle Mahe and Tom Forbes ABC (No paywall)Bethany Turner once spent her days managing a small business in one of the Gold Coast's wealthiest suburbs. Now she's one of hundreds sleeping rough in the city. "You're literally looking at a riches to rags story," Ms Turner said. The 40-year-old owned a fashion boutique at Mermaid Beach, but when the business folded after the pandemic she never got back on her feet. She said various jobs and living situations in a cost-of-living crisis, along with business debt, exacerbated her hardship and in mid-2025 she had nowhere to go. "I'm ashamed of this situation but unfortunately, circumstantially, I've ended up here."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-21/gold-coast-socialite-home…
# Australia, .Rental market growth stalls in some capital cities as household budgets stretched to limit
Jason Dasey and Samuel Yang ABC (No paywall)The home rental market is "hitting a speed limit" and "starting to rebalance", with prices flat in some Australian capital cities as tenants reach the limits of what they can pay, according to property portal Domain. House rental asking prices fell or were stagnant in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin over the past three months, Domain's December Quarter Rent Report found. Even so, house rents across Australia's combined capital cities rose a total of 2.3 per cent — or $15 — over the quarter, with Brisbane (3.1 per cent increase), Hobart (1.7 per cent) and Canberra (1.4 per cent) leading the way.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-15/rental-market-capital-cit…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent.Plans for Kununurra Aboriginal short stay accommodation abandoned despite dire need
Giulia Bertoglio ABC (No paywall)Elizabeth Waina sits on the pavement, a debit card and a scrunched-up letter in her hand, waiting for the bank to open. She has travelled more than 500 kilometres from her hometown of Kalumburu, Western Australia's northernmost settlement, to Kununurra, the East Kimberley's main regional hub. Ms Waina is one of many residents of remote Aboriginal communities who make similar trips into town each year to access services. Without suitable accommodation, many end up sleeping rough or staying with relatives in overcrowded houses.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-18/kununurra-aboriginal-shor…
# Australia, Aboriginal renters.Great Aussie home ownership dream aging as banks see more first-time buyers above 40
Adelaide Miller ABC (No paywall)Despite saving for the best part of seven years, Maddy has given up on the prospect of buying a home in Australia. The healthcare worker from Melbourne, who has asked to only share her first name, went to 70 inspections last year, and made three offers, only for the homes to sell for more than $100,000 above asking price. "Even with a really healthy deposit, because the prices have increased so substantially so quickly, to put myself in that level of debt, I'd have to borrow, I guess the maximum that I'm allowed."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-25/great-australian-dream-ag…
# Australia, .The tough balance of circumstance and support systems as WA woman faces eviction
Keane Bourke ABC (No paywall)If there's anything Perth mother Nicola Torres's eviction from her Forrestfield community housing home shows, it's that social housing is never simple. Even yesterday, when she had been expecting a bailiff to remove her and her two teenage daughters, plans changed at the last minute and nobody arrived to take the property back. On the surface, the case appeared to be about a dispute over whether Ms Torres had fallen behind on rent, and why community housing provider Foundation Housing would not accept her repaying her debt.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-07/balance-of-circumstance-a…
# Australia, Eviction, Public and community housing, Rent.From Rent Hikes to Extended Stay Hotels
Jocelyn Figueroa Invisible People (No paywall)How Blackstone Fuels the Housing Crisis in San Diego and Beyond? What happens to tenants who are priced out of their homes or evicted after falling behind on rent? For many, especially in high-cost cities, the next step is not stable housing — it is a low- to mid-priced hotel or motel, often an extended stay property where people pay week to week just to remain sheltered. Increasingly, those hotels are owned by large private equity firms that also hold significant rental housing portfolios in the same regions.
https://invisiblepeople.tv/from-rent-hikes-to-extended-stay-hote…
# International, .We Didn't Start The Class War: The Tudor Homelessness Crisis
J. Draper Youtube (No paywall)"Me thought I saw how wealthy men did grind the poor men’s faces and greedily did prey on them not pittying their cases” - Video essay by J. Draper on Class Wars and Homelessness
# Must read, Video International, .