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 to Avoid Becoming Homeless
(No paywall)Want to ensure you’ll always have a safe place to call home? Dr Meg Mundell shares some tips… To most of us, homelessness seems like a fate that befalls other people. We assume it could never happen to us, to our friends or loved ones. That if we make sensible life choices, we’ll never end up in that situation. It’s a comforting thought. But is it accurate? Chances are, you already know someone who’s been homeless, or come close. Every night, one in 200 Australians lacks a safe place to call home. That’s over 122,000 people – enough to fill every seat in the MCG, plus the playing field.
https://www.melbournezero.org.au/how_to_avoid_becoming_homeless
# Must read Australia, Discrimination, Security and safety.Students embrace co-operative housing as a solution to rental and cost-of-living crisis
Lily Nothling ABC (No paywall)Ben Mason pays just $187 a week to rent in the heart of one of Australia's most expensive cities. His living situation comes with shared meals and 28 housemates. The 19-year-old is a member of the Canberra Student Housing Co-operative – an organisation run for and by a group of university students. It was set up in 2013 to provide affordable accommodation, but amid a deepening cost-of-living and housing crisis, demand for a cheap room has never been so high. "I'm seeing my bank account not be drained down to zero every week and it's quite freeing actually," Mr Mason said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-20/students-find-relief-from…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Share houses.Jo Waite slept here
Abigail Varney and Nelli Saarinen ABC (No paywall)Jo Waite has moved back to Brunswick. The 59-year-old artist has spent large parts of her life living in Melbourne’s inner north, but this time it’s not the same. “I love being back in Brunswick,” Jo says. “But it is a different Brunswick. They kicked the artists out after we had made it cool. I think you can still see the sign for the gallery we ran, but the place is empty now.” Over the decades of renting in the area, Jo noticed more and more often the property she was living in was the only home for rent in the street.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-19/jo-waite-slept-here/10350…
# Hot topic Australia, Eviction, Public and community housing.Sharehousing can be fun, but fraught with risk – and the law offers little protection. These 3 changes could help
Zoe Goodall & Wendy Stone The Conversation (No paywall)Anyone who’s lived in a sharehouse knows it only takes one person to send the household off the rails. Everyone’s life is affected when one housemate leaves out food, plays loud music all night or routinely uses all the hot water. Sharing a home with someone means you’re intimately impacted by their best and worst behaviour. But what about when your housemate’s actions cause everyone to owe money, or even put everyone at risk of eviction?
https://theconversation.com/sharehousing-can-be-fun-but-fraught-…
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Share houses.Melbourne public housing towers demolition to go ahead despite residents’ class action
Benita Kolovos The Guardian (No paywall)The Victorian government is forging ahead with plans to demolish three public housing towers subject to a class action seeking to stop the redevelopment. The move was described by a lawyer for residents as an example of them being “treated as an afterthought”, after the supreme court ordered the class action could proceed to a two-day trial this month. Inner Melbourne Community Legal said it was notified by the Victorian government solicitor’s office that Homes Victoria – the body that oversees social housing in the state – would sign a contract for demolition works to commence “on or after 19 July”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/18/m…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing.Women and children 'bearing the brunt' of Tasmanian housing crisis, report finds
Bec Pridham ABC (No paywall)Caught in a violent relationship and a housing crisis, Cody* faced an impossible decision. "It was a choice of either stay or be on the street," she said. "I was stuck, I couldn't get out, I couldn't leave." Living in Tasmania's north-west, she searched extensively for properties, trying to flee with her children. "There was really nowhere to go, single mother with four kids and a dog, no one was willing to look at me," she said. "People say we stay for our kids … that is the truth, because we don't want to uproot them, we don't want to make their lives more miserable than they already are, and we want to protect them.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-21/women-housing-tasmania-do…
# Must read Australia, Discrimination, Domestic violence, Rent.The future of rental affordability
AHURI (No paywall)Over the last 25 years affordability of rental homes has been steadily eroding. Recent AHURI research found that more households with high incomes are renting – worsening the shortage of affordable private rental homes for very low income households. With this trend set to continue, what does this mean for rental policy in Australia?
# Hot topic, Video Australia, Rent.Two of Trevor’s friends died sleeping rough. He wants Australia’s homelessness deaths investigated
Christopher Knaus and Adeshola Ore The Guardian (No paywall)Trevor Brown feels like he’s slowly drowning. Brown has been homeless, on and off, for more than a decade, after his life spiralled out of control on the back of a failed business, health problems and depression.
Recently, he’s been sleeping on a tent on top of his broken down Subaru in the bush near Cockatoo, just past Melbourne’s easternmost suburbs. He’s given up on rentals. Owning a place of his own is a fantasy.
https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/21/t…
# Must read Australia, Discrimination, Security and safety.