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
Who screwed millennials out of affordable housing? Part 2 – Full Story podcast
Full Story The Guardian (No paywall)How did the government set fire to the Australian housing market? Jane Lee and Matilda Boseley look at how the threat of a communist uprising, a benign sounding tax review and one prime minister’s admiration for two world leaders changed the lives of young Australians
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2024/mar/25/who…
# Hot topic, Audio Australia, .The benefits and challenges of co-operative housing
ABC RN ABC (No paywall)Many Australians continue to face intense stress over housing, with affordable rentals non-existent in many cities and regional areas. Some researchers argue that we need to look to other solutions and one model used more frequently overseas is co-operative housing. Some 22 percent of housing in Sweden follows this model, but, in Australia, it constitutes less than one percent of housing. This form of social housing enables tenants to enjoy long-term housing at affordable rents. However, tenants must agree to be involved in the running and upkeep of the property, which can be a source of tension when not everyone pulls their weight.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/lifematters/the-benefits-…
# Audio Australia, Public and community housing.Transport, housing and cost of living: how has Labor fared in its first year in power in NSW?
Catie McLeod, Tamsin Rose & Elias Visontay The Guardian (No paywall)It’s been a year since New South Wales voters kicked out the Coalition – backing Labor for the first time in a decade. The new premier, Chris Minns, promised to scrap the public sector wages cap, end privatisation, reform renting and get more homes built. But how has Labor fared in its first 12 months in office? Labor came to power talking tough on housing, with a warning to anti-development nimbys to “get out of the way”. But the first budget left housing advocates cold, with just $300m pledged for reinvestment in the state-owned property development organisation Landcom to fund almost 5,000 homes over 15 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/25/nsw-labor…
# Hot topic, Legal significance NSW, .‘I don’t have words’: How Bella won Sydney’s housing lottery
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)You could say health worker Bella Refai has won the best lottery in Sydney. The 22-year-old nurse says “it is even better” than hitting the jackpot. Last week Refai won a ticket out of the Sydney housing crisis when her name was drawn out of hat. She was one of 54 successful applicants to secure a small home (ranging from 22 square metres to 35 square metres) at 20 per cent below-market rent in the new Nightingale Marrickville mid-rise affordable housing development.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/i-don-t-have-words-how-bella…
# Hot topic NSW, Rent.Tenants say they are being booted out for requesting repairs
Taylor Troth realestate.com.au (No paywall)Frustrated renters say they’re being booted from their homes simply for requesting repairs. And they claim the ongoing rental crisis means landlords can kick them out knowing they will easily tenant their properties with one of the many eager renters desperate to find a home. Many of the landlords terminating tenants’ leases have capitalised on a loophole that allows them to circumvent many regulations by categorising the evictions under “no grounds”. Tenants Union of NSW CEO Leo Patterson Ross said his community legal centre was getting more calls this year from disgruntled tenants who were asked to leave shortly after requesting repairs.
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/tenants-say-they-are-being-bo…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, Repairs.‘It would just ruin it’: The Sydney suburb wriggling its way out of the state’s housing policy
Michael Koziol The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)When Jim Softsis spots the local mayor and the Herald loitering outside his Croydon home, he is quick to emerge and say hello. And check what we are doing, of course. John Faker, the Labor mayor of Burwood, is trying to recall whether this Federation house was his uncle’s 40 years ago. It turns out it was next door. But on this wide, suburban street, many houses look the same. That’s the whole point. We are in the Malvern Hill Estate heritage conservation area, one of Sydney’s “garden suburbs” developed from 1909 under a rubric of single-storey, brick and stone detached homes with slate or terracotta tile roofs.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/it-would-just-ruin-it-the-sy…
# Hot topic NSW, .Housesitter asked to pay $500 to give 'pet love'
Rebecca Franks Yahoo News (No paywall)Australians have traditionally been able to pet or house sit as a legitimate way to make money, but the housing crisis appears to be blurring the lines. A house in the Sydney beachside suburb of Maroubra was recently advertised to rent for $500, roughly a third of the average price. But to score that “minimal” rent, the tenant was expected to care for the house as well as the owner’s cat and dog. House sitters can charge a daily rate of between $50 and $100, depending on added responsibilities like gardening or pet care, according to AirTasker.
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/housesitter-asked-to-pay-500-t…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, .From a wasteland to million-dollar views: Sydney apartment building with a message for the future
Julie Power The Sydney Morning Herald (Soft Paywall)Galina Doroshina’s homemade curtains frame a million-dollar view of Sydney Harbour from Greenway, NSW’s first social housing high-rise block that is celebrating its 70th birthday. “When I first came and saw this great ugly building, I thought, ‘Is it a prison?’” said 94-year-old Doroshina. “As it turned out, it is so comfortable. The location’s perfect. There is a shop, there is a medical centre, doctors come to our building. [And the view] is like a photo in a frame.” Greenway in Milsons Point is bucking trends.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/from-a-wasteland-to-million-…
# Hot topic NSW, .