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
Public housing tower tenants gain more time from being evicted
Rachael Dexter The Age (No paywall)Public housing tenants in Melbourne’s inner north have gained more time against being forcibly evicted in two months, as a legal battle over secret documents detailing the decision to raze the residential towers wages on. A class action lawsuit, involving 479 households from three public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne, was due to finish on Tuesday but will now extend into 2025 as lawyers for the Victorian government dig in over the ordered release of cabinet documents. The court previously heard Homes Victoria intended to issue legal notices to vacate from January 1, 2025, to anyone who had yet to accept an offer for alternative accommodation. The extension of the legal case means tenants who have not already relocated can stay in their homes while the lawsuit continues.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/public-housing-tower…
# Hot topic, New policy announcement Australia, Eviction, Public and community housing.Rents for these two-bedroom units reach $900 a week. Here’s why they shouldn’t
Michael McGowan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Low- and moderate-income workers are being pushed into rental stress as two-bedroom units in Sydney are being advertised under the affordable housing scheme for up to $900 a week – well above the city’s median asking price. A combination of spiralling Sydney rents and a system that experts described as “fragmented and incoherent” means many affordable housing properties, notionally let at a discount to market prices, are beyond the means of the people they are meant to accommodate.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/rents-for-these-two-bedroom-…
# NSW, Rent.Residents to return to Cabbage Tree Island
Aslan Stand Echo (No paywall)Following the devastating 2022 floods residents from Cabbage Tree Island have fought long and hard to be able to return to their homes on Cabbage Tree Island. Residents challenged the decision to not allow them to return to Cabbage Tree Island and that was supported by the new Jali LALC board that was elected on 20 November. Kylie Jacky was elected as Chair and Joanne Bolt as Deputy Chair of the new board at the Jali LALC’s AGM. This has led to a change of approach with the board meeting of 28 October, 2024 now voting ‘to support residents of Cabbage Tree Island to return to their homes’.
https://www.echo.net.au/2024/10/residents-to-return-to-cabbage-t…
# Must read Australia, Disasters.Aged care homes star rating system needs transparency overhaul, ombudsman says
Henry Belot The Guardian (No paywall)Families who feel misled by the federal government’s star rating system for aged care homes have welcomed the commonwealth ombudsman’s call for it to be overhauled. The rating scheme was introduced to help families make informed decisions about where they send loved ones, but two former advisers have told the aged care royal commission the scheme is flawed. Almost 150 aged care homes that did not meet minimum standards for safety and care were awarded four-or five-star compliance ratings last year. Some homes with more than three stars did not meet basic standards of accreditation.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/06/aged-care…
# Must read Australia, .Rhonda Fahey evicted out of social housing by the Queensland Department of Housing
Kenji Sato ABC (No paywall)Rhonda Fahey felt scared and confused when she received a knock on the door from two police officers who had come to evict her into homelessness. Ms Fahey has been sleeping in her car and couch surfing since being evicted from her social housing home in Gaythorne about three weeks ago. Ministerial correspondence provided to the ABC shows Ms Fahey was evicted due to the "unhealthy housing situation" she was living in due to hoarding tendencies. Ms Fahey said she could not understand why the Department of Housing, Local Government, Planning and Public Works evicted her from her home. She said she had written messages to the department on her boarded-up door, begging to be allowed back in.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-31/brisbane-woman-rhonda-fah…
# Must read Australia, Eviction.How an explosion of Airbnb’s in Launceston and Hobart is impacting state’s housing crisis
Stephanie Dalton Mercury (Paywall)Swathes of rental properties are being taken away from residents as the number of short-term rentals in Launceston has ballooned by 60 per cent over two years. According to the state government’s latest figures from the Short Stay Accommodation Act data collection, short-stay platforms like Airbnb and Stayz are removing dwellings from local renters — and affecting future housing supply. The report found a 41 per cent increase in short-term rentals in Hobart over the same period. Tenants’ Union of Tasmania principal solicitor Ben Bartl said it was clear that the increasing numbers of short-term rental properties in Hobart and Launceston disproportionately impacted the availability of homes for local people needing to rent.
https://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/how-an-explosion-of-…
# Hot topic Australia, .Six-storey units vs 'no gentrification': What should Bellambi look like in the future?
Kate McIlwain Illawarra Mercury (Paywall)A discussion about what Bellambi – particularly its beachside waterfront public housing – should look like in the future has been kicked off by the NSW Government. Already, there are diverse views about what should be done as the government tries to address the urgent need for more social housing, aged care and private homes. For instance, the secretary of one local resident group says there should be apartment blocks of four-to-six storeys built to take advantage of the high-value land.But Bellambi Neighbourhood Centre cooridnator Cathy Daly, who has already been a part of the consultation, says it’s most important that existing social housing residents are allowed to stay in the suburb, and are not displaced during or after the renewal.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/8800799/homes-nsw-asks…
# Hot topic Australia, Public and community housing.It’s “Open Season” on the Unhoused. We Must Oppose It.
Kelly Hayes Truthout (No paywall)“We don’t have a housing system, we have an unhousing system,” says author and organizer Tracy Rosenthal. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Rosenthal and host Kelly Hayes examine the impacts of the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing municipalities to criminalize the act of sleeping outside. Rosenthal and Hayes also examine the larger terrain of criminalization unhoused people face, why cities are working to expel unhoused populations, and how communities can defend their unhoused neighbors.
https://truthout.org/audio/its-open-season-on-the-unhoused-we-mu…
# Audio International, Public and community housing, Rent.