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
Rental reform could be great news for homeowners! Let's learn how
Evlin DuBose (No paywall)Australia has reached a critical point in the housing affordability crisis. Not only have we recently experienced the largest property boom on record, but rising interest rates and a lack of meaningful government intervention have stacked the odds against first home buyers. For many, this means the Australian Dream is no longer attainable. Instead of housing the most people, the property market has become entirely about home loans and real estate. However, other parts of the globe have drastically rethought their housing markets to great success. Their secret? Don’t look at property ownership for the sake of profit. Instead, create an equitable and healthy rental market, which benefits tenants, landlords, and owner-occupiers alike. Germany and Scandinavia in particular have created property markets where owning a home is no longer necessary for financial security. (Mozo)
https://mozo.com.au/home-loans/resources/guides/learning-from-eu…
# Must read Australia, Rent, Affordable housing, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Human rights, International, Landlords and agents, No-grounds evictions, Tax.Stamp duty reform on table as Chalmers backs states’ property tax talks
Josh Gordon The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)State governments are sizing up a fresh wave of tax reform, potentially including a major overhaul of stamp duty on housing, as new federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he is open to a collaborative approach to tackling housing affordability. ... Grattan Institute economic policy program director Brendan Coates said the economic argument in favour of abolishing stamp duty was unambiguous. He said land tax, like council rates, tended not to distort people’s decision-making, unlike stamp duty, which discouraged people from moving house or downsizing. ... The ACT is the only Australian jurisdiction to have successfully implemented a policy to switch from stamp duty to an ongoing land tax regime. It is in the process of slowly phasing out stamp duty over a 20-year period that began in 2012.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/stamp-duty-reform-on-table-as-ch…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing affordability, Tax.Rough sleeping on the rise: Why Dave chose to return to the streets
Caitlin Fitzsimmons The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, Dave was sleeping in the sandstone cave at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair. But like many other rough sleepers, he was temporarily housed in a city hotel at taxpayers’ expense. The hotel program was part of a NSW government push to get people off the streets to stop the spread of the virus. It was coupled with the Together Home program, which started in June 2020 with the aim to move people from homelessness to long-term accommodation. Dave never got that far. ... The annual statewide rough sleeping street count in February found 1207 people sleeping outdoors, the most visible form of homelessness. This was a fall overall, but there were regional rises including on the South Coast, Mid North Coast and Coffs Harbour. ... Jo Mills, practice lead for youth and homelessness at Uniting, said she expected the numbers of rough sleepers would soon be as high, “if not higher”, than before the pandemic because service providers were seeing a new type of client. Mills said Sydneysiders moving to the regions had pushed working families and other people on low incomes out of the private rental market. Mills said the crisis was particularly bad on the Central Coast because it was a commuting distance to Sydney. “There are people who literally cannot find housing for the first time in their lives, and have joined that group of rough sleepers - families camping in tents or camping in cars that perhaps have never done this before,” Mills said.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/rough-sleeping-on-the-rise-w…
# NSW, Homelessness, Regional NSW.Rate rises could hit renters harder than home owners
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)In one of the current housing market’s worst ironies, the people likely to be slugged hardest by the latest interest rate increase are those who don’t actually own property. Renters already face a dire shortage of accommodation, with vacancies at rock-bottom levels, and now it’s predicted that many investors will try to pass onto them all, or some, of the extra cost of having a mortgage.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/rate-rises-could-hit-renter…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Enhancing the coordination of housing supports for individuals leaving institutional settings
Cameron Duff, Sean Randall, Nicholas Hill, Chris Martin and Robyn Martin AHURI (No paywall)This research developed policy recommendations for enhancing housing assistance for individuals leaving institutional settings of residential treatment for mental health and/or substance use problems, the criminal justice system and out-of-home care. It also offers recommendations for enhancing the ways Specialist Homelessness Services address the unique support needs of diverse cohorts moving between these institutional settings.
# Australia, Public and community housing, Health, Homelessness.Evicted Oak Flats mum Bec Darby told to either put disabled son in care or stay in refuge amid rental crisis
Grace Crivellaro Illawarra Mercury (Paywall)Single mum Bec Darby, 33, has lived for the last seven years in a private rental property with her 14-year-old son Hunter and her two daughters, aged eight and two. Hunter uses a wheelchair due to an incurable disease called Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and their rental had been modified with the landlord’s permission to meet Hunter’s needs. Now the family are facing the impossible task of finding a rental suitable for a wheelchair. ... The family was notified on Monday they had to vacate due to the landlord needing the property back for family reasons. ... Housing Trust chief executive Michele Adair said it’s a sad indictment that there are no building standards in New South Wales that require developers to make new homes accessible.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/7772042/evicted-oak-fl…
# NSW, Rent, Disability, Housing market, Regional NSW.‘Heartbreaking choice’: families forced to give up dogs and cats as Australia’s rental crisis bites
Tory Shepherd The Guardian (No paywall)Families are being forced to give up hundreds of dogs, cats and other pets as Australia’s rental crisis bites. In states where landlords are free to always refuse pets, “people are turning up with broken hearts”, said the RSPCA South Australia spokesperson, Carolyn Jones. “They are saying to us that this is the hardest decision they’ve ever had to make.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/10/heartbrea…
# Australia, Rent, Housing market.South Australians forced to camp in tents amid housing affordability crisis and cost of living pressures
Sara Tomevska and Stacey Pestrin ABC (No paywall)Meagan pays $300 per week to camp in a tent at a caravan park in South Australia's western suburbs. But caravan parks only allow a maximum stay of 55 days, forcing Meagan to come and go. Meagan, who asked for her surname not to be used, has had to join the waitlist for public housing for the first time. "I've always rented privately, I've never been in the public housing list [before]," she said. South Australia has about 16,000 people on the public housing waitlist with about 3,600 of those deemed priority one. The average wait time for category one cases in SA is about seven months. Meagan, a single mum who receives a disability payment, said she had applied for about 40 properties around the western suburbs since her previous lease was not renewed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-10/sa-opposition-calls-for-m…
# Australia, Land lease communities, Public and community housing, Rent, Homelessness, Housing market.