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
New NSW laws set to allow more apartment owners to keep pets
Sue Williams Domain (No paywall)TV presenter and dog owner Scott McGregor plans to celebrate Tuesday’s change in the law about keeping pets in apartments by bringing home a puppy to keep his – currently illegal – miniature fox terrier Jimmy company. ... The laws that come into effect this week mean bylaws that unreasonably forbid the keeping of pets in strata buildings will be invalid.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/new-nsw-laws-set-to-allow-more-ap…
# NSW, Strata, State Government.Support for tenants ... on ABC Newcastle Breakfast
ABC (No paywall)Listen to Nicole Grgas of Hunter Tenants Advice and Advocacy Service speak about help for those renting during the lockdown. She states: 'This package doesn't prevent a landlord from giving an impacted tenant a no-grounds notice. And so we think the protections don't go far enough.' Go to 1:43:15 point at this link.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/people/jenny-marchant-and-dan-cox/1…
# Hot topic, Audio NSW, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Housing market, Landlords and agents, No-grounds evictions, State Government.Victoria urged to double social housing build ‘sugar hit’
Rachel Eddie The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Victoria’s infrastructure adviser says the government needs to more than double its historic investment in social housing to meet a dire shortfall and catch up to the rest of the country. In its 30-year blueprint tabled in the Victorian Parliament on Thursday, Infrastructure Victoria said the state needed to build an extra 3900 to 4900 homes every year for the next 10 years. The major investment is needed on top of the $5.3 billion Big Housing Build announced last year to fund 12,000 new social and affordable homes in four years.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/victoria-urged-to-doubl…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Housing market, State Government.One bed and a ‘shower-kitchen’: Housing a hurdle for families in Sydney’s west
Natassia Chrysanthos and Angus Thompson The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Eight-year-old Mee Mee Myat would love her own bed one day. She thinks it would be cool if she could hang out in the kitchen without hearing the shower run or toilet flush, too. But her home of the last few years – an old pool house at the back of a property in Blacktown – isn’t big enough to fit two mattresses, so hers sits propped against the fence outside. And she and mother, Su, make meals in what they call “the shower-kitchen”. Crowded housing is at its worst in Sydney’s west and south-west – the parts of the city hit hardest by COVID-19 – and advocates say the pandemic demonstrates the region’s dire need for more affordable housing. Mee Mee and Ms Myat don’t have much room to move. To the left of the foyer is the room where they share a bed and eat. To the right is a room that combines the shower, toilet and kitchen, with a curtain separating them. ... Chief executive of Homelessness NSW, Katherine McKernan, said many families in west and south-west Sydney were living together in cramped conditions because there were no other affordable options. ... Ms McKernan said the government needed to see affordable housing as “critical community infrastructure fundamental to the health of all” and create 5000 properties each year for the next 10 years to meet demand. “If we can’t act on providing affordable housing now when it is the primary response to keeping people safe from COVID-19 and will help the economy, then when?“
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/one-bed-and-a-shower-kitchen…
# Hot topic NSW, Public and community housing, Rent, Affordable housing, Homelessness, Minimum habitability standards.Crowded, dirty and a lack of regulation: COVID-19 ticking time bombs in the suburbs
Natassia Chrysanthos The Sydney Morning Herald (No paywall)Here's a story from last year which we're running again ... Boarding houses have become coronavirus ticking time bombs in Sydney's suburbs, with experts warning poor hygiene, chronic health issues and a lack of regulation make them "perfectly suited" to an outbreak.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/crowded-dirty-and-a-lack-of-…
# TUNSW in the media NSW, Boarders and lodgers, Coronavirus COVID-19, Health, Homelessness.Rents surge a 'concerning' 13.7% in a year to a $508 median
Harrison Astbury (No paywall)The latest data from SQM Research shows vacancy rates have plummeted, pushing rent prices up and placing pressure on the regions in particular. The national median rent price sits at $508 a week, which is 1.3% higher in the past 30 days, and 13.7% higher for the past 12 months. This is attributed to low vacancy rates putting pressure on a few rental markets. ... [SQM managing director Louis Christopher said:] "It is also possible that long term leasing is becoming very challenging for landlords due to rental moratoriums," he said. "We believe instead that landlords may increasingly be using short term accommodation websites such as Airbnb and Stayz whereby they have a greater say on who occupies their property and the length of time they stay." (Savings.com.au)
# Hot topic Australia, Rent, Coronavirus COVID-19, Short-term holiday letting.Race and allocation: who are the new tenants getting social housing, and is it equitable?
Alex Turner Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... Government stats reveal consistent race inequalities in social housing lettings, with some communities under, and others over, represented. ... Look back over a decade or so of social housing lettings data and a pattern quickly emerges. The level of allocation across England to white households hovers just below 85% – 82% of 306,000 new lettings in 2019/20 – broadly reflecting their proportion of the population. Asian households, meanwhile, are under-represented, with those most recent figures showing them accounting for 5% of lettings, despite making up 9% of the population. The reverse is true for households identifying as Black, who made up 8% of new social lets in 2019/20, but 4% of citizens. While those proportions fluctuate a little year on year – and it is worth keeping in mind that households are defined by the lead tenant’s ethnicity, potentially eliminating important nuance – the trend is remarkably consistent. What can this data – and other available information – tell us about how race affects your chances of accessing a social home? We dig into the figures and ask experts what they think needs to change.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/race-and-allocat…
# International, Public and community housing, Race and ethnicity.Tackling domestic abuse is a moral duty for social landlords
Sarah Andrews Inside Housing (Paywall)From the United Kingdom ... The number of domestic abuse cases reported to Sovereign rose by 170% last year. Sarah Andrews explains that if there are more issues reported, there are more actions that housing associations can take
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/tackling-domesti…
# International, Domestic violence, Public and community housing.