Thursday, April 25, 2024

Month: April 2021

The Government Can Build Quality Housing for Everyone

Today, only socialists seem to advocate for high-quality, affordable public housing. In the mid-twentieth century, however, a state government led by South Australia’s Liberal and Country League (LCL) developed one of the world’s most remarkable public housing agencies, the South Australian Housing Trust (SAHT).

The government of South Australia (SA) established the SAHT in 1936. Over the course of its life, it built 122,000 high-quality homes for hundreds of thousands of workers. The SAHT was a product of a different era in the history of capitalism. SA’s need to industrialize, combined with high rates of economic growth, and a strong and organized working class, created the conditions for a pact between industrial capital and the state.

Featured Image from Wikimedia Commons

Runaway Land Prices Undermine Housing Utility

Australia’s runaway land prices are akin to a national emergency. An increase of $4 trillion in just the next five years is highly likely.

While meeting the weekly housing payment is our most essential financial commitment, why isn’t housing affordability the most pressing policy issue?

Land price inflation of $600 billion this year will equate to 30 times the size of total banking profits. But our politicians barely raise a sweat over it. One could joke that the only time we hear of a land price crisis is when a wealthy campaign contributor wants their land rezoned.

Island homes: Tasmania election campaign offers few solutions to state’s housing crisis

Housing stress is at an all-time high in Tasmania, shutting out first-home buyers, squeezing the rental market and increasing homelessness

Before Sue Hickey entered state politics as a Liberal MP in 2018, she was Hobart’s lord mayor. Pledging to clean up public toilets and local politics, she also took a keen interest in the plight of people experiencing homelessness.

“You’d see these faces come out of nowhere,” Hickey says, recalling night tours of the city with food van staff and volunteers.

“You’d arrive, you wouldn’t see them, and then all these people just desperate for a sandwich and a Milo with five sugars would appear.”

Those outings were an eye-opener for Hickey, but for most Tasmanians homelessness and housing insecurity were out of sight, out of mind.

The tiny house movement is booming — so why aren’t more of us actually living in them?

Despite early forecasts of a COVID-driven slump, house prices are now surging in many parts of Australia. This is further widening the gap between the housing “haves” and “have-nots”, and we are seeing related rises in housing stress, rental insecurity and homelessness.

In Australia and elsewhere a movement has emerged that supports tiny house living as an important response to the housing affordability crisis. One of us argued in 2017:

“[Tiny houses] have significant potential to be a catalyst for infill development, either as tiny house villages, or by relaxing planning schemes to allow owners and tenants to situate well-designed tiny houses on suburban lots.”

‘It’s Like Reading Roman History’: The Truth About Australia’s Housing Market

Australia’s housing market is “like reading Roman history” one Reddit user has claimed in a thread bemoaning the fact that some Australian houses have made more money over a 50 year period than their owners.

Entitled, “An interesting anecdote about housing and price booms,” the thread explains how property can accumulate more value just sitting there than its owner can by sweating their backside off for half a century.

Statistics back this theory up. As The Conversation reported last year, “Real home prices across Australia have climbed 150% since 2000, while real wages have climbed by less than a third.”

Melbourne could soon become the cheapest city for renters

…while Canberra remains the most expensive

House rents have hit record highs in every capital city in Australia except Melbourne, Perth and Darwin.

But for the first time on record, Melbourne has become the second-most-affordable capital city in Australia in which to rent a house, equal with Perth and behind Adelaide.

Melbourne could become the most affordable city in the country in which to rent a house and unit this year, if present trends continue.

Read the full article at www.abc.net.au

 

USYD symposium to focus on affordable housing

The inaugural Rothwell Chair Symposium will be held at the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning (SADP) in April, with the conference focussing on social and affordable housing design on a local and international scale.

Curated by SADP and 2021 Pritzker Prize Laureates Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal, the symposium will explore the topic of ‘Living in the city – exemplary social and affordable housing design.’ Lacaton & Vassal will discuss a number of their projects across the three evening sessions, with the symposium featuring Australian architectural firms and researchers, with an emphasis on engaging political, financial and planning contexts.

View original web page at architectureanddesign.com.au

Hate Crimes Targeting Sydney’s Indigenous Homeless

On Wednesday 24 March, Michael*, an Indigenous man, was asleep on Eddy Avenue outside of Central Station when he was shaken awake. A friend urgently warned him that known intruders – “Black haters” wearing jackets adorned with swastikas – were on the way. Michael was not fast enough and, less than a kilometre from Surry Hills Police Station, was violently beaten.

Michael was not the only casualty that night. And that night was not the first that Sydney’s homeless were awoken to the reality of White supremacy while the rest of Australia’s eyes remained firmly shut.

Read the full story on Independent Australia website.

*Name has been changed.