There’s so much that can be done to tackle the problem, The UK’s levels of homelessness are dwarfed by the US’ But so much more could be done to tackle the problem.
People should be able to feel at home regardless of whether they own the place they live in.
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Renting a house shouldn’t mean it’s not home. Until we change our meaning of home by separating it from ownership, we will never be able to “fix” Australia’s housing crisis.
Australian cities need to sustain higher levels of construction and to provide higher-density developments to ensure growing populations have access to affordable housing.
Brendan Esposito/AAP
Governments should stop offering false hopes and pandering to NIMBY pressures. As well as increased public and private housing supply, growing cities need well-designed higher-density development.
Most renters are happy with their landlords and happy with the quality of their accommodation, but they would like better security of tenure and cheaper rent.
Sensible design can dramatically reduce waste of a renovation.
Photo by Nolan Issac on Unsplash
Renovations can create more waste than new constructions – but they don’t have to.
The Melbourne Apartments Project developed by the Barnett Foundation offered 28 units to households living within 4km of the site and willing to leave their social housing.
Barnett Foundation
Shared equity models have a dual benefit of making home ownership affordable for people on modest incomes and freeing up scarce social housing for other households in need.
Uncapped rent increases and ‘no grounds’ evictions leave older women particularly at risk of substandard housing conditions or even homelessness.
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Proposed changes to NSW rental tenancy law are an improvement, but do not end the excessive rent increases and “no grounds” evictions that put renters – and older women in particular – at risk.
The right of landlords to terminate a lease with no grounds is the most serious deficiency in residential tenancy laws in New South Wales.
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Residential tenancy reforms are before the NSW parliament, but a key reform is missing. In this open letter, housing academics call for an end to landlords’ power to terminate leases with ‘no grounds’.
As the dream of home ownership eludes more and more older Australians, this has big implications for retirement, pensions and government spending on rental assistance.
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Until now most people have eventually owned a home. But two trends – falling ownership and a growing aged population – will put the budgets of retirees and government under real pressure.
Brasília was designed to be a just and inclusive city, but it still failed. Can Egypt’s new capital avoid the same mistakes?
Caggara House in Brisbane caters for low-income residents aged 55 and over who previously lived alone in state-owned houses that were too big for their needs.
UDIA Qld/Facebook
Much of the innovation in providing social housing is coming from community housing providers around the country. And it’s desperately needed given the state of housing inequality in Australia.
Whether there is a floor beneath which cuts in interest rate are ineffective depends in part on house prices.
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It is thought that it doesn’t help much to cut official interest rates toward or beyond zero, and maybe it doesn’t, but new research suggests the answer has a lot to do with the housing market.
The southern elevation of Two Pavilion House, showing the separate pavilions that give the house its flexibility.
Image: Scott Burrows
People living with the change and uncertainty of this century need flexible and adaptable housing. Here we look at a couple of examples of what’s possible.
House prices in London fell by 0.6% in June after years of high growth.
The housing boom increased wealth gains for affluent households while rising housing costs undermined income gains for less affluent households.
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Ilan Wiesel, The University of Melbourne; Liss Ralston, Swinburne University of Technology, and Wendy Stone, Swinburne University of Technology
The Productivity Commission neglected the impact of housing costs. After allowing for these costs, the top 10% of households’ average disposable income grew at 2.7 times the rate of the bottom 10%.
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University
Professor of Social Epidemiology and Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne