The policies of successive NSW governments to not build new public housing and sell off old stock is worsening the housing crisis, writes Paul Gregoire.
social housing
A lot more can be done for homeless people in Australia, argues Gerry Georgatos, including building more public housing and prioritising supports for the homeless.
Geelong Housing Action Group co-convenor Angela Carr says there is not enough housing for those who desperately need it. Chris Cherry reports.
Hands off Glebe and Action for Public Housing organised a rally to demand the NSW government stop selling off public housing. Isaac Nellist reports.
Renee Lees, who is standing for Socialist Alliance in the Queensland Senate, said neither major party has put forward real solutions to the housing unaffordability crisis. Kerry Smith reports.
The NSW government wants to sell a vacant site in Redfern that was previously 100% public housing to its property developer mates. Peter Boyle reports.
Hands off Glebe and Action for Public Housing hosted an online forum to discuss how best to defend New South Wales public housing from the state government’s plan to sell it off. Rachel Evans reports.
‘They are just doing this because we’re poor. That’s what it comes down to’, a resident of a locked down social housing complex said. Isaac Nellist reports.
The systematic running-down of public housing by governments over a few decades is not news. However, in Western Australia the situation has become particularly desperate, writes Sam Wainwright.
Jacob Andrewartha reports on concerns that state funding for new public, as distinct from social, housing has not been included in the Victorian government's housing plan.
More than 100 people attended a rally in defence of public housing at the Walker Street Estate in Northcote on November 11.
The Victorian Labor government has announced a "public housing renewal program" that will involve the demolition of nine public housing estates across Melbourne. The land will be sold to developers who are likely to build high rise towers in place of the current low rise buildings.
Eighty tenants and supporters rallied at the Northcote public housing estate on June 24 to protest plans to evict the tenants and demolish their homes.
Northcote is one of nine public housing estates the Victorian Labor government wants to demolish. It wants to sell the land to private developers who would build high rise units. Some "social housing" would also be built.
Addressing the rally, Aboriginal activist and public housing tenant Viv Malo linked the planned evictions to the history of dispossession of Aboriginal people.
The adage of moving house being the most stressful time of one’s life has been proved at a West Brunswick public housing estate. Resident Lindi told Green Left Weekly: “One hundred residents are being compulsorily moved. The latest notice on the move is it will be in July.”
The federal treasurer’s “solution” to the housing affordability crisis is to get state governments to relax restrictions on housing developers to increase supply.
Scott Morrison told the industry’s peak body, the Urban Development Institute, on October 24 that “housing in Australia, especially in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, is expensive and increasingly unaffordable, but that does not mean it is overvalued.”
How can you have more affordable housing and keep prices up at the same time?
The answer is you can’t do both.
