Another brick in the wall for public housing
STEPHEN PASCOE The Age, Tuesday July 27, 2010

A mixed public/private redevelopment plan has gone horribly wrong.

"Live the good life'' exhorts the sign plastered on a temporary display office at the corner of Rathdowne and Princes streets in Carlton. Behind the sign, cranes are laying foundations for new apartment buildings going up on land where there used to be public housing.

This article appeared in The Senior August 2010 and directs consumers to both the Housing Options service and the Retirement Housing Information and Support Service at HAAG.


Click >here to view the article Rental problems addressed. 309 KB

ABC news has run a story on Older women forced into homelessness

By ABC finance reporter Sue Lannin

Rising rents, family breakdown and the economic downturn have pushed more older women into the ranks of the homeless.

Women over the age of 45 are now outnumbering older men at government-funded homeless shelters according to official data, even though there are more homeless older men than women.

**News Breaking** New Service at HAAG

Housing for the Aged Action Group now has a new service directed to low income older persons who live in seniors or retirement housing.

Specialist assistance is available to older people living in retirement villages, rental villages, residential parks and permanent accommodation in caravan parks. We can help you understand the laws that cover your accommodation, help negotiate a problem, or assist you to apply to Consumer Affairs or the tribunal (VCAT).

The Ageing Elephant in the Room

Read an article by Jeff Fiedler, Tenancy Advice / Policy Worker that appeared in the April 2010 edition of Parity .

Call for reform as 'rental society' looms
RUTH WILLIAMS
The Sunday Age April 18, 2010

AS HOME ownership slips beyond the grasp of more Australians, the private rental market will need major reforms to cope with unprecedented demand in coming decades, housing affordability researchers have warned.

Terry Burke, professor of housing studies at Swinburne University's Institute for Social Research, said Australia had crossed a point of ''no return'' in housing affordability, raising ''fundamental questions'' about the role of private rental housing

The Rental Pressure Cooker
Dewi Cooke
the Age Saturday 3 April 2010.

They are among the state's fastest-growing suburbs and, boasting low house prices and high fertility rates, they buck some of the key demographic trends facing the rest of the country.

The Age, Tuesday 6th April 2010.
SELMA MILOVANOVIC

A GOVERNMENT decision to evict a Somali refugee and his young son from public housing leased to his late mother was unlawful and a breach of the man's human rights.

In a landmark decision that will affect 70,000 public housing applicants in Victoria, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruled public tenancy agreements had to be consistent with the Charter of Human Rights.

DEWI COOKE
The Age, Saturday March 27, 2010

WELFARE groups are calling for greater protections for caravan park residents as older Victorians increasingly turn to mobile homes and bungalows as a means of affordable housing.

There are around 7000 Victorians, most of them single, living long-term in caravan parks according to the state government. Consumer Affairs Minister Tony Robinson said such homes were recognised ''around the country and internationally as a growing form of long-term and permanent accommodation''.