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Objective: This study explores experiences of the Healthy Housing Initiative (HHI). Aimed at children at risk of housing-related illness, the HHI package includes the provision of items such as curtains, heaters, bedding, and insulation, advocacy to encourage landlords to install improvements, and education and advice to help people optimise their home environment., Methods: We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 20 people living in rental housing who received the HHI intervention., Results: Participants felt heard and supported by HHI assessors. They reported that the intervention increased the warmth and dryness of the home, improved their respiratory and mental health, reduced their bills, and enabled the use of more parts of their home. However, some continued to live in cold and damp conditions due to structural inadequacies and energy poverty., Conclusions: The qualitative evidence presented in this study shows how health-focussed interventions also benefit quality of life., Implications for Public Health: This research emphasises that healthy housing interventions can yield extensive benefits by adopting a holistic and home-based approach. Such interventions have the potential to create improvements in individuals' lives far beyond health., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

As more urban residents find their housing through online search tools, recent research has theorized the potential for online information to transform and equalize the housing search process. Yet, very little is known about what rental housing information is available online. Using a corpus of millions of geocoded Craigslist advertisements for rental housing across the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States merged with census tract-level data from the American Community Survey, we identify and describe the types of information commonly included in listings across different types of neighborhoods. We find that in the online housing market, renters are exposed to fundamentally different types of information depending on the ethnoracial and socioeconomic makeup of the neighborhoods where they are searching., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors.)

This article examines the lived experiences of 17 renters residing in Clark County, Nevada. Using a phenomenological study design, we used semistructured interviews to investigate how renters navigate living in substandard housing. The qualitative analysis revealed four main themes: (a) housing serves as a mediator with one's sense of well-being and good health, (b) housing insecurity and displacement occur through various pathways, (c) housing quality can lead to a sense of powerlessness over where one lives, and (d) social networks are key in low-opportunity neighborhoods. The findings support numerous studies that connect housing quality and insecurity to health and well-being, but the findings also highlight the mediating factors to limited housing choices such as the landlord and tenant relationship. Studies of this nature are essential in identifying the various pathways by which housing inequities and disparities can occur, particularly among low-income communities., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

While increasingly used for research, Twitter remains largely untapped as a source of data about housing. We explore the growth of social media and use of Twitter in health and social research, and question why housing researchers have avoided using Twitter to explore housing issues to date. We use the #characterbuildings campaign, initiated by an online media platform in New Zealand in 2014 to illustrate that Twitter can provide insights into housing as a public health and social problem. We find that Twitter users share details of problems with past and present homes on this public platform, and that this readily available data can contribute to the case for improving building quality as a means of promoting public health. Moreover, the way people responded to the request to share details about their housing experiences provides insight into how New Zealanders conceive of housing problems., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Private renting increasingly comprises a complex ecosystem of actors who assemble housing within the market, and collect rental income and data from tenants, and data on the material assets themselves. Our analysis – at the intersection of rentier and platform capitalism – focuses on landed (material real estate) and technological (digital infrastructure and data) property in Australia's private rental system. Drawing out relationships between the various actors – landlords, rental property managers and real estate agencies, software developers and providers, property developers and investors – and both their properties and their uses of Proptech (property technology), we show how housing and technology are being leveraged for profit in new ways. In Australia, landed property retains its precedence for established (individual and institutional) landlords, whose interest in Proptech relates to enhancing or value-adding to rental housing assets. For Proptech and institutional real estate players seeking to consolidate both landed and technology property, capturing the tech landscape is increasingly important; indeed, securing control and/or consolidation of technology property is a key motivation for building and/or using Proptech among the largest property developers. Our findings show how rent extraction operates across and between different types and scales of property and market actors, and in new ways that differentiate the figure of the rentier while upholding the dynamics of the rentier model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can struggles for housing justice act as a lens to expand housing researchers' understanding of the rental crisis and of the systems that underpin this crisis? By presenting papers from Sweden, Spain, Greece, the UK, and Australia this special issue contributes with knowledge on how housing struggles can inform new theoretical and methodological approaches within the field of housing studies. In turn, the SI presents three tenets that together form a framework for housing scholars: institutionalization as politics, tenants as political actors, and learning housing justice. We argue that it is crucial for housing scholars to recenter on struggles for housing justice in their readings of contemporary housing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Securing appropriate housing is a crucial component of resettlement for people with refugee experience, but many face challenges in securing private rental housing, including discrimination, particularly for large families. This paper explores refugee and asylum seeker experiences of discrimination in the private rental market through in-depth semi-structured interviews with refugees and asylum seekers from large families (N = 22), service providers (N = 18), community leaders (N = 4), real estate agents (N = 11) and lessors (N = 10). Interviews were thematically analysed. The analysis identified the pervasive nature of discriminatory practices in private rental housing affecting large refugee and asylum-seeking families, though it was not always recognised as discrimination. Market factors and risk assessments were highlighted as contributing to discrimination and how agents' and lessors' working definition of discrimination manifested in their tenant selection practices. While service providers and some agents sought to counter discriminatory practices, the significant impact of discriminatory housing practices for refugees and asylum seekers was evident and poses important policy and practice questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "A Room for One's Own? The Partisan Allocation of Affordable Housing" by C. Gay. The author requested amendments to clarify attribution, but these changes do not affect the analysis or conclusions of the article. The corrections include clarifying the source of information and adding references to support certain statements. The journal editor confirms that these changes do not alter the article's conclusions. [Extracted from the article]

Maintaining a stable residence is a primary requirement of probation compliance. Prior research has spoken to the increase in requirements for people on probation and how they are often tied to financial capability. Using data from in-depth interviews with people on probation and probation staff, our analysis extends extant research by highlighting the unique challenges of finding housing during a historic rise in housing and rental prices in the context of COVID-19. This work furthers research on the role that economic means play in the probation revocation process. Results from the research suggest that housing is a barrier to success on probation, which is further hampered by the lack of employment opportunities available to individuals with felony criminal records. Participants relayed that the lack of affordable housing led to heavy reliance on family members for assistance. Information from staff triangulated their concerns about how compliance was tied to poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wealthy and orderly city of Geneva, Switzerland, accommodation centres built in haste between the 1950s and the 1980s to house seasonal guestworkers from southern Europe are still standing and still inhabited. Today's residents are precarious workers, undocumented or with temporary permits as well as asylum seekers. While the seasonal status disappeared in the early 2000s, the demand for low-skilled, flexible labour did not. Analysing the historical trajectories of specific buildings helps us to answer the question of who replaced the seasonal workers, not only in the labour and the housing markets, but also in the symbolic spectrum of legitimacy. This article introduces the notion of 'Subaltern Housing Policies' to account for the public action that leads to the production and subsequent use of forms of housing characterised by standards of comfort and security far below those of the rental and social housing stock, but considered 'good enough' for their occupants. We argue that 'subaltern' relates not only to housing conditions, but also to the policies themselves, and last but not least to the people who are subjected to them. This notion allows us to trace a link between the production of substandard forms of housing and the production of categories of people who are kept on the margins of full citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Digital platforms have transformed housing practices and enabled new markets to emerge. Here we report on a study in which we examined these practices and their implications for planning, focusing particularly on low-cost and informal rental accommodation. With reference to Australia's three largest cities (Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane), we investigated the range and scale of accommodation types advertised on major commercial and peer-to-peer platforms Realestate.com.au, Flatmates.com.au, Gumtree.com.au, and Airbnb.com, identifying an informal housing typology comprising secondary dwelling units, share homes or rooms, and Airbnb-style holiday accommodation, much of which violates local regulation. We found that secondary dwellings and other irregular types of accommodation comprised more than 3% of Sydney's rental vacancies and more than 10% of enumerated rental vacancies in Brisbane during the study period of August 2021. Informal tenures such as rooms in share homes or negotiated arrangements offered by property owners extended rental supply in Sydney and Melbourne by the equivalent of more than 16% over the same period, rising to almost 34% in Brisbane. These findings show that platforms have enabled property owners to market illegal rentals and unauthorized dwellings but also have helped lower-income earners access lower-cost accommodations. Planners must determine which practices support affordability without generating unacceptable risks for residents and neighborhoods. Takeaway for practice: Platforms have enabled landlords to market informal and illegal rental accommodation while evading regulatory oversight. Using data exposed on these platforms, our study shows the important role played by this sector in serving lower-income renters but also the risks for tenants occupying substandard units or precarious tenures. Planners must address these risks in supporting diverse rental supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past, immigrants and refugees tended to overlook small and mid-sized cities in Canada, but this has changed since the beginning of the 21th century, and the mid-sized city of Kelowna has gradually emerged as a popular destination for newcomers from all over the world. Housing is critical to the resettlement and integration of all immigrants. Recent immigrants, especially renters, face challenges in their settlement and housing experiences, including limited financial resources, language barriers, and rental-housing discrimination based on ethnicity or race, and yet relatively little is known about these experiences and the barriers they encounter in mid-sized cities. This paper explores the settlement and housing experiences of recent immigrants in the city of Kelowna, a mid-sized city in the interior of British Columbia (Canada) with a focus on the rental housing market. The study draws on data from questionnaire surveys administered in 2015 and 2018 with a total of 67 recent immigrant respondents. The findings reveal that immigrant newcomers experienced financial stress and significant challenges in locating affordable rental housing due to high housing costs, low vacancy rates, lack of reliable information, language barriers, and discrimination by landlords based on immigrants’ ethnic and racial background. Immigrants are increasingly redefining the social and cultural geography of mid-sized Canadian cities, and there is a need to ensure that they are able to access affordable, adequate, and suitable housing, and ultimately settle into society. This is particularly crucial given the rising cost of living in Canada, the projected increase in immigrant levels for 2023-25, and the importance of immigrant settlement in a post-pandemic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Housing is a Human Sustainability Issue" discusses the global increase in housing prices and the burden it places on low-income individuals. It highlights the social impacts of homeownership, income inequality, and racial disparities in housing insecurity, particularly affecting Black Americans. The text also delves into historical discriminatory housing policies in the United States and the need for localized living wages to address poverty and housing insecurity. The article emphasizes the interconnectedness of income, housing, and social cohesion, calling for holistic initiatives to combat marginalization and promote sustainable development. [Extracted from the article]

The private rental market is a key provider of housing to forced migrants. This paper examines qualitative data from case study research in rapidly urbanizing towns in the Biqa' Valley, Lebanon, focusing on Syrian forced migrants' efforts to access housing through the local private rental sector. Building on literature about landlord–tenant relations and anthropological work on kin, I argue that rental agreements ought to be understood as both financial and social arrangements, which involve family members, landlords and middlemen (shaweesh) in complex rental ecologies. I find that young Syrians are caught up in evolving financial and social obligations, which make inhabitation possible, but which perpetuate gendered and xenophobic forms of dispossession. I argue that humanitarian and development actors advocating for the right of forced migrants to settle in urban areas ought to avoid perpetuating reliance on an inequitable private rental sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mirroring developments elsewhere, for recent college graduates in China the transition to employment is increasingly protracted and, for some, precarious. Case studies of individual strategies and cities indicate a diversification of housing pathways, where economic precarity is rendering at least some vulnerable. Based on original survey data collected in 2019, I investigate the housing choices of Chinese college graduate job market entrants and ask who is vulnerable and whether adverse outcomes are mere market entry strategies or lasting. I find that recent graduates generally find housing in central locations, close to their work. However, to achieve favourable locational outcomes on low budgets, many resort to sharing. High-density room sharing of three or more people is illegal but prominent and dominates in first-tier cities. The findings highlight how urbanization interacts with housing vulnerability and contribute to theorizing on the housing crisis, the Global North-South binary, and the very nature of home sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing influences life chances and trajectories through many roles, differently and in relation to the socioeconomic characteristics of people and population groups. This article uses the concept – 'housing niches' to present an alternative, bottom-up, plural and bundled view of housing and advantage. Using a large, representative sample of an Australian rental population (the Australian Rental Housing Conditions Dataset [ARHCD]), our analysis describes housing as multidimensional, bound across other aspects of people's lives. Understanding advantage requires methodologies that capture risk as cumulative, mediated by multilevel social processes that expose and select particular populations to particular residential environments that contribute to people's multiple disadvantage. Housing niches compel research and debate on comprehensive housing policy as not only necessary, but to have an imperative of cumulative risk and more broadly, inequality and poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In metropolitan areas, rising house prices make it more difficult for low- and middle-income people to access affordable housing. However, the availability of affordable rental housing in metropolitan areas serves the survival and social sustainability of all social groups in urban areas. Despite the critical importance of rental housing affordability at the metropolitan level, studies on this issue, especially spatial studies, are limited. This article spatially analyzes housing affordability for low- and middle-income households in Istanbul, a city experiencing a neoliberal housing policy. The methodology of the study is based on an analysis of rental housing affordability in the metropolitan area of Istanbul by taking into account the polycentric structure of Istanbul, the central grading (center, subcenters, and periphery), and regular and irregular housing subregions. The findings of the article demonstrate that low- and middle-income households in Istanbul have no access to affordable rental housing in the city center and limited access to the subcenters. Furthermore, low- and middle-income households have access mainly to irregular housing areas within the city. The findings imply that without social policies, they will be excluded from central or regular housing areas. This points to the critical role of social policies in neoliberal housing markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The urban settlement of migrants and their families is an important aspect of new urbanization. Affordable housing, a key measure to improve their living conditions, can advance their urbanization goals. Based on the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) data and land transaction data of cities, this study employs a complementary log–log model to estimate the effect of public rental housing (PRH) on the long-term settlement intention (LTSI) of migrants and delves into the intrinsic effect mechanism through the mediating effect. The results show that: (1) Living in PRH can significantly improve the LTSI of migrants who rent. A series of robustness tests and endogeneity tests support the validity of this conclusion; (2) The visualization of a heterogeneity analysis shows that PRH has a greater influence on the LTSI of first-generation migrants and urban–urban migrants. As the city class of the destination decreases, the effect of PRH gradually diminishes; (3) A mechanism analysis suggests that a sense of identity plays a mediating role in PRH affecting the LTSI of the migrants, particularly in first-tier cities. This paper enriches the literature related to the field of housing security programs, provides policy references for enhancing the LTSI of the migrants, and promotes the development of urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, rental housing has been supplied by a large pool of individual investors who own a few units and invest their savings, with some leverage, to take advantage of the tax regime in Australia. The last five years have seen the emergence of build-to-rent (BTR) units, which are supplied by investors who own a large number of units. The state of Victoria in Australia has the largest share of these projects. In the current market and regulatory environment, the financial viability of BTR projects is low for investors and hinges on the ability of units to be leased at higher than market rents. This paper examines four groups of levers, including those already being pursued by the building industry, that can be used to improve the financial viability of BTRs. These include: (i) revenue maximization, (ii) cost reduction (iii) fiscal and (iv) planning incentives. An archetypical BTR project which mimics current practice is considered, assumed to be in Docklands, Victoria, where several BTR projects are planned. For the robustness check, a feasibility analysis is conducted for a site in North Melbourne, a neighbourhood in Victoria with several BTR projects. The results indicate that for revenue maximization, the mix of unit types in a BTR project should be location-specific, as market preferences (and the characteristics of renters) determine the rent for different types of units that can be achieved. In a conventional BTR project development, where land is bought upfront and the project is developed, the mixed-use BTR (residential in combination with commercial) does not provide significant financial benefits though including small retail (3–4% of the net lettable area) may provide complementary benefits. Incurring large capital costs upfront and having the revenue stream spread over long periods reduces financial viability. While construction costs are more difficult to reduce, ways to reduce land costs could be through zoning land for BTR use, through mechanisms such as joint ventures with landowners, and land leasing. Exemptions on income, land tax, and rates (like CHPs) can result in a higher return for investors. A full GST refund, an incentive that industry is lobbying for, results in a similar IRR as an exemption on income, land tax and rates would offer. These results will assist in determining priorities for policies that are aimed at BTR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the interplay between Airbnb and gentrification in Thessaloniki and Greece, focusing on their economic and social impacts on urban neighborhoods. Utilizing data from 110 online publications and qualitative insights from ten semi-structured interviews with real estate agents, Airbnb stakeholders, residents, and experts, the research provides a nuanced view of these dynamics. The findings suggest that Airbnb influences housing markets by driving up rental and home prices, potentially exacerbating housing scarcity and displacing vulnerable populations in gentrifying areas. While this aligns with the existing literature, the results remain tentative due to the complexities involved. The trend toward corporate-hosted short-term rentals appears to shift Airbnb away from its original community-focused model, though this shift is still evolving. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced changes, such as a move from short-term to long-term rentals and the conversion of commercial spaces to residential use, impacting neighborhood dynamics. However, these effects may be temporary and do not fully address broader housing issues. While an oversupply of Airbnb accommodations might stabilize rental prices to some extent, its impact on the overall housing crisis remains uncertain. Future research should investigate the long-term effects on housing affordability and social equity, considering the limitations of current findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article provides direct evidence of the role of housing in central banks’ monetary policy decisions through the examination of the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia Board (RBA) and the UK’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). It focuses on three periods when economic shocks necessitated monetary policy activism: the Global Financial Crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent inflationary resurgence. It enhances understanding of the monetary transmission mechanism by identifying the role of lender behaviour which contributed to the adoption of Quantitative Easing by the MPC; and of the ‘leaning against the wind’ debate by revealing the RBA’s view on rising house prices as a bulwark against mortgage default and financial instability. However, it also reveals these central banks’ underdeveloped understanding of the role of rental housing, and challenges the fragmentation of fiscal and monetary policy between elected governments and independent central banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe aim of this article is to examine the association between different types of rental housing and household economic wellbeing. Its main objective is to better understand how the different types of assistance promoted by housing policies contribute to the reduction of material hardship among renter households. To achieve this objective, the study is based on the creation of an original typology designed to catch the different models of social and non-market housing that characterize the rental housing system in Canada. The research design it adopts controls for compositional effects linked to housing policy through a matching procedure that reduces the imbalance existing between households residing in social housing and the rest of the population. The analyses produced demonstrate the importance of promoting and maintaining social and non-market housing models that favour rent-geared-to-income housing, guarantee long-term affordability, and value public and co-operative tenure models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary urban areas, a growing 'generation rent' is finding shelter in expensive and precarious private rental housing. Tenant organisations and legislative initiatives have been pushing to improve housing conditions for renters, yet have been met with strong resistance. Intense policy and academic debates have ensued. This paper delves into the discourses used by dominant actors involved in legislative changes affecting the private rental sector in Catalonia and Spain. Through a critical discourse analysis of the positions of governments, opposition parties and landlord organisations, we identify three main arguments employed to limit or contest 'post-neoliberal' measures favouring tenants: 'the vulnerable landlord', 'the counterproductive effects' and 'the violation of property rights'. Each of these arguments is placed under theoretical and empirical scrutiny, revealing important weaknesses. By unsettling dominant discourses, we contribute to advancing the terms of the debates and sketch out the coordinates for a counter-discourse informed by critical theory and the interests of renters rather than rentiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops the concept of housing ideology in order to analyze the rise of co-living. Housing ideology refers to the dominant ideas and knowledge about housing that are used to justify and legitimize the housing system and its place within the broader political economy. Co-living is the term for privately operated, for-profit multiple occupancy rental housing. The article argues that the rise of co-living is supported by four key ideological elements—corporate futurism, technocratic urbanism, market populism and curated collectivism—which serve to legitimize co-living within the housing system and enable its profitability. The ideology of co-living appears to critique many elements of the contemporary urban housing system. But despite its critical self-image, co-living does not represent an alternative to today's financialized urbanization. Ultimately, the article argues for the importance of understanding the role of housing ideologies in residential change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing's value is contested, with discussions including the economic value of housing through literature on assetisation and financialisation, social value in debates about housing as a human right, value capture in infrastructure development, and the value of housing for social reproduction. With this in mind, we engage with the various ways housing, tenants and Proptech are valued by tenant advocates, real estate professionals, and proptech developers in Sydney, Australia. This is not as a reductive exercise to find 'the value' of housing or Proptech, but to recognise and engage with the ways various social, digital and financial valuations of housing, tenants and digital technologies inform a situated and relational politics of Proptech value. As such we advance a 'more-than-political' economy of Proptech. To illustrate this conceptual case, we discuss three regimes of rental Proptech value in Australia – capitalist and economic regimes; social capital through an ethic of care; and techno-utopian values, where technology is deployed on the basis that it will solve a presumed problem. Our empirical focus is on the application of Proptech to longer-term rental market, which is emerging in less visible ways than its highly contested counterparts in the short-term rental sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how racial capitalism intersects with platform capitalism through the rise of rental platforms and corporate landlords in the post-apartheid housing market. Combining 18 months of fieldwork in Cape Town with the spatial analysis of sales and longitudinal census data, I demonstrate how rental platforms enabled the consolidation of the private rental sector and the emergence of corporate landlords through the classification of tenants centered upon credit scoring. To automate tenant screening solutions, rental platforms leveraged and extended the information dragnet knitted by credit bureaus. This dragnet of unprecedented depth and volume is built upon the infrastructures and devices that enabled the for-profit, racial classification of people, housing and neighborhoods during colonialism and apartheid, notably ID numbers. In the context of racialized indebtedness and housing inequalities engineered by racial property regimes, the use of platforms to sort the "good" from the "bad" tenant and manage rental portfolios shifts mechanisms of segregation and reproduces racialized patterns of capital accumulation across the post-apartheid city. The article argues that rental platforms extend the extractive logic of racial capitalism through two joint rentier mechanisms: the transformation of rental housing into a new asset class; the extraction and assetization of rental data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that housing is a key element for security, access to resources, and the integration of migrant individuals, we inquire, concerning the rental market, about the forms of vulnerability to which they are exposed and the resources used (or not) to confront them. We present the case of Lima, the city that has received the largest number of Venezuelan migrants (1.1 million) in recent years. As an exploratory study, we conducted 37 interviews with tenants (27 Venezuelan migrants, 10 Peruvians). We analyzed the cases for each group, seeking common problems and strategies to address them. We found that Venezuelan individuals face challenges in searching for and staying in housing not only due to their restricted citizenship and employment in the informal sector, but also due to their limited access to social resources. As a result, they are more exposed to critical events and must confront them on their own. Consequently, their vulnerability is greater, and their housing tenure is always unstable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use and housing development policies are crucial for promoting housing affordability. As municipalities have considerable power over these policies, local variations in affordability measures occur. Focusing on three Finnish municipalities (Helsinki, Tampere, and Turku), this study analysed differences in promoting affordability. A content analysis based on expert interviews (N = 22) and policy documents showed how one of the municipalities (Turku) differed from the other two. Turku had less administrative capacity for policy implementation and more volatility in social rental housing targets, which indicates a less active role in steering the housing market compared to Helsinki and Tampere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Asian countries, including Japan, the rapid demolition and new construction of housing continues, causing demand for old housing stock to fall. Employing unit-level listing information obtained from a real estate portal in the Tokyo rental housing market, this study differentiates vacancies by time dimension and documents that old properties are likely to spend a long time on the market, exceeding several months. This low demand for old houses can be attributed to functional obsolescence (lack of contemporary housing amenities and services) and owner resignation (lack of adequate countermeasures to fill vacancies regardless of their effectiveness). Our results indicate that even in popular property segments and neighbourhoods at the macro level, low demand broadly arises among old houses and is not always socially inefficient. Moreover, accelerating early redevelopment may improve social welfare by avoiding older properties sitting on the market for long periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the transmogrification of moratoria in support of rent regulations and its impact on affordable housing. Topics discussed include challenges to the conception of property, government constraints to an owner's property rights, property law theories, moratoria in the context of national stress and during and after war, moratoria for environmental imperatives, and the economic and social efficacy of moratoria as well as the legal challenges.

The Chinese government's recent low-income housing scheme aims to tackle housing challenges faced by the urban floating population. A notable shift in this initiative is the focus on the job–housing balance. This study proposes that the spatial interaction between land designated for affordable rental housing and land for commercial facilities serves as a fundamental metric for evaluating this equilibrium, providing insights into the effectiveness of China's nascent affordable housing efforts. Drawing on post-2021 data, when China's revamped affordable housing policy took effect, our research examines the spatial distribution of affordable rental housing and commercial service land in Shanghai. By employing coupled coordination models and local entropy metrics, we delve into the supply equilibrium and pragmatic interrelation of these land types. Our findings reveal localized clustering in the spatial arrangement of rental and commercial land within Shanghai. Zones in the urban core exhibit a supply balance, while the peripheries display diminishing accessibility between these land types. Core urban areas have a lower supply balance but higher accessibility, whereas urban fringes face both low supply balance and low accessibility. These study outcomes have significant implications for strategic planning and the construction of affordable rental housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the wider discourse on sustainability and housing by showing how the dynamics of temporality and care plays out in processes of renovation. We explore five empirical cases of renovation of rental housing estates on the outskirts of Gothenburg, Sweden. Our study draws on the analysis of documents, observations, and qualitative interviews with key actors. We consider renovation a caring practice, both in the practical sense of “caring for” and in the emotional and ethical sense of “caring about”. We argue that conflicts between stakeholders in renovation processes are better understood through attending to the ways in which notions of care are intertwined with the temporal organization of peoples’ lives and organizational processes. We conclude that unawareness or negligence towards the various temporalities involved in renovation processes provide obstacles for collective processes of caring and raising sustainability concerns in renovation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractStable, affordable and safe housing is a key determinant of health and wellbeing. Evidence from an Australian population-based cohort of 344 Aboriginal mothers and children aged 5-9 years shows that tenure type, financial difficulties and women’s experience of partner violence are key drivers to housing stability. Stable housing was defined as moving house ≤ two times in the previous five years. Women had higher odds of stable housing if they had not reported partner violence in the last year (Adj. OR = 2.2, 95%CI 1.1–4.3) and reported fewer financial difficulties (Adj. OR= 2.2, 95%CI 0.9–5.4). Women in private rental had lower odds of stable housing (Adj. OR = 0.4, 95%CI 0.2–0.7) compared to women in government subsidised rental housing. Understanding factors that support housing stability is crucial to ensure the best outcomes for young Aboriginal children and families at a critical period in the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editors of the journal Environment & Planning A: Economy and Space have announced the winners of the Ashby prizes for the most innovative papers published in the journal in 2023. The winners are Renee Tapp and Richard Peiser for their paper 'An Antitrust Framework for Housing' and Vinay Gidwani and Carol Upadhya for their paper 'Articulation work: Value chains of land assembly and real estate development on a peri-urban frontier'. The papers have been made free to access for one year. The winning papers explore topics such as monopolies in the housing market and the inter-scalar value chains of land assembly and real estate development. [Extracted from the article]

This paper reflects on the influences and outcomes of He Kāinga Oranga/Housing and Health Research Programme over 25 years, and their impact on housing and health policy in Aotearoa and internationally. Working in partnership particularly with Māori and Pasifika communities, we have conducted randomised control trials which have shown the health and broad co-benefits of retrofitted insulation, heating and remediation of home hazards, which have underpinned government policy in the Warm Up NZ-Heat Smart programme and the Healthy Homes Standards for rental housing. These trials have been included as evidence in the WHO Housing and Health Guidelines and led to our designation as a WHO Collaborating Centre on Housing and Wellbeing. We are increasingly explicitly weaving Māori frameworks, values and processes with traditional Western science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study explores experiences of the Healthy Housing Initiative (HHI). Aimed at children at risk of housing-related illness, the HHI package includes the provision of items such as curtains, heaters, bedding, and insulation, advocacy to encourage landlords to install improvements, and education and advice to help people optimise their home environment. Methods: We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 20 people living in rental housing who received the HHI intervention. Results: Participants felt heard and supported by HHI assessors. They reported that the intervention increased the warmth and dryness of the home, improved their respiratory and mental health, reduced their bills, and enabled the use of more parts of their home. However, some continued to live in cold and damp conditions due to structural inadequacies and energy poverty. Conclusions: The qualitative evidence presented in this study shows how health-focussed interventions also benefit quality of life. Implications for public health: This research emphasises that healthy housing interventions can yield extensive benefits by adopting a holistic and home-based approach. Such interventions have the potential to create improvements in individuals' lives far beyond health.

We empirically document that the effectiveness of the German rent control introduced in 2015 in achieving rental housing affordability is limited. Exploring the reasons for this limited effectiveness, we focus on the impact of the rent control on the yield on rental housing investments proxied by rent‐price ratios, which we derive by predicting sale prices to rental objects based on a hedonic model using micro‐level quotes on rental and sale listing. Exploiting the temporal, regional, and object‐specific variation generated by the design of the rent control, we identify a causal negative effect of the rent control on the yield of rental objects subject to the regulation. Furthermore, we zoom into the spillovers across regulated objects and objects in the affected markets that were exempt from the regulation and find rising yields for the exempted objects, suggesting that the regulation contributed to gentrification via a shift of rental housing supply away from the regulated segment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-disaster housing recovery models increase our understanding of recovery dynamics, vulnerable populations, and how people are affected by the direct losses that disasters create. Past recovery models have focused on single-family owner-occupied housing, while empirical evidence shows that rental units and multi-family housing are disadvantaged in post-disaster recovery. To fill this gap, this article presents an agent-based housing recovery model that includes the four common type–tenure combinations of single- and multi-family owner- and renter-occupied housing. The proposed model accounts for the different recovery processes, emphasizing funding sources available to each type–tenure. The outputs of our model include the timing of financing and recovery at building resolution across a community. We demonstrate the model with a case study of Alameda, California, recovering from a simulated M7.0 earthquake on the Hayward fault. The processes in the model replicate higher non-recovery of multi-family housing than single-family housing, as observed in past disasters, and a heavy reliance of single-family renter-occupied units on Small Business Administration funding, which is expected due to low earthquake insurance penetration. The simulation results indicate that multi-family housing would have the highest portion of unmet need remaining; however, some buildings with unmet needs are anticipated to be able to obtain a large portion of their funding. The remaining portion may be filled using personal financing or may be overcome with downsizing or downgrades. Multi-family housing would also benefit the most from Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR). This benefit is a result of modeling the financing sources, that CDBG-DR is available, and that many multi-family buildings do not qualify for other sources. Communities' allocation of public funding is important for housing recovery. Our model can help inform and compare potential financing policies to allocate public funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the renovation of housing governed by two tenure forms in Sweden, rental and cooperative housing. Based on a relational approach, we argue that despite requiring a similar need of maintenance at regular intervals, renovation in rental housing takes a substantially different form compared to cooperatives, regarding the extent of the work, the involvement of, and the outcome for, the residents. With the concept of predatory housing commodification, we aim at examining how the process of housing renovation is organized, what driving forces motivate renovations, along with how it impacts affected residents. Our contribution is twofold: firstly, we conceptualize renovation of housing as a commodifying process, within the realm of financialization, most often carried out brutally and contributing to housing inequality; secondly, our contribution is empirical as it covers housing renovation from a relational and contrasting perspective in a field that is still under-studied in the Scandinavian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]