Affordable Housing

Public Housing To Be Demolished In Tampa For New Development

September 12, 2021 Hailey Ostwalt, Liberation News. Educate! Affordable Housing, Florida, Housing, Public Housing

Robles Park Village is a 433-unit public housing complex in Tampa Heights, Florida, near Ybor City. After months of inspections, city officials found that a small portion of this community was built on top of Zion Cemetery, a historic Black cemetery, forcing 88 units to be vacated to move forward with cemetery preservation processes. Following several surveying sessions, the remaining Robles Park residents were told by Tampa city officials that their homes were set to be demolished. The Tampa Housing Authority along with Baker Barrios Architects and Property Markets Group announced a “master plan” for the Robles Park Village which is set to include over 1,000 new houses, resource facilities, and a Zion Cemetery memorial site. The Tampa Housing Authority reports that 85 percent of the new development will be “affordable rental housing” while

An Improbable Vanguard Of Poor People Is ‘Reclaiming’ Vacant Homes

February 18, 2021 Robin Urevich, Capital and Main. Resist! Affordable Housing, Home takeovers, Homelessness, Housing

On the night before Thanksgiving last year, Sasha Atkins, a 31-year-old hair stylist and single mom, hauled a few carefully chosen belongings – her phone, blankets, pillows and a laptop – into a vacant duplex on Shelley Street in Los Angeles’ El Sereno neighborhood and held her breath. Busting into an empty house was a last resort, but the pandemic has turned her precarious housing situation into an emergency. For three years, she and her son couch surfed or occasionally landed a motel room. But work had become scarce, and friends and family feared COVID-19 if they let new people into their homes. So, even though she was afraid, she moved forward.

Report Warns Climate Change Threatens Affordable Housing

February 5, 2021 Julia Travers, Invisible People TV. Educate! Affordable Housing, climate crisis, Coastal Living, Gentrification

A recent study in Environmental Research Letters examined how coastal flood risks tied to climate change threaten affordable housing. The authors also touched on the social justice aspects of housing scarcity and climate change, as well as the importance of not displacing people when flood-preparation housing improvements are carried out. “Affordable housing residents have far fewer safe options and much more to lose than their neighbors as sea level rise increases coastal flooding risks in their communities,” Benjamin Strauss, study co-author and Climate Central CEO and chief scientist, told Invisible People.

Nearly 1,000 Homeless People Died In LA In 2020 As 93,000 Homes Sit Vacant

November 3, 2020 Alex Ferrer, Terra Graziani and Jacob Woocher, Truthout. Educate! Affordable Housing, Homelessness, Tenant Rights, Vacant houses

In many major metropolitan areas across the United States, there are far more vacant homes than people experiencing homelessness. This is true in New York City, it’s true in the Bay Area, and as our new report shows, it’s true in Los Angeles. Here, there are 93,000 vacant homes compared to just over 41,000 unhoused people. Our report, the product of a collaboration between UCLA School of Law and the community-based nonprofits Strategic Actions for a Just Economy and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, is perhaps the most detailed look yet at the characteristics of residential vacancies situated in the broader speculative housing market in any city in the United States.

Affordable Housing Developers Set their Sights On Former Toxic Oil Fields

November 1, 2020 Marissa Pianko, DeSmog Blog. Educate! Affordable Housing, California, environmental pollution, Oil and Gas

California - On a busy corner in Vista Hermosa, a neighborhood just west of downtown Los Angeles, early signs of construction have begun on a 7-story, 64-unit apartment building called Firmin Court. The project’s developer, the Decro Group, has pledged that the new building, which is one of six active multi-family developments under construction in a five-block radius, will provide supportive and affordable housing for “chronically homeless individuals, persons at risk of becoming homeless, and low-income families.”

Community Land Trust Builds Social Housing

August 7, 2020 Brittany Ebeling, GEO Coop. Create! Affordable Housing, Community Land Trust, European Union (EU), New Economy

European communities are adapting the U.S. model of the community land trust to mitigate the housing affordability crisis. While trusts in the U.S. stemmed from the civil rights movement with the goal of securing access to land for Black farmers in the South, European countries have applied the movement’s logic to rural and urban challenges and its spread has been broadly from the affluent northwest to the east. Brussels, Belgium, known as the ‘capital of Europe,’ is one of many cities worldwide that are facing mounting pressure on their accessibly-priced housing stock.

Facing Skyrocketing Rents, Santa Cruz Grad Students Extend Wildcat Strike

February 18, 2020 By Yulia Gilich and Tony Boardman, Labornotes.org Resist! Affordable Housing, California, Strikes, Students

Protesting low wages in one of the most unaffordable cities in the country, graduate students at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) went on a wildcat grading strike in December and are now organizing for a full strike, beginning February 10. Graduate student workers at the 10 UC campuses across the state receive the same wages—$2,434 a month, which after taxes amounts to just over $18,000 a year, given that we are only paid for nine months.

How Wealthy Towns Keep People With Housing Vouchers Out

January 11, 2020 By Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, Propublica.org Educate! Affordable Housing, Racism, Segregation

HARTFORD, Conn. — On a sweltering Saturday afternoon last June, Crystal Carter took a deep breath as she walked toward the red “for rent” sign. Shaded by tall oak trees, the three-story duplex looked cozy. The first floor siding was painted yellow, with white railings leading to the front door. The windows appeared new, the lawn freshly cut. Although the property was in Barry Square, on the edge of a struggling area in southern Hartford, the family outside buoyed Carter’s spirits.

Finland Ends Homelessness And Provides Shelter For All In Need

January 9, 2020 Kathrin Glosel, Scoop.me Create! Affordable Housing, Finland, Homelessness

In 2008 you could see tent villages and huts standing between trees in the parks of Helsinki. Homeless people had built makeshift homes in the middle of Finland’s capital city. They were exposed to harsh weather conditions. Since the 1980s, Finnish governments had been trying to reduce homelessness. Short-term shelters were built. However, long-term homeless people were still left out. There were too few emergency shelters and many affected people did not manage to get out of homelessness...

Venezuela: Social Program Meets Goal, Delivers 3 Million Homes

December 28, 2019 Staff, Telesurenglish.net Create! Affordable Housing, Latin America, Venezuela

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro Thursday announced that the Venezuelan Great Housing Mission (GMVV) achieved its 2019 goal by completing the delivery of 3 million dwellings to the Bolivarian people as planned. "Despite the Imperialist economic, trade and financial blockade, which robbed us of so many resources in 2019, the construction industry did not stop," Maduro said at an event in the state of La Guaira where he handed over the keys of the dwelling number 3 million to a local family.

Chicago Teachers Demand Affordable Housing As Strike Begins

October 18, 2019 By Candice Bernd, Truthout.org Resist! Affordable Housing, Chicago, Chicago Teachers Union, Class Struggle, Strikes, Teachers

More than 25,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and about 7,500 support staffers represented by Service Employees International Union Local 73 are walking out of schools in the nation’s third-largest school district today, joining a wave of teacher strikes across the country that began in early 2018. The strike comes on the heels of other teacher strikes in Oakland, Los Angeles, Colorado and Virginia earlier this year, and is CTU’s first since its eight-day strike in 2012, when teachers sought higher wages, fair teacher assessment and job security, among other issues.

Puerto Rico’s “Redevelopment” Plan Is Displacing Low-Income Residents

October 16, 2019 By Erin Sheridan, Truthout.org Resist! Affordable Housing, Displacement, Puerto Rico

We would need three years to tell the story, being optimistic,” says Mirta Colón Pellecier, sitting in the doorway of her Section 8 apartment on a hot afternoon in March. A light breeze flows through the open door and is caught by a fan, blowing the fresh air into the living room. A framed photograph of Colón and her six adult children stands on a table to her right. To her left, Colón’s youngest son sits in the kitchen with his girlfriend, preparing to leave for work at his second job. “He was nine years old when I moved to Gladiolas. My daughter was 13”.

A Bay Area Housing Solution With Worker Empowerment Built In

October 10, 2019 Aaron Fernando, Shareable.net Create! Affordable Housing, Housing, San Francisco, Workers

As housing crises heat up across American cities, the San Francisco Bay Area is experiencing an extreme disparity: in 2017, it added three times as many jobs as it did new housing units for those workers. To address this challenge, the region and others will need to embrace a number of different complementary solutions. One creative solution, available for decades but growing in popularity, is bottom-up in its nature: the granny flat. Technically known as Accessory Development Units (ADUs), these residencies are small housing units built on existing single-family lots...

We Need A Homes Guarantee — Now

September 27, 2019 By Linda Armitage, Otherwords.org Educate! Affordable Housing, Housing, Reform

I lost everything during the financial crisis. The government decided that the perpetrators of the crisis were “too big to fail” and bailed them out with our money. I was not bailed out. Today, a decade after the crisis, I’m part of a grassroots-led effort to ensure every person in the United States has safe, accessible, sustainable, and permanently affordable housing. I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I’ve gone through. After the crash, I had to change my whole life. I didn’t have a 401(k) retirement account to fall back on. I had to cancel travel plans. I had to find a place to live.

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