Housing

You Don’t Need A Key If You Can Change The Locks

August 11, 2022 It's Going Down. Resist! Chicago, Housing, Housing takeover, Illinois

Chicago, Illinois - On Friday morning, August 5th, we threw a party for our neighbors and community outside of a yellow slat-board 4-bedroom on a quiet residential block. An anticipatory buzz was in the air as about 35 people: radicals from homeless encampments, anarchist affinity groups, Maoist pre-party formations, organizations like Chicago Union of the Homeless and the Young Lords, as well as sympathetic neighbors – milled about playing music, painting cardboard signs, fussing over the food distro table, and dropping banners from second-story windows. The occasion? The re-occupation of our home after an illegal lockout the week prior. This celebration was the culmination of a week of agitation against the property management company, scheduled for the very hour they’d announced their intent to change the locks once and for all.

Black Angelenos Face ‘Whiplash After Whiplash’ Of Losing Safe Housing

August 10, 2022 Steve Chiotakis, KCRW. Educate! California, Homelessness, Housing, Los Angeles, Police

This morning, the Los Angeles City Council got an earful from protestors opposing an expansion of LA Municipal Code ordinance 41.18, the city’s controversial “anti-camping” law that has been maligned by activists for unfairly targeting unhoused people. The law will now include a ban on sitting, laying, or sleeping within 500 feet of schools or daycares. The council voted 11-3 to approve the expansion after a raucous meeting, which was temporarily put into recess when a member of the public climbed over the podium and was handcuffed. Reporter Adam Mahoney spoke to unhoused residents about what they thought of the law. He says he received mixed responses for his recent Capital B news investigation. “There are some folks who didn't even know that 41.18 existed, right?

Philadelphia Unions: ‘Housing Is A Human Right!’

August 8, 2022 Joe Piette, Workers World. Resist! Housing, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Unions

For months, 70 Black and Brown families have organized resistance to their threatened eviction by the Altman Company in Philadelphia. When supporters and residents set up a protest tent city on July 9, Altman got a judge to order what he called “trespassers” off his “private property.” The area labor movement galvanized with a strong response, pointing out that workers have little interest in cooperating with Altman to carry out the evictions. The Philadelphia Workers Solidarity Network and the Save the UC Townhomes Coalition first put out a petition with a plea to workers and union members: “Don’t cross our picket line,” if the city attempts to tear down the encampment. (tinyurl.com/2p9fhx5y) Over 400 workers, labor activists, union locals and housing activists have signed on.

Clearing The Way For A Whiter, Wealthier Tax Base In Minneapolis

August 8, 2022 Marjaan Sirdar, Unicorn Riot. Educate! Gentrification, Housing, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota – Minneapolis has experienced a real estate boom since the economic crash of 2008 which was triggered when lenders gave out millions of discriminatory home loans with adjustable interest rates to mostly Black and brown families causing a massive nationwide mortgage default. In the past decade, the city added over 20,000 new units to its housing stock, with the overwhelming majority being rental units. With increased housing supply, Minneapolis added 60,000 new residents, according to the 2020 census. In recent years, the City of Minneapolis has attempted to codify “upzoning,” a practice where multi-family housing stock is increased citywide, with its 2040 plan that banned the new construction of single family homes throughout the city.

Intersecting Movements For Housing Justice And Prison Abolition

July 27, 2022 Kamau Walton and Molly Porzig, Critical Resistance. Organize! Capitalism, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Housing, Prison abolition

Right to the City Alliance (RTTC) is a national alliance made up of over 90 member organizations on local, state, and regional levels organizing around housing and land. Our work includes renters’ rights, building alternatives such as community land trusts, and policy work like the opportunity for tenants to purchase buildings before small landlords sell them to bigger corporate landlords. RTTC connects members doing aligned work across the country to share strategies, best practices, and ways of scaling up strategies to expand impact beyond local contexts. Member organizations work on a range of social change issues, and the alliance is guided by values and principles that stand against state violence and policing. While RTTC is not explicitly focused on housing, our housing work is situated under the Homes for All campaign, where organizing for renters’ rights and community loan funds takes place.

Minneapolis Community Resists Encampment Eviction

July 23, 2022 Niko Georgiades, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Homeless, Homeless encampment, Housing, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota – After swelling to serve several dozen residents swept from other encampments, the lot on 29th Street and 14th Avenue continues to be controlled by unhoused residents despite the ongoing threat of eviction. On July 8, dozens of community members rallied at the encampment in the early morning hours and staved off what many thought was an eviction attempt by the city. Unicorn Riot heard from East Phillips resident and encampment supporter, Angela Richards, along with encampment resident, King, about the roles they were taking during the morning of July 8 and their thoughts on encampment evictions. Update: On July 20, 2022, Minneapolis Police evicted the encampment. Unicorn Riot was live speaking with some of the residents displaced from the eviction.

Growing Housing Supply Shortage Has Created A Housing Affordability Crisis

July 22, 2022 Adewale A. Maye and Kyle K. Moore, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! Affordable Housing, Economic crisis, Housing, Rentier economy

Rising housing costs have made housing largely inaccessible and unaffordable to most Americans, but have acutely impacted communities of color and low- to moderate-income families over the past several decades. The median asking rent in the United States rose above $2,000 for the first time in June 2022. Given that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sets the standard of affordability at 30% of household income, $2,000 per month would only be “affordable” for households earning at least $80,000 per year—well above the median U.S. household income ($67,521). A growing housing supply shortage is a key contributor to the housing affordability crisis. Following the Great Recession, the share of homes being built fell significantly, causing buyer demand to exceed housing production.

New Resource: The Tenant Power Toolkit

July 20, 2022 Tenant Power Toolkit. Organize! California, Eviction Defense, Housing, Tenant Rights

Helping each of us fight eviction and debt as individuals in the court system is crucial. But that is only the first part of what we can do together. Filing an answer to Unlawful Detainer or responding to a small claims lawsuit helps us respond to the system, but how can we change an unfair system? How can we change a system that evicts tenants who cannot file complicated legal papers within 5 days, but gives landlords online tools to evict from home? How can we change a system that allows landlords to ruin our credit over missed rent? With consent, we also want to connect users to tenant organizing across California, and eventually, connect users to others in their situation - neighbors; those who share landlords; those on rent strike. Why? Because if I am facing eviction or debt alone, my landlord has power over me.

Houston’s Fight To Decriminalize Mental Illness And Homelessness

July 16, 2022 Atirikta Kumar, The Real News Network. Create! Health Care, Homelessness, Housing, Houston, mental health, Texas

While Harris County is spending millions of dollars on mental health services and service-providing agencies to reduce the number of mentally ill people entering its county jails, activists on the ground are tackling the problem from another angle—by providing direct support to the county’s homeless population. “We don’t have the best safety nets in Texas, and from the mental health standpoint, there really aren’t the mental health services available that people need,” Catherine Villarreal, director of communications at the Coalition for the Homeless, told TRNN. But Villarreal also stressed that, for people experiencing homelessness and/or mental health crises, the lack of healthcare resources and social support is a crisis unto itself: “when someone ends up homeless, often that didn’t happen overnight.”

Residents Resist Millionaire Developers

July 13, 2022 Joe Piette, Workers World. Resist! Billionaires, Gentrification, Housing, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Darlene Foreman, a 60-year-old Black woman and one of the UC Townhomes tenant representatives, told the assembled press on July 11: “This is a fight for the Townhomes but not only the Townhomes.” It’s for people “all over the country who are facing displacement.” Behind her were about 50 other residents and supporters holding signs or cell phones as she continued: “I will not be displaced. . . . Me, the residents here and people all over the country are sick of it. So, if this fight takes today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, the year after that, then we’re gonna be out here fighting!” In the background were about 15 tents, which were put up on the property’s green lawn after a “Protect the Block Party” July 9. Residents and housing activist supporters are taking turns staying overnight as part of the “We ain’t going nowhere” campaign, joining in the residents’ resistance.

Renters Are Being Fleeced With Huge Rent Hikes And Evictions

June 24, 2022 Michael Sainato, The Real News Network. Educate! Evictions, Housing, New York City (NYC), Tenant Rights

Gerardo Vidal, who has lived in the same apartment in Queens, New York, with his family for 9 years, recently received a $900-a-month rent increase this year. “It means having to uproot my entire family, given the fact we’re still having a difficult time earning money due to the pandemic and loss of jobs,” said Vidal. “It’s unfair that we are being basically forced out of places we lived in for nine years and that landlords can get away with this.” Vidal is one of thousands of tenants in New York and countless others around the US who are currently experiencing drastic rent increases—a trend that has been decades in the making but, combined with an inflation squeeze and systemic shortage of affordable housing, is causing havoc for renters. These rent hikes are effectively serving as evictions by landlords who know full well that tenants will likely have to move as a result, enabling the landlords to rent out units to new tenants at greater rates.

Resident-Owned Resilience

June 24, 2022 Zachary Lamb, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Community Safety, Cooperatives, Housing

Residents of manufactured housing communities (MHCs) are disproportionately vulnerable to both hazards and displacement. The cooperative ownership model of resident-owned communities (ROCs) pioneered by ROC USA helps MHC residents resist displacement, but little research assesses how cooperative tenure impacts hazard vulnerability. To fill this gap, we conduct a spatial analysis of 234 ROC USA sites; analyze the co-op conversion process; and interview ROC USA staff, technical assistance providers, and resident co-op leaders. Although ROC USA communities, like other MHCs, face elevated exposure and sensitivity to hazards, we find that ROC USA’s model supports communities’ adaptive capacity by increasing access to financial resources, bridging formal and informal knowledge and skills, and improving social and institutional capacity. This networked cooperative model represents a scalable form of transformative adaptation by enabling low-income communities to address the underlying causes of uneven hazard vulnerabilities that are intensifying under climate change.

Local Organizations Unite Against Housing Crisis

June 14, 2022 Maria Schindler, Post News Group. Organize! California, Homelessness, Housing, Oakland

Oakland, California - On Saturday, several local organizations kicked off their plan to end the growing housing and homelessness crisis in Oakland. Gathering in Oscar Grant Plaza, in front of the new art installation that calls out police murders of Black people, the groups sought to mobilize the crowd around another kind of racialized violence: displacement. “The stress of worrying about being evicted creates health problems that are killing people. It’s not just gentrification. It’s genocide,” said Sharena Thomas. She is one of six organizers, now known as Moms 4 Housing, who sparked an international call to make housing a human right with their occupation of a home in West Oakland in 2019. Speakers painted a devastating picture of the housing crisis in Oakland.

Housing Rights Militants At The People’s Summit

June 11, 2022 People's Dispatch. Organize! Homelessness, Housing, People's Summit, Summit of the Americas

The ninth Summit of the Americas is taking place in Los Angeles from June 6 to 10, organized by the US-influenced Organization of American States. The White House, in announcing the US as the host of the Summit back in January, stated: “Working with the city of Los Angeles, Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti, and Governor of California Gavin Newsom, the United States looks forward to convening leaders and stakeholders across the hemisphere to advance our shared commitment to economic prosperity, security, human rights, and dignity.” The People’s Summit is being organized concurrently in Los Angeles as a working class call to action against the US government interests that have historically underwritten the Summit of the Americas.

Eviction Defense Successful Despite Aggressive Contractors

June 11, 2022 Niko Georgiades, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Eviction Defense, Homeless encampment, Housing, Minneapolis

Minneapolis, Minnesota – On June 1, 2022, authorities unsuccessfully cleared an encampment of tents on an unused strip of land off Interstate 35. Eviction defenders thwarted the sweep by asking for documents, helping residents pack and move, and using their bodies and placing objects in the way of authorities. Despite aggression from the contractors hired for the eviction cleanup, no tents were taken. Yet, all residents have since moved. Arriving around 9 a.m., State Patrol officers and Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) workers arrived to the encampment next to the northbound 28th St. exit from I-35W, with plans to clear the tents. Residents of the camp started living there because the previous encampments they lived in were also swept by the city.

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