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Housing

A Crisis Of ‘Forced Mass Displacement’ Of Black Pittsburghers

April 8, 2021 Tom Davidson, TribLive.com. , , ,
Pennsylvania - Why did 7,000 Black Pittsburgh residents leave the city between 2014 and 2018? The answer depends on who’s talking. Community activist Randall Taylor, a former Pittsburgh Public Schools board member and city council candidate, calls it a “crisis of forced mass displacement” of Black residents. City councilmen Ricky Burgess and R. Daniel Lavelle say the issue is more nuanced and that most of the 7% of the Black population that left during that time period did so by choice. Taylor and 31 other city residents on Tuesday petitioned Pittsburgh City Council for a public hearing on the issue and to begin a discussion about what to do about it.

Philadelphia May Have Just Revolutionized Evictions

April 7, 2021 Editorial Board, The Philadelphia Inquirer. , , ,
Philadelphia is on the verge of upending evictions as we know them. Last Wednesday, the Municipal Court of Philadelphia, which houses landlord-tenant court, released a new order following the extension of the CDC’s nationwide eviction moratorium through June. For the next 45 days, landlords are required to apply to PHLRentAssist, the city’s rental assistance program, and enroll in the Eviction Diversion Program before filing an eviction for nonpayment. The order is a game changer. Before the pandemic, landlords filed 20,000 evictions a year in Philadelphia’s landlord-tenant court. That’s despite the devastatingly long list of harms associated with eviction, harms that start with the court filing, a record of which is publicly accessible forever — regardless of the outcome.

Infrastructure Plan Doesn’t Come Close To Tackling The Housing Crisis

April 4, 2021 Lindsay Owens and Sammi Albinder, Business Insider. , , ,
The spending plans that the Biden administration released this week laid out substantial investments into our nation's housing system, including $213 billion for building and retrofitting affordable housing units, $40 billion for public housing capital repairs, and grant funding to address zoning laws rooted in racial and economic exclusion. These proposals are a welcome first step to ensuring safe, affordable, sustainable shelter — and Congress should move swiftly to enact them  — but they do not come close to meeting the scale of the housing crisis that has been underway in the United States for decades. The reality is that although the failures in our housing system were exacerbated by the pandemic — to the tune of 10 million people at risk of eviction and more than $57 billion owed in back rent — the pandemic didn't cause them.

Seattle Votes To Guarantee Lawyers For Renters Facing Eviction

March 31, 2021 David Kroman, Crosscut. , , ,
The Seattle City Council unanimously voted Monday to guarantee free legal counsel to poor tenants facing eviction, a system similar to the right to representation already enshrined in the country’s criminal courts. In passing the measure, members of the council hope to keep as many people in their current homes as possible and avoid the devastating and expensive downstream consequences — including homelessness — that often follow when someone is forcibly removed from where they live. "This legislation will not enough be itself and we know that we need a lot more," said Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who originally proposed the legislation. "We know that eviction destroys communities, wrecks households and even kills."

Victoria’s ‘Big Idea’ Pays Off In Housing For People In Need

March 29, 2021 Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist. , , ,
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and councillors Ben Isitt and Jeremy Loveday were met with a heavy dose of skepticism back in 2015 when they proposed that the Capital Regional District borrow $50 million to build supportive housing for people without homes. Helps recalled Friday that their “big idea” was mocked by some and discounted by others as unworkable or too costly. More than five years later, however, their proposal — later scaled back to $30 million — has pried matching money from the federal and provincial governments, and continues to produce results. On Friday, the CRD’s Regional Housing First Program announced the completion of its latest project — 120 new affordable homes in a six-storey rental building on Hockley Avenue in Langford.

Demolition Of Palestinian Houses Continues

March 21, 2021 Prasanth R., People's Dispatch. , , ,
The report published on March 16 revealed that the monthly average of demolition of Palestinian houses by the occupying Israeli authorities has increased by 65% in 2021 as compared to 2020. In the month of February alone, at least 305 Palestinians, including 172 children, lost their homes and were displaced due to demolition of homes by the Israeli authorities.

The Housing Crisis: One Year After Lockdown

March 20, 2021 David Rovics, Counterpunch. , , ,
All the folks moving to Portland from California or New York and talking about how great the real estate prices are here may not know it (note: I was once one of them), but this city is the most rent-burdened city in the United States, and it exists within a country that, like this city, is undergoing multiple long-term crises, one of which is a housing crisis. The housing crisis, like so many other crises, got much worse one year ago this week, when the country, and much of the rest of the world, shut down. Although this is a city that lost half of its Black population to the rise in the cost of housing between the years of 2000 and 2010 alone, according to census data, one year ago this week, if we talked about the housing crisis as one neck-deep in institutional racism, we would often be met by blank stares.

The Southern Tenant Union Playbook

March 13, 2021 Sam Russek, Scalawag Magazine. , , ,
Despite an eviction moratorium that was intended to keep people housed during the pandemic, landlords filed more than 95,000 evictions in just eight major cities across the South last year.  With the passing of the most recent stimulus bill, Senate Democrats approved more than $45 billion in rental and mortgage assistance, but it won't be enough to stave off what housing advocates call the "tsunami of evictions" still to come. But the fight to keep people housed didn't begin when the country shut down, and it won't end when people can safely dine in restaurants.  The solution to the current crisis requires novel tactics just as much as it builds on old ones, tenants' unions and advocacy groups say—particularly in the South.

Housing Justice Group Puts Power Back In Tenants’ Hands

March 10, 2021 Bryce Covert, The Appeal. , , ,
Brandy Granados’s road to activism began in November 2018 when the heater in her Kansas City, Missouri, apartment exploded. She went without heat for two months during a winter that included multiple blizzards. She continued to pay rent, she said, but in response her landlord didn’t fix the heater; instead he tried to evict her and her children.  Desperate for help, she was connected with Tara Raghuveer, an area native who had returned after graduating from college with the goal of solving residents’ housing insecurity. “I figured I could either just sit there and be mad about my situation, or I could do something about it,” Granados said.  She was able to fight off the first eviction attempt in court, but the landlord removed her to retake possession of the house. She ended up in a homeless shelter for three months. The loss of her home has left her son suffering from anxiety and trauma.

KC Tenants’ Month Of Activism Broke The System

March 9, 2021 Emily Cox, The Pitch. , , ,
Daniel Halferty was behind on rent. “When I made a partial payment in October, [my landlord] texted me, berating me.” Halferty had been hunting for a job since April, but with a history of cancer and traumatic brain injury, he was cautious about finding a job that would be fairly safe from COVID-19.  Halferty started his new job at the end of November, and made a payment plan to catch up on past-due rent. That was fine with his landlord, Ellis Real Estate, until Halferty asked to delay just 2 weeks, so he could prevent his utilities from being shut off. Then his landlord stopped communicating. “They just cut out all communication to me, and then Christmas Eve, we had the notice from the lawyer on our door that we were going to be sued for $2,925. They had 30 days to collect the payment and get the apartment back.”

Tenant Organizers Protest The Re-opening Of Housing Court

March 6, 2021 Ken Lopez, The Indypendent. , , ,
New York City - Eviction proceedings resumed Monday at the NYC Housing Courts. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have been unable to cover rent due to the pandemic and the economic crisis it has caused. Members of a variety of tenants’ organizations — including Crown Heights Tenant Union, Brooklyn Eviction Defense, Cosecha, DSA Housing Working Group, Met Council on Housing and and the PSL — rallied at Brooklyn Housing Court calling for cancellation of the rents.   Although the demonstrators tried to enter both Brooklyn Housing Court and Brooklyn Borough Hall, they were barred from doing so by a phalanx of police officers. “Direct action is the only thing we’ve seen that does anything. Getting arrested, making a scene, is apparently the only thing that moves our legislators so in terms of the moratorium, it was absolutely essential.

How The First US City To Fund Reparations For Black Residents Is Making Amends

March 2, 2021 Ashley Brown, Emilie de Sainte Maresville, and Allie Yang, ABC News. , , ,
Evanston, Illinois, is like a lot of American cities. The city just north of Chicago appears picturesque, updated and grand on one side -- but not far away, one can see the signs of economic and racial segregation, despite the city's proud, diverse and liberal reputation. What sets Evanston apart from other cities, however, is its groundbreaking plan to address the impact of that segregation and Black disenfranchisement: reparations. The impetus for the city's reparations resolution, first passed in 2019 and spearheaded by 5th Ward Alderman Robin Rue Simmons, is rooted partially in Rue Simmons' experience growing up Black in Evanston. "Early in my childhood I was invited to have a play date," she recalled. "My white friends never had a play date at my home."

No Evictions For 30+ Families In Philadelphia Takeover Houses

February 19, 2021 National Lawyers Guild and Poor People's Army, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The National Lawyers Guild stands in solidarity with the Poor People’s Army and all of the 30+ families that are sheltered in homes that are reclaimed, abandoned properties in Philadelphia. Three families in Philadelphia, residing in homes owned by the Department of Housing & Urban Development, have received notices or threats of eviction within the last 2 months, and could be thrown out into the freezing cold at any moment. Poor People’s Army / Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign has filed 3 pro se federal injunctions for these properties and are likely to go to court any day. The families should not be viewed as trespassers or criminals, they are human beings that have a right to safe housing.

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

February 18, 2021 Robin Urevich, Capital and Main. , , ,
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.

Louisville Is Failing Homeless People This Winter

February 15, 2021 Emma Austin, Louisville Courier Journal. , , ,
As much of Louisville remains under a layer of ice and with another winter storm on the way, the city is doing nothing to keep alive its homeless population, several advocates contended Saturday evening. Leaders from local homeless outreach organizations spoke in front of Hotel Louisville Saturday night, demanding city leaders address what they called a humanitarian crisis. Donny Greene, co-founder of Feed Louisville, said the city has given excuses for not helping people left outside in the below-freezing temperatures, contending there is no shelter space available. "The truth of the matter is the city is currently housing homeless people … in hotels in the city, and they have the ability to do that for everyone," Greene said.
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