Housing

Cheaper Solar Power Means Low-income Families Can Also Benefit

January 24, 2021 Galen Barbose, Eric O’Shaughnessy, and Ryan Wiser, DeSmog Blog. Create! Energy, Housing, Low Income, Solar Energy

Until recently, rooftop solar panels were a clean energy technology that only wealthy Americans could afford. But prices have dropped, thanks mostly to falling costs for hardware, as well as price declines for installation and other “soft” costs. Today hundreds of thousands of middle-class households across the U.S. are turning to solar power. But households with incomes below the median for their areas remain less likely to go solar. These low- and moderate-income households face several roadblocks to solar adoption, including cash constraints, low rates of home ownership and language barriers. Our team of researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory examined how various policies and business models could affect the likelihood of people at all income levels adopting solar.

Local Activists Call Attention To Housing Rights

January 22, 2021 Dean-Paul Stephens, The Times News. Resist! Cancel the Rent, Evictions, Housing, North Carolina

Graham, North Carolina - Amy Cooper said she and a handful of other activists came together at Court Square in Graham on Wednesday for an event touting tenants' rights while decrying evictions. "A lot of landlords take advantage of people not knowing their rights, so one of the things we want to do is push tenants' rights so people know what they can and can't do as a tenant," Cooper said. Cooper's thoughts echo criticism from housing advocates across the country. Last Wednesday, housing rights advocates held simultaneous nationwide demonstrations in the hopes of sparking a paradigm shift away from the current system of landlords using evictions as a threat against tenants. Many argue housing is a human right and the system should reflect that.

Homeless Encampment Evictions Highlight The Cruelty Of Capitalism

January 18, 2021 Azeezah Kanji, Truthout. Educate! Canada, COVID-19, Homeless encampment, Housing

In Canada’s homeless encampments, two faces of state brutality are on display. One is the “organized abandonment” that has relegated hundreds of thousands across Canada to homelessness (at twice the rate as in the United States). The other is the “organized violence” that evicts homeless people from encampments erected in the shadow of the state’s malign neglect. In Toronto, Canada’s largest and most unequal city, frontline workers estimate there are currently 1,000 to 2,000 people sleeping in dozens of encampments outdoors — several times more than the 400 acknowledged by city officials. Against the advice of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the former UN Special Rapporteur on Housing...

National Day Of Action For Eviction Moratorium

January 15, 2021 Shira Laucharoen, Dig Boston. Resist! COVID-19, Evictions, Housing, Joe Biden

Boston, MA - As part of the National Day of Action to Prevent Evictions, City Life/Vida Urbana organized a rally called “Housing Is The Cure!” on January 13. Protesters gathered outside of the Boston Housing Court on New Chardon Street and marched to the JFK Building. Speakers included frontline residents and faith leaders. The housing crisis has been exacerbated by the coronavirus, leaving many who have lost their jobs unable to pay rent. According to City Life, a new study from UCLA estimates that states that allowed evictions to continue this summer led to almost 11,000 preventable pandemic-related deaths.

Housing Activists Are Fighting Evictions In The Streets

December 27, 2020 Jason Koslowski and Mia Gray, Left Voices. Resist! Democrats, Evictions, Housing, Philadelphia

Philadelphia is facing a housing crisis with little help from the Democratic city council, mayor, or governor. In the city, 5,700 people are currently unhoused. Almost a thousand sleep on the streets on a given night. But more than that, this year has already seen 4,400 evictions filed in Philly courts. Another 2,000 renters are facing the very real threat of eviction and becoming part of the unhoused. This multifaceted crisis of housing is taking place as the numbers of those infected with Covid-19 are skyrocketing in the city (reaching 100,000 cases and 2,500 deaths), as winter descends, and in the wake of a major snowstorm that just hit the city.

Seattle Police And Protesters Locked In Stalemate

December 17, 2020 David Obelcz, Malcontent News. Resist! Eviction Defense, Housing, Seattle, Tent Encampment

December 16, 2020 - Seattle Police appeared to be a no-show for a planned homeless encampment sweep at Cal Anderson Park, as the rain started to fall on a cold December afternoon. Activists built an elaborate series of barricades around the central part of Cal Anderson Park, encompassing the Shelter House and blocking sections of 11th Ave and Nagle Place. Protesters took inspiration from Red House on Mississippi in Portland with their ongoing action to prevent the homeless sweep. As dawn rose over Seattle, spirits were high as mutual aid fed the unhomed and activists. Someone set off a firework in the early morning hours, creating tension in the encampment.

How Some Of America’s Richest Towns Fight Affordable Housing

December 15, 2020 Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, ProPublica. Educate! Connecticut, Housing, Systemic Racism, wealth inequality

Westport, CT - A dirt field overgrown with weeds is the incongruous entrance to one of America’s wealthiest towns, a short walk to a Rodeo Drive-like stretch replete with upscale stores such as Tiffany & Co. But this sad patch of land is also the physical manifestation of a broader turf war over what type of housing — and ultimately what type of people — to allow within Westport’s borders. It started when a developer known for building large luxury homes envisioned something different back in 2014 for the 2.2 acre property: a mix of single- and multifamily housing that would accommodate up to 12 families. A higher density project is more cost efficient, he said, and would allow him to sell the units for less than the typical Westport home.

Protesters Descend On Garcetti’s House For 6th Consecutive Day

November 29, 2020 CBS LA Staff. Resist! Garcetti, Housing, Joe Biden, Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA - A sixth day of demonstrations outside Mayor Eric Garcetti’s official residence unfolded Sunday in an attempt to persuade President-elect Joe Biden not to appoint Garcetti to his cabinet. Tabatha Jones Jolivet, a spokeswoman for BLM-LA, said Garcetti “has failed the people of Los Angeles in an unending number of ways — from criminalizing folks for being houseless, to refusing to stand up for people who are killed by his police force.” “We refuse to be quiet as President-elect Biden considers him for a cabinet post where his reach will extend to setting national policy,” she said.

Canada’s Housing Co-ops Find Success Despite Covid-19 Challenges

November 26, 2020 Anca Voinea, News Coop. Create! Canada, Cooperatives, Housing, New Economy

Housing co-ops in Canada remain positive about the future, despite the challenges posed by Covid-19 this year. A recent survey conducted by the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada (CHF Canada) during a virtual town hall held last month revealed that 96% of co-op managers and staff were ‘doing well’. Most housing co-ops in Canada are rental co-ops developed during the 1970s and 80s under government social housing programmes targeting people with low to moderate incomes. Across Canada, over 2,200 non-profit housing co‑ops are home to about a quarter of a million people in over 90,000 households.

New Month Brings Added Urgency To Minneapolis’ Housing Needs

September 3, 2020 Jenn Schreiter, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Houseless, Housing, Minneapolis, Tent Encampment

Minneapolis, MN – Advocates for people without housing are meeting today outside of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board headquarters, hours after a sanctuary encampment in the Phillips area was cleared by police. They’re demanding immediate sanctuary for the Safe Haven Encampment (SHE), a sanctuary camp for women and children, along with “any other park who is asking for a consideration to exist.“ Two weeks ago, community members demanded that the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board (MPRB) amend Resolution 2020-267 to guarantee no evictions.

Lenders Deny Mortgages For Black Homeowners At A High Rate

August 22, 2020 By Diana Olick, CNBC. Educate! Big Banks, Housing, Inequality, Racism

Discrimination in home lending goes back to the beginning of home lending itself. During the last housing boom, when subprime mortgages were all the rage, predatory lending to minority borrowers was rampant. When the mortgage market came crashing down, taking the economy with it, some major lenders were held accountable. They ended up paying massive, multibillion-dollar settlements to the federal government. But there is clearly still bias in the market. A majority (59 percent), of Black homebuyers, are concerned about qualifying for a mortgage, while less than half (46 percent) of white buyers are, according to a recent survey by Zillow, a home listing website, which launched its own mortgage lending arm, Zillow Home Loans, late last year. That is because lenders deny mortgages for Black applicants at a rate 80 percent higher than that of white applicants, according to 2020 data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. For refinances specifically, Black borrowers are denied mortgage refinance loans, on average, 30.22 percent of the time, far higher than the overall denial rate of 17.07 percent

Record Number Of Mortgage Delinquencies In The United States

August 20, 2020 Hermina Paull, The Deep Dive. Educate! Economic collapse, Housing, Mortgages, Recession

As many Americans continue to struggle to meet their debt obligations amid the coronavirus pandemic, it appears first-time homeowners have been hit the hardest. According to a recent report by the Mortgage Bankers Association, the second quarter of 2020 saw mortgage delinquencies soar by 8.22%, after increasing 4% from the previous quarter. This is the sharpest jump in the survey’s history, suggesting that the economic effects from the coronavirus pandemic are far from over. The report also found that some homeowners are struggling significantly more than others.

Tenant Unions For The Future

August 19, 2020 By Hannah Black, Dissent Magazine. Organize! Cancel the Rent, Housing, Rent Strike, Tenant organizing

Calls to rent strike have yet to cohere into a national political movement. But as the economic crisis deepens, tenants’ fates will ultimately be decided by their level of collective organization. With the arrival of the pandemic, staying home became emergency work for a failing state. Amid disastrous negligence at every level of government, one of the most ordinary facts of life in capitalism—rent—suddenly appeared clearly as an affront. “One section of society here demands a tribute from the other for the very right to live on the earth,” Marx wrote of landlords. In the early spring, with state-level and nationwide eviction moratoriums and tenant protections in place, it seemed like there had never been a better time to refuse these bad terms. Calls to rent strike brought grassroots tenant unions to the foreground. Through the spring, thousands of people turned to tenant organizing, many for the first time.

Make Corporate Landlords Pay For Housing Crisis

August 18, 2020 Sofia Lopez and Sara Myklebust, Inequality. Create! COVID-19, Economic collapse, Housing, Recession

While so many of us struggle to survive, some of the richest billionaires in the world dominate the residential real estate industry in the United States. These corporate landlords are companies owned by extremely wealthy individuals, Wall Street entities like private equity firms and hedge funds, and institutional investors. At least six leading residential property owners — Essex Property Trust, Brookfield Property Partners, Equity Residential, Related Companies, Irvine Company, and Blackstone — have top executives on the Forbes billionaires list. The U.S. real estate industry is led by some of the richest, most powerful people in the world. They have profited handsomely from the last foreclosure crisis, the commodification of housing, and decades of racist housing policy, all while actively lobbying to avoid paying their fair share in taxes. The Covid-19 pandemic has magnified what we already knew: Corporate landlords’ bill is long past due. It’s time to make them pay for the cancellation of rent, mortgages, and utilities for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic. Making them pay will help millions of tenants, homeowners, and struggling property owners who are struggling to survive.

General Strike: The Eviction Crisis Escalates

August 8, 2020 General Strike 2020. Resist! Cancel the Rent, COVID-19, Evictions, General Strike, Housing, Recession

With an estimated 17 to 40 million people at risk of losing their homes by the end of September, and with the failure of the federal government to pass an eviction moratorium or an unemployment benefits extension, the greatest eviction and foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression is now upon us. In some states in the Southeast, as many as 60% of renters are at risk of being evicted, and people of color are likely to be hit disproportionately hard. The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse survey in July, for example, highlighted that 42% of Black renters felt little to no confidence in their ability to pay rent this August, compared to 21% of White renters. For the percentage of renter households at risk of eviction in each state.

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