Housing

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.

US GDP Collapses And Economic Rebound Fades

August 4, 2020 JackRasmus.com. Educate! Congress, Employment, Housing, Recession

This past week US economy collapsed in the 2nd quarter by 32.9% at annual rate and nearly 10% just for the April-June period. Never before in modern US history—not even in the worse quarters of the 1930s great depression—has the US economy contracted so quickly and so deeply! All the major private sectors of the US economy—Consumption, Business Investment, Exports & Imports—collapsed in ranges from -30% to -40% in the April-June period. That followed first quarter prior declines in single digits as well.

28 Million Evictions Loom As Houses Sit Empty

August 4, 2020 Lee Camp, Consortium News. Resist! Evictions, Homelessness, Housing, Recession

Congress’s inability to actually represent the real-live human beings of America, combined with an economic system that rewards lack of empathy and an excess of greed, has brought us to a dark time when an oncoming tsunami of financial ruin, destitution and evictions towers over our heads, blocking out the sunlight. The impending evictions may soon kick 28 million people/families out of their homes. To put that in perspective, only ten million people lost their homes during the 2008 economic crisis, and that was considered by anyone paying attention to be the craziest thing to ever happen.

As Mass Evictions Loom, Practical Advice For Housing Takeovers

August 3, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Evictions, Housing, Philadelphia, Recession

Federal protection against housing evictions has expired and local and state governments are not stepping up to fill in the gap leaving tens of millions of families vulnerable to homelessness during this growing pandemic and deep recession. In Philadelphia and across the country families, out of desperation, are taking over empty publicly-owned housing. It is estimated that there are up to ten vacant homes for every homeless person. We speak with Cheri Honkala of the Poor People's Economic and Human Rights campaign about the practicalities of housing takeovers from identifying empty houses to how to turn on the utilities and talk to police. Honkala has decades of experience in this and other necessary actions to survive in poverty in the United States.

Democrats Offer Half-Hearted Measures To Impending Eviction Crisis

July 30, 2020 By Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. Educate! COVID-19, Eviction, Housing, Recession

The best defense against a raging pandemic that has already claimed over 152,000 American lives is simply to stay home. But even this could soon become impossible for millions, as the United States is facing an impending eviction crisis of “biblical proportions,” according to the Housing Rights Initiative. Earlier this week, the federal moratorium on evictions expired, meaning the nation’s 12 million renters are now at risk of losing their homes. Renters tend to be poorer, many of whom are among the 52 million that have filed for unemployment benefits as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of extending the eviction ban, top Democrats, including California Sen. Kamala Harris and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), proposed their own solution to the crisis: new money for a fund to help renters faced with eviction access legal representation. “We must take bold, urgent action to affirm that right and protect the millions of families facing housing instability,” said Pressley, as the bill was introduced yesterday.

Hiding In Plain Sight: The Poor People’s Justice Movement

July 30, 2020 By Belinda Davis, BlackAgenda Report. Strategize! Housing, Human Rights, Poverty, Squatting

PPEHRC, constituted by poor people organizing themselves, has been once again highly visible, in rising up against the radically increased precarity that COVID has visited on vast populations. This crisis is all the more visible in Philadelphia, which already held the dubious honor of being the poorest big city in America, in real terms nearly half the population. How should oppressed peoples respond to a crisis that devastates their communities more than any other? With so many newly impoverished people—and as those who were already poor suffer far more still—PPEHRC has expanded its broad networks of mutual aid: distributing food to the homebound, sharing supplies with thousands of others, and fighting evictions; sharing knowledge with the newly poor (overwhelming people of color) and bringing new populations into the fight against the structures that perpetuate and exacerbate the country’s vast inequalities. PPEHRC members argue that capitalism and a government and electoral system controlled by the rich is the larger illness.

Single Mothers And Children Take Over Abandoned Public Buildings

July 25, 2020 Mindy Isser, In These Times. Create! COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing, Philadelphia

In Philadelphia, single mothers and their children have moved into abandoned, publicly owned buildings, in the most significant housing take over in the country—at a time when millions have lost their jobs and the country is on the brink of another housing crisis. Jennifer Bennetch has helped place unhoused people into vacant homes owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA), as the founder of Occupy PHA and a member of the Philadelphia Housing Action coalition. She's doing what she says is “the government’s job to make sure people who need it have housing.”

Housing Rules Could Force Newly Released Prisoners Into Homelessness

July 24, 2020 Jerry Iannelli, The Appeal. Educate! Homeslessness, Housing, New York City (NYC), Prisoner rights

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the population of New York City’s jails has been nearly halved. According to New York state data, the city’s average daily jail population dropped from 7,214 people in June 2019 to 3,878 in June 2020—a 46 percent decline. And according to the most recent jail reduction fact sheet from the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, the city released nearly 3,400 people from local jails between March 16 and May 25 alone. These releases most likely represent the largest single cut to the city’s jail population in history.

Without Immediate Action, Millions Of People Will Be Evicted In The Coming Months

July 23, 2020 Jannine Jackson, FAIR. Educate! COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing, Recession

From the beginning, we have seen that if the federal government didn’t intervene in a really significant and sustained way, that we would see a wave of evictions and a spike in homelessness. And so these limited federal eviction moratoriums, and these state and local moratoriums that have been put in place, have provided some protections for low-income renters, and have helped prevent that wave from happening. But those moratoriums are rapidly expiring. As of today, there are 29 governors that have allowed their state eviction moratoriums to expire, and the limited federal eviction moratoriums expire next week. We have been tracking emergency rental assistance programs that have been created in response to Covid-19. As of now, there are about 151 emergency rental assistance programs around the country. Their main challenge is lack of resources: The demand for those emergency rental assistance programs far outstripped the resources that are available.

Why The Labor Movement Should Support The ‘Beyond Recovery’ Campaign

July 20, 2020 By Stephanie Luce, Labor Notes. Create! Housing, Recession, Unions, Workers

Even before the pandemic, a large share of Americans cited housing availability and affordability as a major and growing concern. With rising unemployment, housing experts are predicting that 20 percent of all renters will be at risk of eviction by early fall. As with other aspects of the pandemic, Black and Latino people will be hurt the most. As reported in the Washington Post, a recent Census survey found that “about 44 percent and 41 percent of adult Latino and black renters, respectively, said they had no or slight confidence they could pay their rent next month or were likely to defer payment.” Majority Black zip codes already had the highest rates of eviction. The CARES Acts and expanded unemployment benefits have helped some cover their rent or mortgage, but those benefits are scheduled to run out at the end of July. Eviction moratoriums in many cities, meant to provide temporary relief, will eventually expire. Unions and other worker organizations can play a unique role in solving the housing and debt crisis both for union members and for the unorganized.

Philadelphia Protest: ‘Housing Is Dignity!’

July 17, 2020 By Betsey Piette, Workers World. Resist! Evictions, Housing, Housing rights, Philadelphia

Residents of the James Talib-Dean tent encampment, set up on June 11 on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, held a press conference July 13 to denounce city plans to evict them. Calling for housing now for people who are homeless, camp residents say they are not willing to leave. Named in honor of a housing organizer who recently died, the JTD encampment brought together around 150 activists and houseless people to bring attention to the lack of affordable housing, poor conditions in city shelters and the need for permanent low-income housing. The city has posted notices outside the encampment that it must be vacated by 9 a.m. on July 17. Philadelphia Housing Action spokesperson Sterling Johnson, said, “The unhoused are demanding housing now! What has the city given us — lies, distractions, and promises of tiny homes, and out-of-sight sanctioned encampments. … They will simply shift the burden to another area of the city, and we will start this process all over again.”

One Of The Wealthiest States Might Pass An Opportunity To Tackle Housing Segregation

July 13, 2020 By Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, The Connecticut Mirror. Create! Connecticut, Housing, Racism, Segregation

Despite its liberal reputation — and Democrats controlling the legislature for the last 23 years and the governor’s mansion for nine — Connecticut is one of the most segregated places in the country. And with thousands of residents pouring into the streets this month to protest racism, housing advocates and progressive Democrats saw an opportunity to change that, calling for an overhaul of the state’s exclusionary housing laws. That opportunity, however, appears to be fading. At the state Capitol, Gov. Ned Lamont and legislative leaders have shelved a raft of proposals that could spur more affordable housing, after ending the legislative session early this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

What It’s Like To Not Pay Rent, According To Striking Tenants

July 5, 2020 By Caroline Spivack, Valeria Ricciulli, and Diana Budds, NY Curbed. Resist! COVID-19, Housing, New York City (NYC), Rent Strike

Defective locks make for dubious building security. Walls sag with water damage and look as if they’re melting. An infestation of vermin plagues apartments. These are the conditions that some tenants in an apartment building on Sheridan Avenue in the South Bronx have endured for years. But it was the outbreak of COVID-19 in March that was the final straw. Now, 14 tenants in the 30-unit brick building have collectively withheld rent. With the help of the tenant group Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA), they have urged their landlord, multinational Monarch Realty Holdings, to forgive their rent for the duration of the city’s public health crisis. The Bronx building is one among dozens across the boroughs where the pandemic has generated a flashpoint between tenants and landlords. But, in joining together to organize rent strikes, some tenants have turned their inability to pay into a form of protest, urging rent forgiveness while sending the message that they require greater government relief.

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