Housing

Organizing Tenants In The Rentier Society

November 10, 2017 Michael Byrne, roarmag.org Resist! Housing, Organizing, Rent control, Rental housing

By Michael Byrne for ROAR Magazine - These organizations are developing new ways of responding to the growing conflict between tenants and landlords and between housing as a right and housing as a financialized asset. They aim to become more than radical activist groups, but rather to organize tenants en masse and to change the structural conditions and policies which condemn tenants to a life of high rents, frequent evictions and low-quality housing. All the organizations mentioned above are involved in collective action in response to individual issues, in particular rent increases, evictions and poor housing standards. This involves providing information about tenants’ rights, negotiating with landlords, media campaigns targeting specific landlords and taking legal cases. For tenant organizers this is about tenants working together to fight for their rights, rather than charity. Renting can be an isolating and individualizing experience. The only time a tenant is likely to reach out to others is during a particular moment of crisis, such as a rent increase or eviction. These moments provide the possibility to de-individualize the experience of renting, but also to politicize that experience by showing that by working together tenants can change their reality. Yet this kind of “case work” brings its own challenges — and not just in terms of the considerable resources it requires.

Tiny Homes Banned In U.S. As Govt Criminalizes Sustainable Living

November 7, 2017 Staff, daily-curiosity.info Create! Affordable Housing, Housing, Legislation

By Staff of Daily Curiosity - As the corporatocracy tightens its grip on the masses – finding ever more ways to funnel wealth to the top – humanity responds in a number of ways, including the rising popularity of tiny houses. These dwellings, typically defined as less than 500 square feet, are a way for people to break free of mortgages, taxes, utility bills and the general trappings of “stuff.” They’re especially attractive to millennials and retirees, or those seeking to live off-grid. But government and corporations depend on rampant consumerism and people being connected to the grid. Seeking actual freedom through minimalist living should seem like a natural fit for the American dream, but the reality is that many governments around the country either ban tiny homes or force them to be connected to the utility grid. “As of now, few cities allow stand-alone tiny houses. Most communities have minimum square footage requirements for single-family homes mandating that smaller dwellings be an “accessory” to a larger, traditional house. Many also have rules requiring that dwellings be hooked up to utilities, which is a problem for tiny-house enthusiasts who want to live off the grid by using alternative energy sources such as solar panels and rainwater catchment systems.”

Newsletter – From Neoliberal Injustice To Economic Democracy

November 5, 2017 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Cooperatives, Economic Democracy, Energy, Housing, Mutual Aid, New Economy, Public Banks, Transportation

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. This week, we will focus on positive work that people are doing to change current systems in ways that reduce the wealth divide, meet basic needs, build peace and sustainability and provide greater control over our lives. The work to transform society involves two parallel paths: resisting harmful systems and institutions and creating new systems and institutions to replace them. Throughout US history, resistance movements have coincided with the growth of economic democracy alternatives such as worker cooperatives, mutual aid and credit unions.

National Low Income Housing Coalition On Tax Proposal

November 4, 2017 Diane Yentel, www.popularresistance.org Create! Affordable Housing, Housing, Tax cuts for the rich, Taxes

By Diane Yentel for Natinal Low Income Housing Coalition. WASHINGTON, D.C.- The tax reform legislation proposed by House Republican leaders takes a historic step in directly revising the mortgage interest deduction (MID), a $70 billion annual tax expenditure that primarily benefits higher income households—including the top 1% of earners in the country. The Republican tax proposal makes sensible reforms in lowering the amount of a mortgage against which the MID can be claimed to $500,000 for new home loans and doubling the standard deduction. This change to the MID would impact fewer than 6% of mortgages nationwide and would save an estimated $95.5 billion over the first decade.

Huge Mobile Home Park Co-op Deal Puts Residents In Charge

November 1, 2017 Suzanne Potter, publicnewsservice.org Create! Cooperatives, Housing, New Economy

By Suzanne Potter for Public News Service - HALIFAX, Mass. – In a deal that is the largest of its kind, this week a group of 700 Halifax residents bought the mobile-home park where they live for $27 million - and they'll turn it into a co-op run by a nine-person board. The deal at Halifax Estates was facilitated by specialists at the Cooperative Development Institute, a nonprofit that helped the residents get a loan and form their co-op board. Thomas Choate, a cooperative housing specialist at the CDI says the board collects rents on the mobile-home spaces and decides how to put the money to good use. "With the surplus that they have in any particular year, they have agency to point that surplus where they would like in that community," he says. "And also, rather than an investor having the profits to themselves, the homeowners often can keep their rents lower." The homeowners, many of whom are seniors, don't have to put up any money, although they are collectively liable for the loan. The rent on the spaces tends to be at or below market rate, since the profit motive has been removed. In addition, the co-op board screens new residents. In this way, Choate says many lower-income communities have been able to stamp out persistent problems with drug and crime.

Where Evictions Hurt The Most

October 31, 2017 Sarah Holder, citylab.com Educate! Evictions, Housing, New Economy

By Sarah Holder for City Lab - Measuring the scale of America’s eviction problem has been a challenge—the data just isn’t available. While the U.S. Census bureau promised to start more diligently measuring evictions in 2017, there is not yet a national federal database. City-level records measure formal evictions, but are hard to access centrally, and miss off-the-books instances of (similarly damaging) forced moves. A new report from Apartment List aims to more accurately estimate the scope of the population at risk of eviction, building on data from its 8 million users, plus answers to 41,000 surveys on rental security. The scope, they found, is wide, and growing: One in five renters recently struggled or were unable to pay their rent, and 3.7 million renters nationwide have experienced an eviction in their lifetime as a renter. In addition to determining the frequency (and threats) of evictions,Apartment List tried to quantify the similarly insidious incidences of informal evictions, and the unhealthy nature of monthly rental insecurity. The survey asks if, in at least one of the past three months, a given renter has been unable to pay their rent in full. The one in five that answered “yes” haven’t necessarily been forced to leave their apartments under court of law, but they do face serious consequences.

Housing Mobility Is Destabilizing Baltimore’s Black Communities

October 6, 2017 Lawrence Brown, www.medium.com Create! Black People, Housing, New Economy

By Lawrence Brown for Medium - In many ways, the Thompson vs. HUD housing mobility strategy should be celebrated. Indeed, for the Black families that move, research shows improved health, labor, and educational trajectories for many Black children. This certainly deserves great acclaim and applause. But the more I think about the spatial and economic impacts of housing mobility as a fair housing strategy, the more I am troubled by its effects in Baltimore City. Housing mobility via Thompson vs. HUD has given nearly 3,500 Black public housing families the opportunity to move from Baltimore City to surrounding counties. But in the process of doing so, many Black children are leaving the city. Because these children lived in segregated Black communities, many Black public schools were and continue to be disproportionately affected by the declining student population as these schools lose the per pupil funding dollars that go with each student. So Black public schools are negatively impacted. Then on top of that, Black public schools are targeted for permanent closure based on small and declining enrollment. This means Black neighborhoods lose a critical community institution and often a cultural legacy and memory associated with schools named after Black historical figures (i.e. W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes). In this way, desegregation policy furthers racism through divesting resources in Black schools and neighborhoods.

Drug Testing – But Still No Permanent Housing – For Tent City Protesters

September 26, 2017 Fern Shen, www.baltimorebrew.com Resist! Baltimore, Housing, Protests

By Fern Shen for Baltimore Brew - When Mayor Catherine Pugh persuaded homeless protesters camped outside City Hall to relocate to a building in Sandtown, she promised they would “get permanent housing as quickly as possible.” But more than four weeks later, most of the original Tent City 55 are still sleeping on cots in the so-called Pinderhughes Shelter, a dilapidated former elementary school at 1200 Fremont Avenue. And although Pugh’s agreement with the protesters stated that Pinderhughes would be a “housing first” facility with no drug-testing, all the people living there have been tested for drugs, according to the facility’s director. “If they don’t do a urinalysis, how are they going to know if they are on pain medications or on methadone?” said Samantha Smith, a Tent City participant who was given a paid position by the mayor to run the shelter. Smith said the people at Pinderhughes agreed to get the testing voluntarily because they wanted mental health and other treatment, but that it was not a precondition of receiving housing assistance. “They wanted to change their lives,” Smith said. Housing advocates are skeptical. “I question whether or not they freely chose this or if they were, in effect, coerced,” said Lauren Siegel, a longtime Baltimore housing advocate who teaches at the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

Tenants Push Back Against Corporate Landlords During “Renter Week Of Action”

September 25, 2017 Candice Bernd, www.truth-out.org Resist! Corporations, Housing, Tenants

By Candice Bernd for Truthout - "One year in January we didn't have any heat. They would come and they would quote-unquote 'fix it' during the day and by nightfall it would be completely gone and out," Hasbrook said, describing how she and her neighbors were left exposed to the biting cold of a Minnesota winter. "For that month, I still got a bill that was over $100 for utility costs," she said. All this, coupled with Frenz's steady rent hikes over the years, led Hasbrook and other tenant-organizers to hold a protest and vigil on the front lawn of the slumlord's mansion this week: to remind him of the substandard conditions she and the tenants of his 1,200 other units endure. "He did not come out. However, the sprinklers were turned on," Hasbrook said. "But we just covered the sprinklers with bandanas and kept right on going." The vigil was just one of several actions popping off this week in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area -- and across the nation. Renters in 45 cities are organizing protests from September 16 through September 24, during a nationwide "National Renter Week of Action and Assemblies" spearheaded by the Right to the City Alliance to fight back against the Trump administration's threat to cut billions from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and to demand rent control and just-cause eviction policies.

Neighbors Form Human Chain Around House To Stop Eviction

September 25, 2017 Simon Robb, www.metro.co.uk Resist! Evictions, Housing, United Kingdom (UK)

By Simon Robb for Metro.co.uk - A woman facing ‘revenge eviction’ has been given a lifeline after her neighbours gathered to form a human chain around her home. Nimo Abdullahi, 39, claimed her landlord tried to kick her and her five children out of their home after she complained about the rising damp. But neighbours and campaigners turned out in force to stop bailiffs from forcing the family out of their home in Easton, Bristol. A newlywed couple living opposite even cut up their wedding cake for all the protesters. When the bailiffs arrived on Tuesday morning, they were unable to get past the 30 protesters who stood strong. Nimo claimed the landlord tried to evict them numerous times before and even threatened to get the police to do the job. She said: ‘It has a big problem with damp. This is bad for us, because my children have asthma and it is not a good place. ‘Until recently, the carpets everywhere were very old and dirty and we would ask the landlord to improve things, but he was difficult.

Occupy Wall Street In The Age Of Trump

September 24, 2017 Levar Alonzo, www.downtownexpress.com Resist! Housing, Occupy Wall Street

By Levar Alonzo for Downtown Express. New York City - It has been six years since the movement calling itself Occupy Wall Street took over Downtown’s Zuccotti Park for a weeks-long demonstration that spawned similar actions across the country protesting corporate greed, social and economic inequality, and the domination of the “One Percent.” The encampments have long-since dispersed but dozens of die-hard Occupiers and activists gathered at the place where it all began on Sept. 17 in Zuccotti Park to declare that the movement still has work to do — now more than ever.

9to5 Colorado Fights For Renter’s Rights, Affordable Housing

September 21, 2017 Staff, www.9to5.org Resist! Affordable Housing, Housing, judicial system, renter's rights

By 9to5 Colorado. Colorado - Community members from Denver, Aurora, Westminster, and Commerce City came together to participate in the National Renter’s Week of Action alongside other affiliates of the Right to the City Homes For All campaign. These impacted community and non-profit organizations behind the following local actions are all part of a statewide coalition called Colorado Homes For All, which was formed as a response to the national and local housing crisis. Colorado kicked off the National Renters’ Week of Action here locally with “Evicting THE EVICTOR,” an action that exposed the Tschetter, Hamrick and Sulzer Law firm that represents 80% of corporate landlords across Colorado.

Renter Nation Assemblies 2015

August 15, 2017 Staff, www.homesforall.org Organize! Affordable Housing, Boston, Housing, Rent, renter's rights

By Staff of Homes for All - Hundreds gathered and gave direct testimony about the citywide displacement crisis. Grassroots activists also planned strategies and tactics for passing Just Cause Eviction, breaking down by city council district, and they shared a variety of organizing approaches to the displacement crisis through interactive and cultural presentations. Topics included inclusionary development policy, community land trusts and community control of public land, creation of neighborhood stabilization zones, and struggles for local hiring and community benefit standards. The Right to Remain Assembly culminated in a massive citywide action cosponsored by Boston Tenant Coalition, Right to the City Boston, Alternatives for Community & Environment, Boston Workers Alliance, Chinatown Resident Association, Chinese Progressive Association, City Life/Vida Urbana, Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation, Dominican Development Center, Dorchester People for Peace, Fairmount Indigo Community Development Collaborative, Jamaica Plain Progressives, Neighbors United for a Better East Boston, New England United for Justice, SEIU 32BJ.

Talking About A Revolution

August 4, 2017 Jim Naureckas, www.fair.org Create! Climate Change, Health Care, Housing

By Jim Naureckas for FAIR - It’s long been clear that if we want to avoid catastrophic climate disruption on a scale that threatens human civilization, we need to leave vast amounts of fossil fuels in the ground. Environmental writer Bill McKibben pointed out the math in a crucial 2012 article for Rolling Stone: To avoid disaster, 80 percent of the carbon already discovered by private and state-owned energy companies has to be left alone—to be treated as useless rock, not precious resources. The problem is, the energy companies are some of the richest, most powerful entities on Earth. Corporations are designed to act like organisms with a single goal, maximizing profits. And the fossil fuel industry’s future profits—roughly 80 percent of them—depend on extracting that carbon and burning it, climate and civilization be damned. They have been using and will continue to use their vast influence to thwart any effort to avert that disaster. Does humanity have the collective power to tell the current owners of carbon deposits that they no longer own them—that they don’t have the right to take them out of the ground and sell them as fuel? That’s the $640 trillion question. Doing so is essential to our future as a species—but a massive transfer of wealth of that kind isn’t like a revolution, it is a revolution, and a revolution on a scale history hasn’t seen before.

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