Housing

What We Can Learn From One Florida Community About Climate Resilience

December 14, 2023 Danielle Arigoni, Next City. Create! Climate Change, climate crisis, Extreme weather, Florida, Housing, Resilience

The health and safety we enjoy as individuals and the opportunities for employment, education, and recreation available to us are shaped to a large degree by the built environment in which we live. For the past 70 years, the vast majority of new housing development has followed the example of Levittown, New York. The city now serves as the poster child for a seemingly endless wave of car-dependent greenfield suburban sprawl developments that not only helped to generate the carbon emissions that contribute to the climate crisis we now face but also modeled a form of growth that provided opportunity for wealth creation for some households and not others.

For Human Rights Day: Poor People’s Struggle To Survive In The USA

December 11, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG Democrats, Elections, Housing, Human Rights, Poverty, Republicans, United Nations

Sunday, December 10, was the International Human Rights Day to mark the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948. Clearing the FOG spoke with human rights defender Cheri Honkala. A founder of the Poor Peoples Economic and Human Rights Campaign and the Poor People's Army, Honkala talks about the worsening situation for poor people in the United States. She also describes the protests that will be taking place at the Republican and Democratic Party's national conventions this summer, an update on her arrest and conviction at the Office of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, DC and her new book, a guide on how to take over vacant houses.

California Is Showing The Potential Of Strip Mall-To-Housing Conversions

December 11, 2023 Ahmad Abu-Khalaf, Next City. Create! Affordable Housing, California, Development, Housing

State and local jurisdictions are desperately looking for new ways to speed up affordable housing development as the supply of homes falls short of demand nearly everywhere in the U.S. This fall, the Biden-Harris administration announced new resources to support commercial conversions to create affordable housing. While much of the focus is on office conversions, an idea that swept the nation as millions of Americans transitioned to remote work, relatively few office buildings are physically suitable for conversion. The costs can be incredibly high and the surrounding neighborhoods, often in business districts, are not necessarily conducive to new housing and the needs of residents.

A Trailblazing Tenants Union Forced A Mega-Landlord To The Table

December 10, 2023 Thomas Birmingham, In These Times. Organize! Connecticut, Housing, Landlords, Tenant Union, Victory

New Haven, Connecticut - Things looked bleak on Blake Street when, at around 3:30 p.m. on August 19, Jessica Stamp and 15 of her neighbors found eviction notices taped to their door. Ocean Management, Stamp’s landlord and one of New Haven’s most powerful companies, seemed intent on getting her out. But 13 days later, on Sept. 1, Ocean called off the evictions and came to the bargaining table to negotiate the first agreement of its kind between a landlord and tenants in Connecticut. In those 13 days, a local tenants union realized just how powerful they’d become.

As Chicago Punts On Apartment Safety, Denver Shows What’s Possible

December 4, 2023 Alex Nitkin, Next City. Create! Chicago, Colorado, Denver, Housing, Illinois, Landlords

The tenant of a two-story house in east Denver had been expecting Kevin Lewis when he knocked on her door this past June. After a brief introduction and a glance around the home, Lewis quickly checked the water pressure, power outlets and the cooling sources in each room. He reached a wiry arm up to a ceiling smoke alarm and pressed a button, prompting a chirp to echo through the house. “Music to my ears,” Lewis said, already halfway to the basement to make sure the boiler had a working gas line connection. Minutes later, Lewis was gone — on to the next house. Lewis wasn’t sent by the city to investigate a complaint, nor by a prospective buyer.

‘Subsidizing Abuse’ Investigates Affordable Housing Industry’s Record

November 29, 2023 Isabela Escalona, The Real News Network. Educate! Affordable Housing, Housing, Minnesota, Report, Worker Rights and Jobs

At least $84 Million in Minnesota state and municipal funds earmarked for affordable housing projects have gone towards contractors with records or accusations of worker exploitation, from wage theft to misclassification to labor trafficking to sexual abuse, according to a new report. Subsidizing Abuse: How Public Financing Fuels Exploitation in Affordable Housing Construction was published on November 14 by North Star Policy Action, which calls itself “an independent research and communications institute.” It was authored by Jake Schwitzer from North Star Policy Action and Lucas Franco from Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA).

Pollution Displaces Black Residents; White Homeowners Profit

November 25, 2023 Adam Mahoney, In These Times. Educate! Black America, Chicago, Environment, Gentrification, Housing, Illinois, pollution, Racial disparities

Englewood Chicago — Deborah Payne’s neighborhood of 35 years on Chicago’s South Side no longer exists. Dirt piles tower where families once gathered for Sunday dinners in single- and multifamily homes. Concrete lots cover backyards where children watched fireworks and caught lightning bugs. Streets that maintained generations of Black Chicago razed and left empty for railway cars. Today, less than 10 blocks from Payne’s old neighborhood, sits the repercussions of diesel pollution caused by the expansion of a railyard. Over a decade ago, the city, along with railroad giant Norfolk Southern, announced a plan to buy out Payne’s 12-block community of more than 200 households to replace it with the freight yard.

Zoning Reform Is Entering A New, Grown-Up Era

November 25, 2023 Zak Yudhishthu, Next City. Create! Housing, Minnesota, St. Paul, Urban Design, zoning

Blink, and you might’ve missed it: St. Paul, Minnesota just ended zoning that restricts neighborhoods only to single-family housing. On Wednesday, October 18, the St. Paul City Council voted to change the city’s zoning code to increase neighborhood-scale density across the city. Areas that today only allow for single-family homes will soon allow for at least four units of housing per lot. At first glance, these changes might recall those passed by Minneapolis in 2019, when the city’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan legalized triplexes city-wide. Minneapolis received extensive attention for the changes, as it was a national leader in eliminating city zoning that excluded every housing type except for single-family homes.

El Paso Tried To Turn This Historic Neighborhood Into A Sports Arena

November 17, 2023 Christian De Jesus Betancourt, Next City. Resist! El Paso, Gentrification, Housing, Texas, Victory

Sitting on a street bench on the closed-off Chihuahua Street on a crisp El Paso evening, Romelia Mendoza and Selfa Chew recall the seven-year struggle to save the historic Duranguito neighborhood from demolition. Since 2016, they and other locals have believed a sports arena would be built atop the home where Mendoza saw her siblings grow through the 1970s. Today, fences placed by the city surround the building. One of El Paso’s oldest barrios, Duranguito, sits along the border between El Paso and its Mexican sister city, Juarez. Once the “Ellis Island of the South,” as local historian David Dorado Romo puts it, was the entry point for hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants and even Chinese immigrants, some of whom made a home in Duranguito.

Migrant Health In Chicago Suffers Due To Lack Of Planning And Support

October 28, 2023 Candice Choo-Kang, People's Dispatch. Educate! Chicago, Health Care, Housing, Migrant Rights

Over 17,000 migrants from Latin American and Caribbean countries have been bused into Chicago since August 2022, the majority arriving since May 2023 when Title 42 expulsions ended. Chicago has struggled to house these new arrivals, and has resorted to hosting many in park field houses and police stations. As of October 13, about 3,000 migrants are being hosted at police stations, with hundreds of these families sleeping outside in recreational camping tents as the number of people allowed to stay inside the stations has been limited. To address the overflow problem, the city plans to create “base camps” where migrants will be sheltered in winterized tents.

Tenants Are Teaming Up To Target Voucher-Snubbing Landlords

October 21, 2023 Sam Rabiyah, Next City. Organize! discrimination, Housing, Housing Vouchers, New York City (NYC), Tenant Rights

Elizabeth Byrd is a single mother of six and grandmother of four who spent 18 years in and out of the Brooklyn homeless shelter system. She is also now working with other tenants to take action against law-breaking landlords and real estate brokers who refuse to accept tenants who use government housing vouchers to pay rent. “The discrimination they’re doing is illegal, and we can do something about it,” said Byrd, who is 50. “We are too determined to give up.” Byrd pays 80% of her current rent with a FHEPS voucher, administered by the city’s public assistance agency for families with a history of eviction or domestic violence.

The Squatters Asking Why Chicago’s Public Housing Is Filled With Vacancies

October 13, 2023 Roshan Abraham, Next City. Resist! Chicago, Homelessness, Housing, Housing Crisis, Squatting

In late August, a group of Chicago residents were forcibly removed from a building they called home, a longtime-vacant property owned by the Chicago Housing Authority. The residents were part of a rotating group of squatters who had occupied the home for 20 months, a group that included a housing activist and people who had been living in tents in a nearby homeless encampment. For two years prior to the occupation, the home—a picturesque two-story property in the quickly gentrifying Humboldt Park neighborhood—had been vacant. It’s one of more than 2,000 housing units under the Chicago Housing Authority’s ownership that lie empty, according to city data.

Massachusetts To Launch Push To Fill Vacant State-Funded Apartments

September 25, 2023 Todd Wallack, ProPublica. Create! Homelessness, Housing, Massachusetts, Vacancies

Massachusetts housing officials announced Friday that they are launching a “90-day push” to reduce the number of vacancies in state public housing by the end of the year. The initiative comes after an investigation by WBUR and ProPublica found nearly 2,300 of 41,500 state-funded apartments were vacant at the end of July — most for months or years — despite a housing shortage so severe that Gov. Maura Healey called it a state of emergency. Massachusetts is one of only four states with state-subsidized public housing, and about 184,000 people are on a waitlist for the units.

Massachusetts Has A Huge Waitlist For State-Funded Housing

September 22, 2023 Todd Wallack and Christine Willmsen, ProPublica. Educate! Homelessness, Housing, Massachusetts, Public Housing

In a state with some of the country’s most expensive real estate, Libby is among the 184,000 people — including thousands who are homeless, at risk of losing their homes or living in unsafe conditions — on a waitlist for the state’s 41,500 subsidized apartments. As they wait, a WBUR and ProPublica investigation found that nobody is living in nearly 2,300 state-funded apartments, with most sitting empty for months or years. The state pays local housing authorities to maintain and operate the units whether they’re occupied or not. So the vacant apartments translate into millions of Massachusetts taxpayer dollars wasted due to delays and disorder fostered by state and local mismanagement.

The Housing Crisis And Migrant Crisis Are Crises Of Capitalism

September 20, 2023 Mike Pappas, Left Voice. Educate! Capitalism, Housing, Housing Crisis, Migrants

New York City mayor Eric Adams declared in August that there is “no room” in the city for hundreds of migrants being forced to sleep on the street because shelters are already crowded and in disrepair. The mayor initially encouraged those seeking shelter to “consider another city” as they struggled to survive. Adams announced plans to house as many as 2,000 in a tent complex on Randalls Island and later designated space on an airfield to house asylum seekers. These spaces are identified, as the claim goes, that the city simply doesn’t have housing space for those seeking asylum, especially because it is already difficult enough for residents to find adequate, affordable housing.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources