Housing
The CA budget's devastating local impact
Published July 27, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
I mentioned in passing last week California's plan to seize funds from cities and towns to close its budget gap. Now CA municipalities are gearing up to fight back against this "transfer of $4.4 billion in local tax revenue to Sacramento."
Consider the additional impact this reduction in funds will have on localities already juggling mandatory furloughs and layoffs of state employees, police, etc.:
- More layoffs;
- Further reductions in services and hours at libraries, public agencies, etc.;
- Public parks closed;
- Road repairs stalled;
- Redevelopment projects (good and bad) halted.
This last outcome is an interesting one.
Housing Everywhere Unaffordable at Minimum Wage
Published July 26, 2009 @ 10:57AM PT
UPDATE 7/29/09: This conversation on minimum wage continues here.
On Friday, the new federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour took effect. Yet:
...in no state can an individual working full-time at the minimum wage afford a two-bedroom apartment for his or her family. In fact, there is no county in the U.S. where even a one-bedroom unit at the FMR is affordable to someone working fulltime at the minimum wage.
According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition's annual Out of Reach report on housing affordability in the U.S.,
A household must earn the equivalent of $37,105 in annual income to afford the national average two-bedroom [fair market rate] of $928 per month.14 Assuming full-time, year-round employment, this translates into a national Housing Wage of $17.84 in 2009.
So $17.84 per hour just for housing versus $7.25 an hour for all a household's economic needs. I wonder what "fiscal" conservatives have to say about this?
Race, Class & Activism
Published July 24, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
I don't know about you, but I'm over Gates-gate. You? The more I listen to Professor Gates, the more I get concerned by his apparent recent realization of how f*cked up our incarceration rates of men of color are. Anyway, I'll leave you with this Radio Boston podcast on the case and wish you the best coming to your own conclusions about this fiasco.
One of the things I've found so frustrating about it as it drags on is how so many legitimate perspectives abound in our varied interpretations of this fairly murky case, and how difficult it is to reconcile those. If you're a person of color or a white ally and deeply familiar with experiences of racial profiling or police violence, it's really hard to remove that lens in looking at this case. If you're not as knowledgeable about this brutal history of ours, and believe that the police have a case-by-case right to act as they deem appropriate, you may think this professor got his just deserts. If you're familiar with Cambridge (and Boston) class politics, you may see it as an arrogant professor being taken down a notch. If you're a woman, you may think, why do men need to have these chest-bumping competitions in the first place? Our identities and lived experiences color how we interpret this event, and getting past those situated experiences to reach a common understanding is damn tricky.
imagine sOmeOne's paying attentiOn
Published July 24, 2009 @ 05:26AM PT
Imagine a headline "Upper Income Households Paying Too Much of Monthly Budget for Housing."
Yeah, right. But I am guessing that if upper income households were forced to cope with budget busting housing costs, skyrocketing utility bills, soaring food prices, off the charts transportation expenses, well, things would be different.
Back to reality. Yet another report (one could wonder how many reports are needed to convince lawmakers of a problem??) documents the extreme burden low income households face in keeping that household--as in avoiding homelessness. University of Chicago's Chapin Hall released the report that bodes ill for over 18 million households.
New Federal Tenant Protections Passed
Published July 23, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
...Though immigrants find their civil and constitutional rights were violated by ICE "cowboys", according to a new report.
From Foreclosurebuzz.org:
The Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, PL 111-22 became effective May 20, 2009. It applies to foreclosures through December 2012 when the law sunsets. ... The new federal law enables a bona fide tenant (defined in the Act) who is leasing premises that are foreclosed upon to continue occupancy through the FULL TERM of the lease unless the new owner intends to use the property as his primary residence (in which case the new owner still must give the tenant 90 days notice to vacate).
Read the whole thing to understand the full extent of the new rule; the bill text is here (pgs 29-31).
Now if only we could do more towards expanding affordable rental housing and homeownership in the first place. The New America Foundation looks at Obama's 2010 asset building budget and concludes:
Despite these promising proposals, the landscape of asset-building opportunities for low- and moderate-income Americans remains limited. Not only do most tax subsidies go to those who already engage in the asset-building behavior that government wants to encourage, but few subsidies exist for asset building by people with lower incomes.
I'm working towards an afternoon deadline, so I'll leave it to all of you to discuss these developments.
Katrina Didn't Just Hit New Orleans
Published July 22, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Contrary to how much time we spend covering the Crescent City here...
Courtesy of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition's Katrina Housing Group listserv, here's some late day links of how other Gulf Coast communities in TX, LA, MS and AL are still dealing with the 2005 storm's impacts:
UN to Investigate Forced Evictions in Post-Katrina NOLA
Published July 22, 2009 @ 08:00AM PT
Courtesy of the domestic economic human rights organization NESRI, I see that the United Nations's Advisory Group on Forced Evictions will spend next week in New Orleans, investigating three key eviction issues: "the demolition of public housing; the displacement of Mid City residents to make way for the Louisiana State University hospital; and growing homelessness." It is the UN's third visit to the city in 3 years; the tour will begin with testimony from displaced residents, incl. their visions for rebuilding the city.
Domestic human and civil rights activists have worked with the UN for decades in an effort to pressure the US to grant and honor full rights to its citizens, to little tangible effect from the average citizen's perspective (there's a both lack of public knowledge and a willful ignorance about HR violations and activism here at home). Certainly, during the Bush Administration, and in the post-Katrina era, when I became especially tuned in to domestic human rights activism, the public shaming that the UN brings to our country was virtually ignored, if not outright condemned by our nationalist, imperial Administration.
What does seem to be highly influential in involving the UN in stateside investigations is the impact on Americans who have had their human rights violated. From conversations with Sam Jackson, founder of May Day New Orleans (a partner of NESRI's) and others, I know that human rights organizing of poor communities and communities of color - particularly when its linked to other communities (e.g., Tsunami survivors) - is an excellent tool for mobilizing and empowering residents to fight back against social injustice. Now if only we could equip them with more resources for their fight, and shift public awareness to the relevance of international human rights treaties on our laws and policies.
NESRI's announcement includes this key passage on how NOLA's post-Katrina HR violations are part of a nationwide move towards privatization and displacement:
The forced evictions being investigated in New Orleans come as a result of a rebuilding process that favors private sector interests over the interests of residents. This emphasis on private sector develop-ment is being felt across the country with devastating effects including the current economic crisis, which has its roots in the housing sector. While post-Katrina redevelopment policies have had a disproportion-ately adverse impact on poor and low-income African American communities, the ongoing lack of afford-able housing, and the evictions to make way for private sector development, is a significant issue for all residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. (my emphases)
Additional info is available here, here, and from the National Law Center on Homeless & Poverty here.
(Photo of March 2009 May Day NOLA Rally at Lafitte public housing site, New Orleans, LA; by NESRI)
