Evictions Can Be Stopped
During the depression of the 1930s as many as 35 percent of workers were unemployed. They had no unemployment insurance and quickly fell behind in their rent. But much of the time they didn’t get thrown out of their homes because large numbers of people stood up together against the police to block evictions. With […]
What Happened to Public Housing?
In 1937, in a period when workers were fighting all over the country for jobs, wages, housing and more, the U.S. Government began a program that promised to provide affordable public housing for low-income families. But the Government never followed through on this commitment. It wasn’t until the 1950s and 60s that most black families […]
The Bay Area – Too Expensive to Live
The average one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is $3,200 – the highest in the country. Oakland and San Francisco had the highest year-to-year increase in home prices in the country – over an 11 percent increase since last year. Rents in San Francisco increased over 14 percent in one year, and 19 percent in Oakland, […]
New York: Making the Housing Crisis Worse
Rents are skyrocketing in New York City. In the last five years rents have climbed 55 percent while wages have fallen by four percent (when adjusted for inflation). In the last six months, rents have soared twelve percent, and most New Yorkers pay over 42 percent of their income in housing. For most working-class renters […]
Houses For Living – Not For Profit
About 3.5 million Americans sleep in shelters, transitional housing, and places not meant for living. Another 7.5 million Americans have lost their homes and are living doubled-up with family or friends. Over 580,000 people sleep on the street. Over eleven million households pay more than 50 percent of their income on housing, living on the […]
The New Housing Crisis
The U.S. media and the politicians like to pretend that the economy has recovered and is picking up again. If you are among the less than one percent who own the banks, the corporations, the land, the wealth of this country, this is true – in fact times have rarely been better for them. But […]