8.2.22. Los Angeles

LA City Council voted to criminalize sitting in public on 20% of LA’s land in an effort to strengthen police power and funnel more unhoused and Black and brown people into jails. Council members used police to clear the chamber of protesters, and nearly all people in the chamber, in order to pass the measure without protest.

[Image 1 shows a line of police officers with their backs turned to the city council bench, facing an empty council chamber minus one person sitting in a bench, possibly a journalist.]

I HOPE THIS GRAFFITI LOWERS HOUSING COSTS

Today I heard someone saying some stupid shit and then I learned that they’re a landlord and it made sense.

A new indicator from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) shows there are close to zero private rental units that are affordable for the lowest income households in Ottawa.

CMHC looked at the share of rental market housing that meets a threshold of costing no more than 30 per cent of pre-tax income for households earning in the lowest 20 per cent.

In Ottawa, as in nine other Ontario cities, the indicator found there were so few units meeting those criteria that it could not even report a reliable figure. 

Even Vancouver had more affordable units, with one per cent availability under that measure.

"What this first measure tells us is worrisome, to say the least," said the CMHC report.

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada

Today is Giving Tuesday!! Help us give the gift of housing security for 50+ families across the country!

Donate to Rent for Moms with Reparations Roundtable!

We at RR are raising $2000 today, and I am hoping to raise $100!

Send funds to Paypal.me/ReparationsR with "giving tuesday" in the memo.

Can you share widely, give, and comment below when you've donated so we can tally here? Together we can celebrate the season by giving housing security.

I also have Venmo (@amanda-darer) and Cashapp ($teababe27) if you prefer using those!

#GivingTuesday #RentForMoms #homefortheholidays

ID: a photo of a green tree frog with the words “Hippity hoppity; people matter more than property”.

And as a follow up to that previous post: I really think that a lot of the anti-homeless stuff that governments do is a combination of NIMBY and "but what will the tourists and gentrifiers think!" to try and make it so miserable for them there that they'll just leave and be homeless somewhere else.

But! I think an overlooked, er, benefit? (side-bonus?) to the ruling class that I don't see talked about much of having a visible and deeply ostracized class of people who are outside of most of the social systems that the rest of us live within, is that they are sort of a permanent reminder and warning to anyone who doesn't play by the rules: hey. This could be you. This is you if you don't follow every work rule and get fired and can't get another job and run out of resources and support network (do you really have that anyway? would your friends and/or family really take you in if it came down to it?) and the social net has been totally eroded and so now here you are! On the street! Possibly for awhile, possibly forever.

And like basically what I'm trying to say is that as a society, we *need* to help the people who are currently being victimized by this system first and foremost because they are people and no one deserves that, but also because if everyone knew that there were options and could feel sure that their community would take care of them, how much braver would we be? If we took that threat away completely?

twitter thread

August 9, 2022. Los Angeles

LA City Council deploys riot police at a public meeting to criminalize sitting and sleeping near a school and to fund police to enforce the measure.

If you are from Iowa, please sign this petition to help us end unlawful evictions in Waterloo!

Click here! If you do not live in Iowa but you know someone who does, please pass this along or post it elsewhere! Reblogs are appreciated!

At the end of this article, a homeowner is quoted as saying that there is "no good solution" to the problem of homelessness. He is speaking in the context of a false choice - let homeless people camp in urban areas or force them to move.

There is a solution to homelessness - affordable housing. And it would be cheaper to build or convert existing structures for that purpose than it is to continue to persecute the most vulnerable people in America.

Affordable housing would make it possible for people who are experiencing homelessness to focus on solving the problems that caused them to become homeless. They would be able to get jobs - many homeless people have jobs, but homelessness makes it much harder.

There are agencies in every city that would help people access mental health services and/or address other factors that make it harder for them to succeed, such as substance abuse. Housing would make it easier for people to take advantage of those services.

There will always be people who can't become self-sufficient. Many of those people can contribute to their communities, if they are given some help.

The relative few who simply can't or won't contribute are still human beings and worthy of housing. If they had a place to go, they would cause fewer problems for others. And again, it would be cheaper in the long run to house them.

This would take funding, of course. In the 1950s, when America's economy was the best it has ever been, the top tax rate was 90%. We wouldn't have to raise taxes on billionaires nearly that much to pay for nation-wide affrodable housing. Of course, government jobs, as under the New Deal, would make it possible for many people to work for the betterment of their communities and themselves.

Build back better than it ever was. Vote blue.

The most helpless I feel as a mental health counselor is when my clients are at risk of losing their housing. It’s so fucked up. Housing is a human right.

Report has come out showing that nearly half of the speculative real estate investors largely responsible for making Canada's largest city also one of the most expensive to rent in are losing money and I am here for it.

Buying a home in the Toronto area has long been completely out of the question for most who live here thanks to real estate prices skyrocketing ever further beyond what anyone can afford on a typical income, but rentals are quickly catching up, too, not just in the city but across Ontario.

As not just owning, but also leasing becomes progressively less tenable and forces people to consider leaving the province, new data puts into perspective just how bad the situation has gotten over the last few years, even for those who have accepted that they will be tenants forever.

The Canadian Rental Housing Index released by the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association on Monday outlines how rent prices have escalated in each part of the nation from 2016 to 2021, and the findings are jarring.

The assessment, which examined rent prices, income levels, density, and housing quality across locations and demographics, indicates "a staggering increase in rental costs and significant housing challenges faced by renter households across the country" on top of "a number of other worrying affordability trends." [...]

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada