Housing Justice For All
Housing injustice has a long history in America and its long shadow is still being felt today by the Black community. In order to equal the playing field and achieve true equity, prejudice in banking, real estate and development must be addressed to achieve housing justice for all. Below outlines a number of platforms and actions activists are calling on to be made.
01
When We Say Defend Black Lives, We Mean Defend Black Homes Too
By Jocelyn Hassel, Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review (July 2, 2020)
In this article, activist lawyer Jocelyn Hassel argues that housing and civil rights are inextricably intertwined and lays out some steps that all people—from the community to the federal level—can take to protect Black homes.
“Check in with your building’s tenants’ association to see what you can do to support the work that tenants are already doing to combat illegal rent raises and hazardous conditions. Recognize the possible hurdles that your own actions may do to impede the movements in both your building and neighborhood, and act accordingly based on the strategic benefits and limitations of your actions.”
“How do you as an ally occupy space in your respective community? Are you in a predominantly Black community as a non-Black person, and have you occupied space as a transplant complicit in gentrification? If so, how are you channeling your capital and resources to account for the acts of racial capitalism taking place in these communities?”
“This moment in our nation, immensely painful and tragic, is an urgent call to action to preserve Black households, to preserve Black lives, and to galvanize ourselves into a sustainable momentum of movement-building solidarity.”
02
Cancel the Rent
By Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor, The New Yorker (May 12, 2020)
As the economic impacts of COVID-19 continue to worsen, Yamahtta-Taylor—a professor of African American Studies at Princeton University—urges federal and local lawmakers to act now to prevent widespread hunger and homelessness, which would also lead to increased spread of the virus.
“The incomplete actions of local and federal officials could result, by late summer, in hundreds of thousands of evictions and foreclosures, which would trigger a new wave of infection and illness.”
“Homeless shelters are already major sites of COVID-19 outbreaks; forcing hundreds of thousands of families into the streets would be throwing gasoline on still-smoldering embers.”
“If our government can spend trillions of dollars to bail corporations out of a worsening economic situation, then there is no reason why that same gesture cannot be extended to poor and working-class families.”
“Consider the grim alternative, if we remain stuck with the shamefully inadequate housing relief that has been offered: hundreds of thousands of poor and working-class renters and homeowners, particularly from black communities, dispossessed of their homes and pushed into the streets, doubled and tripled up in relatives’ and friends’ homes or warehoused in homeless shelters, hungry, exhausted, and increasing their exposure to this novel coronavirus.”
03
Access to affordable housing remains one of the central pillars of the Movement for Black Lives. In this white paper, released at the height of the pandemic, Movement for Black Lives’ organizers lay out their demands for a just housing policy.
Demands
Federal Demands
Moratorium on mortgage payments and taxes.
Freeze on all rent and utilities.
Commit to providing vulnerable house-less residents, survivors of violence, and recently released individuals with safe and sanitary community-based housing. If emergency “isolation and quarantine” housing is possible, permanent decent housing for all must be possible too. Housing provision commission set up to allocate housing to those in need.
Increase funding for domestic and sexual violence shelters and agencies.
Make any bail outs contingent on guarantee that unfilled hotels and private housing units will be made available to those in need of housing. Ensure that buildings with vacant units, empty hotel units, and unused Airbnb apartments are released to house sick and at-risk people that otherwise do not have access to other private housing.
Declare a moratorium on utility shut-offs and institute a grace period on payments.
Local Demands:
Housing and Health for All! All barriers to housing, healthcare and education must be removed. We demand:
Commit to providing vulnerable houseless residents and recently released individuals with safe and sanitary community-based housing.
Ensure access to unfilled hotels and private housing units through state subsides to hotels and housing units. We demand that buildings with vacant units, empty hotel units, and unused Airbnb apartments be released to house sick and at-risk people that otherwise do not have access to other private housing.
Declare a moratorium on sweeps and confiscations of houseless people and their property.
Declare a moratorium on evictions and immediately suspend all evictions citywide.
Institute a moratorium on any housing and services restrictions for people with a history of justice involvement.
Declare a moratorium on utility shut-offs and institute a grace period on payments.
Declare a moratorium on mortgages and tax payments.
Provide housing options for survivors of violence.
Develop strategies that maintain the independence of all people in group homes, mental health residential centers, and other institutions.
04
The Housing Justice Platform is made up of a national coalition of tenants and housing justice organizations, and, much like the Movement for Black Lives’ demands, it places racial justice front and center. Moreover, these demands center around the need to take housing off of the speculative market. In other words, to stop allowing Wall Street to buy up tons of rental units and then speculate on whether they will earn money from them, while disregarding the tenants. It takes into account the deep interrelationship between housing justice and the fight against climate change by highlighting the need for safety and sustainability.
Demands
Create Affordable, Community-Controlled, Social Housing
Protect Renter and Mortgage Holders from Displacement
Provide Reparations for Centuries of Racist Housing and Land Policy, Indigenous Land Theft, Strengthen and Enforce Fair Housing Laws
De-Commodify Housing and Regulate Wall Street
Ensure All Homes Are Healthy and Sustainable