FACE OF AN ECONOMY: Housing in U.S. city

A Journal of People Report

Housing for the common citizens is a chronic problem in capitalist economy. This is a widely discussed and researched issue. Yet the economy fails. In one sense, it is not the economy’s failure. Rather it is one of the characters of the economy.

The following reports from the U.S. tell about the housing reality. This is a face of the economy with huge resources.  

A Hailey, Idaho datelined report by The New York Times (“A Town’s Housing Crisis Exposes a ‘House of Cards’”, July 31, 2022) said:

‘Near the private jets that shuttle billionaires to their opulent Sun Valley getaways, Ana Ramon Bartolome and her family have spent this summer living in the only place available to them: behind a blue tarp in a sweltering two-car garage.

FACE OF AN ECONOMY: The homeless and ‘no sit, no lie’ ordinance near Seattle

FACE OF AN ECONOMY 

A Journal of People report

On March 16, 2021, Everett City Council, Washington, a city 30 miles north of Seattle, passed a local ordinance, which will bar people from sitting or lying down in a ten-block belt of the city. The controversial ordinance passed in 5-1 vote.

The ordinance covers a section of the city’s industrial area. Violators will face either a $500 fine or 90 days imprisonment.

The majority of city council members, Everett’s mayor, and the business community in the 10-block area supported the ordinance.

The ordinance, detractors say, criminalizes and discriminates against homeless individuals.

COVID-19 and Homelessness: When Crises Intersect

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Travis P Baggett and Jessie M Gaeta

The Lancet | February 05, 2021

In this issue of The Lancet Public Health, Thomas Roederer and colleagues

¹

present the findings of a large-scale serosurvey of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection among people experiencing homelessness and precarious housing in the greater Paris region. More than half of those sampled had SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin (Ig)G antibodies, reflecting a substantially higher burden of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection than that seen in the general population. The findings are notable for several reasons.

USA: Oaklanders march against homelessness and displacement

by Maryilyn Bechtel

People’s World | November 27, 2019

Youth Vs. Apocalypse said that organization’s issue – climate justice – is “in an intersectional relation to housing justice” because “the same corporate officials and systems of power” preventing transition to renewable energy are the same ones removing communities of color and poor communities from their homes. Marilyn Bechtel/PW

OAKLAND, Calif. – Cranes dot the sky here. Everywhere one looks, another tower rises, throwing its shadow over the homes of long-time residents. But these new high-rise dwellings are not intended for them, and more and more folks with decades-long roots in Oakland are being displaced to far-out suburbs and cities.

Or in all-too-many instances, being displaced to tents and improvised homes under freeway overpasses, in parking lots and empty spaces. Or even to a blanket under the open sky.

Capitalist charity can’t solve homelessness or any other social problem

by Julian Tveten

People’s World | May 10, 2019

In this Feb. 23, 2016 file photo, a man stands outside his tent on Division Street in San Francisco. | Eric Risberg / AP

Earlier this month, the University of California, San Francisco inaugurated the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, an institute founded to “research causes of homelessness,” collect “data,” and “identify evidence-based solutions.” The center is named for benefactor Marc Benioff, the founder and co-CEO of cloud-computing firm Salesforce and owner of Time magazine, whose $30 million donation is vaunted by corporate media outlets as the largest-ever private grant for homelessness research.

The Homelessness Crisis Deepens Across North America

by John Clarke

The Bullet | December 11, 2018

As an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in Toronto, I am only too aware of how much worse the homeless crisis has become in this city over the last three years. As a result of community pressure, City Hall issues a daily shelter census. In a whole series of ways, the official process understates the problem but the picture that emerges is, nonetheless, quite dreadful. In the largest and wealthiest city in Canada, the homeless shelters are bursting at the seams.