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HOMELESSNESS IS A HOUSING ISSUE!
Join the National Day Of Housing Action — November 14th, 2001
HOMELESSNESS IS A HOUSING ISSUE!
Join the National Day Of Housing Action — November 14th, 2001
by RIGHT TO A ROOF!
The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Campaign is a nationwide effort to produce new housing in volumes not seen since the New Deal. Affordable housing construction means new jobs in these hard times, but many federal politicians have not committed to this needed legislation. About 30 cities are expected to participate San Francisco, Denver, Washington DC, and Raleigh North Carolina to name a few.
On November 14, we have the power to convince them otherwise!
On this day, we — people experiencing homelessness, students, union workers, religious communities, and housing organizations — will demand that politicians endorse the Trust Fund.
We will do so by organizing local actions designed to draw attention to both the current housing crisis and a solution to it.
In San Francisco, the action will start at 5:00 at Civic Center Plaza and proceed in a reality tour of housing hotspots in the area, concluding with a creative action designed to illustrate the need for new housing. Although all of San Francisco’s federal representatives have signed on, it is important to remind them not to let the Trust Fund legislation be lost amidst the growing clamor for war spending.
Nationally, there are about 1,500 endorsers of the campaign whose demands — the production of new low-income housing funded from the interest on existing Federal Home Administration Bonds — are reflected in House and Senate Bills HR 2349 and SB 1248.
In San Francisco, the SF Labor Council, representing over 150 local labor unions has endorsed the campaign. They have been joined by the SF Board of Supervisors and Mayor Willie Brown, through a resolution authored by Supervisor Chris Daly.
Over 50 Bay Area organizations have endorsed including La Raza Centro Legal, the Benicia Community Action Taskforce, as well as many faith and student groups. The broad base of support reflects the growing understanding that affordable housing creates living wage jobs — two things that working-class communities cannot do without.
Momentum has been built through the massive effort of community organizations nationwide. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition, the National Coalition for the Homeless, and Housing America drafted the basics of the legislation and began the lobbying process. Religious Witness With Homeless People created a massive national base of support for the legislation, enlisting over 400 churches and faith organizations as endorsers.
For the Day of Action, community groups will be joined by students organized through the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness.
The Day Of Action was initiated through a conversation between Housing America and the SF Coalition On Homelessness. Both groups were frustrated that many politicians were on the fence or opposing the Trust Fund campaign. After proposing the actions, NCH’s Board enthusiastically endorsed and began to mobilize.
So Why Are So Many People Homeless, Anyhow?
Forget what you might have heard about the “root causes” of homelessness being drug addiction or the “de-institutionalization” of the mentally ill. Recent scholarship from a variety of sources implicates a national housing shortage for the on-going crisis. For the poorest workers, budget cuts in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have meant a ticket to homelessness for many.
A report by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition — Changing Priorities: The Federal Budget and Housing Assistance, 1976-2002 — details this trend. The report documents that through the Ford up to the current Bush administration, the national spending on housing has diminished steadily. Democratic and Republican administrations have continued this agenda, often where the other left off. “ Despite increases in funding for HUD programs for the last three years, an overview of budget trends shows that this nation’s investment in HUD and low income housing programs has declined dramatically during the last quarter century.”
On the federal level, the 1990s were a bad decade for poor people. Changes in policies from welfare reform to housing to immigrant rights all shared a newly punitive approach to poverty, including time limits and a loss of the commitment to a “safety net” that had existed, if inadequately, for over sixty years.
The federal commitment to providing housing for poor people has ended. In its place is an emphasis on shelters and transitional housing. It is important to emphasize that resources allocated to shelter are not housing, not relevant to discussion of housing for poor people, and are being inappropriately used as a substitute for the commitment we need to permanent housing. This article will only discuss permanent housing.
The steady increase in homelessness in the last two decades is not a “natural” consequence of changes in the economy. The following specific policy changes have directly contributed to the increase in poverty and the decrease in affordable or subsidized housing — increased homelessness is the result.
Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act
As a companion to the TANF legislation, major changes were made in access to public housing in 1998. Undocumented immigrants are no longer be eligible for Section 8 or public housing. Sixty percent of all project-based housing units are now reserved for households making between 30 and 80% of median income. This means that there are now 60% less units available for households making under 30% of median income. This change affects the neediest families closest to homelessness. Workers making the minimum wage or those on TANF make around 10% to 13% of the area median income.
HOPE VI
This federal program funds renovation and rebuilding of public housing projects. In practice, this has translated into the destruction of public housing units which have not been replaced on a one-to-one basis, resulting in an overall loss in the total number of units available. Some developments have been reconstructed with less units, while others plan to replace the low-income units on a one-for-one basis and construct additional mid-income homes.
Privatization
HUD entered into contracts with private landlords that obligated them to rent their units to Section 8 tenants after the federal government covered the cost of rehabilitation and/or renovation. Many of these contracts are expiring, again resulting in a loss in the overall number of low-cost units available.
A major strategy in the HOPE VI program is the creation of “public-private” partnerships in the reconstructed developments. While partnerships with private developers bring in much-needed capital in the short-term, the profit motive often creates even more problems. For example, one private developer moved to strike tenant protections from operating agreements. This developer sought to convert low-income units to market rate should a tenant vacate the apartment.
Vouchers Instead of Construction
In the last decades, U.S. housing policy has shifted from the actual construction of low-cost housing and subsidies for those units, to the use of vouchers. HUD has gone out of the housing business. In “tight” markets such as San Francisco, vouchers are virtually worthless. Low-income tenants are forced to compete with the affluent for the same scarce housing stock. Low reimbursement rates makes tenants with vouchers much less attractive to landlords. These vouchers are time-limited and do not guarantee housing. The onus is placed on the holder of the voucher to find adequate, available housing. In a market like San Francisco, this is a set-up for failure.
Wages: The Downward Spiral
The New Economy’s fortunes have not reached those most in need. In the last thirty years, the value of the minimum wage has steadily decreased. While in 1968 the minimum wage was 86% of the “living wage,” (the amount necessary to bring a family of four to the federal poverty line), in 1998 it was only 64% of the living wage (Collins and Yeskel, 2000). A person making minimum wage ($5.75) would need to work for 106 hours per week to afford a two bedroom apartment unit at Fair Market rate in California (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2000).
Even a family with two full-time wage earners can no longer afford decent housing without assistance. But in 1995, only about one third of poor renter households received a housing subsidy from the federal, state or local government (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1998).
The engine behind much of this is the global economy — an era of relaxed restrictions on trade, elimination of labor and environmental regulation and a general laissez-faire corporate policy. As a result of this and the accompanying trade agreements, many producers of living-wage production jobs have moved to Mexico and other so-called “Third World” countries to take advantage of low-wages and a lack of restrictions.
The result for San Francisco is an abundance of jobs which pay poverty wages, jobs in the service economy. Instead of a booming port, we have a Sony Metreon entertainment center. In the place of manufacturing jobs, we have an economy which is dependent on tourism..
Cuts in welfare programs
In 1996, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) was created, putting time limits and work requirements on all families receiving federal cash assistance. Parents with low skills and/or barriers to employment are being pushed into the workforce, often without the necessary services they need in order to retain their jobs, such as reliable child care and transportation. Last year in San Francisco, the average wage in 2000 of parents leaving welfare was approximately $7 per hour. This leaves an obvious gap with San Francisco’s “housing wage” — $28.06 per hour to be able to afford a two bedroom apartment (San Francisco Department Human Services, 2000; National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2000).
Other welfare programs have been cut as well. Nationally, General Assistance programs, which offer cash assistance to single men, have been eliminated or limited in the majority of states. Changes in SSI eligibility requirements have made it much harder to obtain or retain benefits, but even if someone with a physical or mental disability manages to do so, they will receive less cash assistance per month here than the amount necessary for rent alone in a one bedroom apartment in California (NLIHC, 2000).
Poverty Rates and Poor Renters
At least partially due to the programs outlined above, the total number of low-income renters increased almost 70 percent between 1970 and 1995, while the number of affordable housing units fell. In 1970, there were 300,000 more low-income tenants than low-income units. Since then, the number of low-cost rental units has fallen to 6.1 million, while the number of low-income renters rose to 10.5 million. The result: a shortage of 4.4 million affordable units, the largest on record. In 1995, there were nearly two low-income renters for every low-cost unit (CBPP, 1988).
Again, this is no accident. Until 1995, Congress had increased rental assistance for “worst case” housing needs every year. Since 1995, that has been reversed. The total number of new housing commitments by HUD from 1982-1997 was smaller than the number of commitments made in five years from 1977-1981 (HUD, 1997).
The stage for homelessness was set in the 1960s and 1970s when Redevelopment Agency-administered “Urban Removal” programs decimated working-class communities of color. The federally-sponsored and locally administered programs demolished thousands of units of housing in the Fillmore, Western Addition, South of Market and Manilatown neighborhoods. The decrease in supply left the city even more vulnerable in times of economic boom.
“To a substantial extent, the homeless problem is a function of malfunctioning housing markets and not a factor of mental illness or substance abuse,” remarked University of California at Berkeley economics professor John Quigley.
How Unemployed Workers Beat Past Housing Crises.
Housing crises such as San Francisco’s, aren’t anything new. In fact, workers during both boom-time and bust, working-class people experience waves of evictions, homelessness and gentrification. Unemployed workers in the 1930s organized militant and creative struggles, forcing the government to build low-cost housing and ending thousands of evictions through direct action.
At the end of World War II, returning service people, unemployed and trade unionists faced a severe housing crisis that even the New Deal hadn’t addressed completely. The International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union (ILWU), led actions, including office occupations and work stoppages, to force federal representatives to build new affordable housing. This resulted in many of the programs being dismantled by Democrats and Republicans today.
In many states, workers established cooperative housing, providing collective ownership and affordable housing.
Uneviction!
During the Great Depression, when the police came to evict black people in Harlem thousands would turn out to defy the police. By rallying around each other and not giving in even under the idea of police violence. Neighborhoods councils aided by radical activists would confront marshals when they came to carry out court-ordered evictions. By preventing the removal of furniture and personal belongings from their homes, these unemployed workers were able to deter landlords from evicting. Oftentimes, utility workers who would cut off neighbor’s electricity in the morning returned at night to covertly turn it back on !
Since the Depression many social movements have demanded affordable housing. As a result of the struggle against “urban renewal/removal” programs of the 1960’s and 70’s, local government was forced to produce new subsidized housing units. At that time, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency used the power of eminent domain to demolish thousands of units of working-class housing in the Western Addition, South Of Market and Manilatown neighborhoods.
A New Movement
The National Day Of Housing Action is the first step towards building a nationwide movement for housing and the resources that poor communities need to survive. We hope to bring together the energies of homeless people, organized labor faith and student communities, setting housing on the nationwide progressive agenda. Support the Day Of Action — towards housing and jobs for all!
RIGHT TO A ROOF!
--
Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco
468 Turk Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
415/346.3740-voice • 415/7755639-fax
coh [at] sf-homeless-coalition.org
http://www.sf-homeless-coalition.org
Join the National Day Of Housing Action — November 14th, 2001
by RIGHT TO A ROOF!
The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Campaign is a nationwide effort to produce new housing in volumes not seen since the New Deal. Affordable housing construction means new jobs in these hard times, but many federal politicians have not committed to this needed legislation. About 30 cities are expected to participate San Francisco, Denver, Washington DC, and Raleigh North Carolina to name a few.
On November 14, we have the power to convince them otherwise!
On this day, we — people experiencing homelessness, students, union workers, religious communities, and housing organizations — will demand that politicians endorse the Trust Fund.
We will do so by organizing local actions designed to draw attention to both the current housing crisis and a solution to it.
In San Francisco, the action will start at 5:00 at Civic Center Plaza and proceed in a reality tour of housing hotspots in the area, concluding with a creative action designed to illustrate the need for new housing. Although all of San Francisco’s federal representatives have signed on, it is important to remind them not to let the Trust Fund legislation be lost amidst the growing clamor for war spending.
Nationally, there are about 1,500 endorsers of the campaign whose demands — the production of new low-income housing funded from the interest on existing Federal Home Administration Bonds — are reflected in House and Senate Bills HR 2349 and SB 1248.
In San Francisco, the SF Labor Council, representing over 150 local labor unions has endorsed the campaign. They have been joined by the SF Board of Supervisors and Mayor Willie Brown, through a resolution authored by Supervisor Chris Daly.
Over 50 Bay Area organizations have endorsed including La Raza Centro Legal, the Benicia Community Action Taskforce, as well as many faith and student groups. The broad base of support reflects the growing understanding that affordable housing creates living wage jobs — two things that working-class communities cannot do without.
Momentum has been built through the massive effort of community organizations nationwide. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition, the National Coalition for the Homeless, and Housing America drafted the basics of the legislation and began the lobbying process. Religious Witness With Homeless People created a massive national base of support for the legislation, enlisting over 400 churches and faith organizations as endorsers.
For the Day of Action, community groups will be joined by students organized through the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness.
The Day Of Action was initiated through a conversation between Housing America and the SF Coalition On Homelessness. Both groups were frustrated that many politicians were on the fence or opposing the Trust Fund campaign. After proposing the actions, NCH’s Board enthusiastically endorsed and began to mobilize.
So Why Are So Many People Homeless, Anyhow?
Forget what you might have heard about the “root causes” of homelessness being drug addiction or the “de-institutionalization” of the mentally ill. Recent scholarship from a variety of sources implicates a national housing shortage for the on-going crisis. For the poorest workers, budget cuts in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have meant a ticket to homelessness for many.
A report by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition — Changing Priorities: The Federal Budget and Housing Assistance, 1976-2002 — details this trend. The report documents that through the Ford up to the current Bush administration, the national spending on housing has diminished steadily. Democratic and Republican administrations have continued this agenda, often where the other left off. “ Despite increases in funding for HUD programs for the last three years, an overview of budget trends shows that this nation’s investment in HUD and low income housing programs has declined dramatically during the last quarter century.”
On the federal level, the 1990s were a bad decade for poor people. Changes in policies from welfare reform to housing to immigrant rights all shared a newly punitive approach to poverty, including time limits and a loss of the commitment to a “safety net” that had existed, if inadequately, for over sixty years.
The federal commitment to providing housing for poor people has ended. In its place is an emphasis on shelters and transitional housing. It is important to emphasize that resources allocated to shelter are not housing, not relevant to discussion of housing for poor people, and are being inappropriately used as a substitute for the commitment we need to permanent housing. This article will only discuss permanent housing.
The steady increase in homelessness in the last two decades is not a “natural” consequence of changes in the economy. The following specific policy changes have directly contributed to the increase in poverty and the decrease in affordable or subsidized housing — increased homelessness is the result.
Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act
As a companion to the TANF legislation, major changes were made in access to public housing in 1998. Undocumented immigrants are no longer be eligible for Section 8 or public housing. Sixty percent of all project-based housing units are now reserved for households making between 30 and 80% of median income. This means that there are now 60% less units available for households making under 30% of median income. This change affects the neediest families closest to homelessness. Workers making the minimum wage or those on TANF make around 10% to 13% of the area median income.
HOPE VI
This federal program funds renovation and rebuilding of public housing projects. In practice, this has translated into the destruction of public housing units which have not been replaced on a one-to-one basis, resulting in an overall loss in the total number of units available. Some developments have been reconstructed with less units, while others plan to replace the low-income units on a one-for-one basis and construct additional mid-income homes.
Privatization
HUD entered into contracts with private landlords that obligated them to rent their units to Section 8 tenants after the federal government covered the cost of rehabilitation and/or renovation. Many of these contracts are expiring, again resulting in a loss in the overall number of low-cost units available.
A major strategy in the HOPE VI program is the creation of “public-private” partnerships in the reconstructed developments. While partnerships with private developers bring in much-needed capital in the short-term, the profit motive often creates even more problems. For example, one private developer moved to strike tenant protections from operating agreements. This developer sought to convert low-income units to market rate should a tenant vacate the apartment.
Vouchers Instead of Construction
In the last decades, U.S. housing policy has shifted from the actual construction of low-cost housing and subsidies for those units, to the use of vouchers. HUD has gone out of the housing business. In “tight” markets such as San Francisco, vouchers are virtually worthless. Low-income tenants are forced to compete with the affluent for the same scarce housing stock. Low reimbursement rates makes tenants with vouchers much less attractive to landlords. These vouchers are time-limited and do not guarantee housing. The onus is placed on the holder of the voucher to find adequate, available housing. In a market like San Francisco, this is a set-up for failure.
Wages: The Downward Spiral
The New Economy’s fortunes have not reached those most in need. In the last thirty years, the value of the minimum wage has steadily decreased. While in 1968 the minimum wage was 86% of the “living wage,” (the amount necessary to bring a family of four to the federal poverty line), in 1998 it was only 64% of the living wage (Collins and Yeskel, 2000). A person making minimum wage ($5.75) would need to work for 106 hours per week to afford a two bedroom apartment unit at Fair Market rate in California (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2000).
Even a family with two full-time wage earners can no longer afford decent housing without assistance. But in 1995, only about one third of poor renter households received a housing subsidy from the federal, state or local government (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1998).
The engine behind much of this is the global economy — an era of relaxed restrictions on trade, elimination of labor and environmental regulation and a general laissez-faire corporate policy. As a result of this and the accompanying trade agreements, many producers of living-wage production jobs have moved to Mexico and other so-called “Third World” countries to take advantage of low-wages and a lack of restrictions.
The result for San Francisco is an abundance of jobs which pay poverty wages, jobs in the service economy. Instead of a booming port, we have a Sony Metreon entertainment center. In the place of manufacturing jobs, we have an economy which is dependent on tourism..
Cuts in welfare programs
In 1996, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) was created, putting time limits and work requirements on all families receiving federal cash assistance. Parents with low skills and/or barriers to employment are being pushed into the workforce, often without the necessary services they need in order to retain their jobs, such as reliable child care and transportation. Last year in San Francisco, the average wage in 2000 of parents leaving welfare was approximately $7 per hour. This leaves an obvious gap with San Francisco’s “housing wage” — $28.06 per hour to be able to afford a two bedroom apartment (San Francisco Department Human Services, 2000; National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2000).
Other welfare programs have been cut as well. Nationally, General Assistance programs, which offer cash assistance to single men, have been eliminated or limited in the majority of states. Changes in SSI eligibility requirements have made it much harder to obtain or retain benefits, but even if someone with a physical or mental disability manages to do so, they will receive less cash assistance per month here than the amount necessary for rent alone in a one bedroom apartment in California (NLIHC, 2000).
Poverty Rates and Poor Renters
At least partially due to the programs outlined above, the total number of low-income renters increased almost 70 percent between 1970 and 1995, while the number of affordable housing units fell. In 1970, there were 300,000 more low-income tenants than low-income units. Since then, the number of low-cost rental units has fallen to 6.1 million, while the number of low-income renters rose to 10.5 million. The result: a shortage of 4.4 million affordable units, the largest on record. In 1995, there were nearly two low-income renters for every low-cost unit (CBPP, 1988).
Again, this is no accident. Until 1995, Congress had increased rental assistance for “worst case” housing needs every year. Since 1995, that has been reversed. The total number of new housing commitments by HUD from 1982-1997 was smaller than the number of commitments made in five years from 1977-1981 (HUD, 1997).
The stage for homelessness was set in the 1960s and 1970s when Redevelopment Agency-administered “Urban Removal” programs decimated working-class communities of color. The federally-sponsored and locally administered programs demolished thousands of units of housing in the Fillmore, Western Addition, South of Market and Manilatown neighborhoods. The decrease in supply left the city even more vulnerable in times of economic boom.
“To a substantial extent, the homeless problem is a function of malfunctioning housing markets and not a factor of mental illness or substance abuse,” remarked University of California at Berkeley economics professor John Quigley.
How Unemployed Workers Beat Past Housing Crises.
Housing crises such as San Francisco’s, aren’t anything new. In fact, workers during both boom-time and bust, working-class people experience waves of evictions, homelessness and gentrification. Unemployed workers in the 1930s organized militant and creative struggles, forcing the government to build low-cost housing and ending thousands of evictions through direct action.
At the end of World War II, returning service people, unemployed and trade unionists faced a severe housing crisis that even the New Deal hadn’t addressed completely. The International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union (ILWU), led actions, including office occupations and work stoppages, to force federal representatives to build new affordable housing. This resulted in many of the programs being dismantled by Democrats and Republicans today.
In many states, workers established cooperative housing, providing collective ownership and affordable housing.
Uneviction!
During the Great Depression, when the police came to evict black people in Harlem thousands would turn out to defy the police. By rallying around each other and not giving in even under the idea of police violence. Neighborhoods councils aided by radical activists would confront marshals when they came to carry out court-ordered evictions. By preventing the removal of furniture and personal belongings from their homes, these unemployed workers were able to deter landlords from evicting. Oftentimes, utility workers who would cut off neighbor’s electricity in the morning returned at night to covertly turn it back on !
Since the Depression many social movements have demanded affordable housing. As a result of the struggle against “urban renewal/removal” programs of the 1960’s and 70’s, local government was forced to produce new subsidized housing units. At that time, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency used the power of eminent domain to demolish thousands of units of working-class housing in the Western Addition, South Of Market and Manilatown neighborhoods.
A New Movement
The National Day Of Housing Action is the first step towards building a nationwide movement for housing and the resources that poor communities need to survive. We hope to bring together the energies of homeless people, organized labor faith and student communities, setting housing on the nationwide progressive agenda. Support the Day Of Action — towards housing and jobs for all!
RIGHT TO A ROOF!
--
Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco
468 Turk Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
415/346.3740-voice • 415/7755639-fax
coh [at] sf-homeless-coalition.org
http://www.sf-homeless-coalition.org
For more information:
http://www.sf-homeless-coalition.org
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Kill the landlords...except, when I want something fixed, I want a landlord to step in and help. And, of course, when it comes to paying the mortgage and investing a downpayment in my property, then I want someone else to do it. I don't want to work that hard to afford my OWN HOME!! NOOOOOO!
I want FREE RENT in THE CITY! I'm not going to move because I'M ENTITLED TO LIVE HERE in the nieghborhood of MY CHOICE! Screw the MARKET FORCES! That only applies to others (eg Landlords) NOT ME!
In Wonderland,
Tenant
get off this site, you are an idiot. this site is for INDEPENDENT media, INDEPENDENT thought, do you understand? you want CORPORATE media, CORPORATE thought. so get the fuck out.
This is independent media, which means anyone can contribute. Ryan didn't post a corporate media article, he gave his own views. If you don't like them, argue against them rationally.
I don't agree with Ryan but I understand where's he's coming from. If you accept general capitalist principles, you should, in general, oppose rent control. That said, I think rent control may have saved many people in San Francisco from the recent bubble in housing prices.