Just cause for Evictions Ordinance passed in Merced
Renters who had been evicted when investors surrendered homes due to foreclosure to the banks successfully managed to get the “Just Cause for Evictions” Ordinance which protects renters, passed in Merced, California on November of 2012. However, they incurred the wrath of bankers and their entourage. A juggernaut of realtors, developers, appraisers, and other moneyed [...]
Who has the right to our housing, the rich or the rest of us?
The struggle between the users and the owners of housing in Merced, Calif., is happening all over the United States. It is part of a massive transfer of wealth from working-class America to the rich and powerful – the capitalists, the One Percent. Likewise, the takeover of the Merced city council is just one of [...]
The 99% Are Part of a Global Movement Against Capital
The Occupy Wall Street protests began with a few hundred Americans standing up in New York City to let the 1% know that the American people weren’t going to take it anymore. “Business as usual” i.e. robbing the people — of their livelihood was over. This historic day was September 17, 2011. Who is the [...]
Nationalize the Banks! Take Back Our Housing!
As the economic crisis deepens, some of the world’s biggest banks are emerging in control of a commanding share of this country’s housing. They are only a few — Bank of America, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo., Deutsche Bank. Major world oligarchs, all of them. Together they hold a large part of the country’s [...]
Neighborhoods being demolished
Wall Street benefits from destruction of working-class homes All across the Rust Belt, cities are tearing down working-class housing — in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Cleveland, Detroit. Nearly $2 billion in federal money is being used to raze homes that have been left vacant because of the economic crisis. A generation ago, the Rust Belt — [...]
‘Letting these houses sit empty is not ethical’
“Just letting these houses sit empty while there are people freezing to death on the streets is not ethical,” Rachel Nartin told the Financial Times in February. Nartin and four other homeless people have been squatting in a vacant house in Rochester, N.Y. They share the expenses for utilities and repairs. Rochester itself has taken [...]
The ‘American Dream’ Is Dead
As housing prices plummet, the financial oligarchy is forcing millions from their homes Housing prices have plummeted since the economic crisis began. Workingclass homeowners have lost a massive $9 trillion in the decline. That’s almost twothirds of the equity they had built up over years of making mortgage payments. People at all levels of wealth [...]