Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

elleng

(130,126 posts)
Sun Mar 6, 2016, 04:08 AM Mar 2016

The Eviction Economy

'America stands alone among wealthy democracies in the depth and expanse of its poverty. Ask most politicians what we should do about this, and they will answer by calling for more and better jobs. Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House, thinks we need to do more to “incentivize work.” Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, thinks we should raise the minimum wage. But jobs are only part of the solution because poverty is not just a product of joblessness and low wages. It is also a product of exploitation.

Throughout our history, wage gains won by workers through organized protest were quickly absorbed by rising rents. As industrial capitalists tried to put down the strikes, landlords cheered workers on. It is no different today. When incomes rise, the housing market takes its cut, which is why a two-bedroom apartment in the oil boomtown Williston, N.D., was going last year for $2,800 a month and why entire capital-rich cities like San Francisco are becoming unaffordable to the middle class. If rents rise alongside incomes, what progress is made?

Poverty is no accident, an unintended consequence from which no one benefits. Larraine’s rent money went to Tobin (also a pseudonym). A second-generation landlord, Tobin was 71, unsmiling and fit. His tenants waited tables at diners or worked as nursing assistants. Some received disability like Larraine or other forms of welfare, sometimes supplementing their checks by collecting aluminum cans.'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/opinion/sunday/the-eviction-economy.html?

4 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
The Eviction Economy (Original Post) elleng Mar 2016 OP
I agree with this and highly recommend that all DUers read the entire article. JDPriestly Mar 2016 #1
Thanks, and elleng Mar 2016 #2
k & r Euphoria Mar 2016 #3
Good book review in the WashPost today on the impact of eviction LiberalEsto Mar 2016 #4

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
1. I agree with this and highly recommend that all DUers read the entire article.
Sun Mar 6, 2016, 04:19 AM
Mar 2016

A universal housing voucher program would fundamentally change the face of poverty in the United States. Evictions would plummet, and so would the other social problems they cause, like family and community instability, homelessness, job loss and depression. Suicides attributed to evictions and foreclosures doubled between 2005 and 2010. A universal housing voucher program would help reverse this disturbing trend.

. . . .

We have the money. We’ve just made choices about how to spend it. In 2008, the year Larraine was evicted, federal expenditures for direct housing assistance totaled more than $40 billion, but homeowner tax benefits exceeded $171 billion, a figure equivalent to the budgets for the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Justice and Agriculture combined.

If we are going to spend the bulk of our public dollars on the affluent — at least when it comes to housing — we should own up to that decision and stop repeating the canard about this rich country being unable to afford more. If poverty persists in America, it is not for lack of resources. We lack something else.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/opinion/sunday/the-eviction-economy.html?&_r=0

We lack heart.

And Bernie is bringing the heart we need to this primary race.

Hillary has a hard heart. Take my word for it. She just does.

 

LiberalEsto

(22,845 posts)
4. Good book review in the WashPost today on the impact of eviction
Sun Mar 6, 2016, 12:16 PM
Mar 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2016/03/03/if-you-lose-your-home-you-lose-everything-else-too/

If you lose your home, you lose everything else, too
"Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" by Matthew Desmond
Review by Carlos Lozada

"“Losing a home sends families to shelters, abandoned houses, and the street,” Desmond writes. “It invites depression and illness, compels families to move into degrading housing in dangerous neighborhoods, uproots communities, and harms children. Eviction reveals people’s vulnerability and desperation, as well as their ingenuity and guts.”"
Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Economy»The Eviction Economy