Las Vegas Sun: Bernie Sanders: We cannot continue to ignore the crisis in affordable housing

Monday, April 29, 2019 | 2 a.m.
By Bernie Sanders

Excerpt:


A decade ago, Nevada was the epicenter of a housing crisis that saw thousands of Americans thrown out of their homes and big banks bailed out by the government. Today, the Trump administration is rolling back Wall Street regulations, the banks are demanding weaker mortgage rules and Nevada is once again facing a housing crisis — this time in affordability.

Right now, Nevada has the fewest number of affordable rental units of any state in America. On average, there are only 19 affordable rental units for every 100 low-income Nevadans. At one point last year, only 39 out of 1,800 rental units in Clark County were reportedly accepting low-income housing vouchers. Meanwhile, home prices in places like North Las Vegas had more than doubled since the housing crisis 10 years ago, and in recent years, Southern Nevada has had among the highest homeless rates in the nation.

It is not acceptable that millions of our fellow citizens are spending 50 percent or more of their limited incomes to put a roof over their heads, leaving little money for food, transportation, health care or medicine. It is not acceptable that, in communities throughout the country, wealthy developers are gentrifying neighborhoods and forcing working families out of the homes and apartments where they have lived their entire lives.

Unfortunately, we have a president who isn’t simply ignoring this crisis, he and his administration are actively making it worse. Instead of expanding federal housing programs, President Donald Trump is proposing an 18 percent cut to them. And instead of working to drastically decrease high rents, Trump is proposing to dramatically raise rents on low-income Americans who receive housing assistance. And instead of expanding affordable housing, Trump is proposing the elimination of the National Housing Trust Fund, which funds affordable housing and was based on legislation I spearheaded in Congress.

How do we address the affordable housing crisis? Here are several ideas. ...

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2019/apr/29/we-cannot-continue-to-ignore-the-crisis-in-afforda/

The good news is that Trump is getting nervous, corporate America is getting nervous and ...

Bernie: This is what a political revolution looks like

Video: Community Canvass Feature - Bern App

Photo: Bernie's Joy of Painting

Photos: Awesome Bernie 2020 Organizing Kickoff Cookies

Love Will Conquer Hate: Bernie Visits Islamic Center in California

Bernie Sanders Is Getting A Shadow Organizing Campaign In The Midwest

Our Revolution will work to amplify Bernie Sanders's message in the midwest as he builds the case that he's the best candidate to beat Donald Trump.

Ruby Cramer
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on April 27, 2019, at 9:02 a.m. ET

Excerpt:

This month, Good Jobs Nation officials migrated to Sanders’s own political group, Our Revolution, to help build a shadow organizing campaign in the Midwest as the senator makes the case that he is the best candidate to beat Trump in states like Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Joseph Geevarghese, who founded Good Jobs Nation in 2007 and has focused the group’s work on low-wage workers, offshoring, and federal contracts, stepped in as Our Revolution’s new executive director this month, bringing with him three colleagues. One of them, Mike Oles, is now serving as Our Revolution’s first national field director — to be based in Indianapolis.

Our Revolution, founded by Sanders as a vehicle for his national movement after ending his first bid for the Democratic nomination, cannot legally coordinate with his presidential campaign. (The group’s president, former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, took a leave of absence from Our Revolution to serve as a co-chair of the Sanders campaign.) The organization, which sought to support progressive candidates in the 2018 election before leading a brief “Draft Bernie” effort ahead of his campaign launch this February, will now seek to amplify Sanders’s message in the Rust Belt, where Geevarghese sees a dearth of Democratic Party infrastructure.

“There's a void,” Geevarghese said in an interview. “Donald Trump stepped into that void and took people who should be with us. Now there’s an opportunity to win them back.”

The Rust Belt strategy, where Oles is already helping set up new Our Revolution chapters in places like South Bend, Indiana, marks the next phase for the organization — and offers yet another signal that the Sanders movement is already looking ahead to the general election.


https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-our-revolution-midwest-2020

5,000 house parties across the US and in 34 other countries

Bernie Sanders' volunteer army plans massive weekend organizing parties
By Gregory Krieg, CNN

Updated 9:03 AM ET, Sat April 27, 2019

Excerpt:

Volunteers will host an estimated 5,000 house parties across the US and in 34 other countries on Saturday, the campaign said, as it launches the 2020 edition of its national organizing program -- a grassroots effort that the independent senator from Vermont believes could be decisive in what is shaping up to be a tightly contested Democratic presidential primary. Sanders, along with campaign manager Faiz Shakir, campaign co-chair Nina Turner and campaign organizing director Claire Sandberg, will address the partygoers via remote broadcasts, and the campaign plans to launch a new app to help volunteers keep track of their voter contacts.

In an interview Friday evening, Sanders touted the campaign's large and growing volunteer list as a strategic advantage in the crowded primary field and said the Saturday gatherings represent "the first manifestation of that."

"You will see in this campaign a lot of spontaneous activity that doesn't come from our national headquarters," Sanders said, nodding to the DIY culture that has sprung up around both his presidential bids. "People in Memphis, Tennessee and Los Angeles, California, they're going to come up with an idea, they're going to use local artists and musicians. So this is our effort to build a political movement, which will help us win the primary, help us win the general election and, in my view, it is the only way we bring about the kind of fundamental reforms we need in this country."

They also include a reminder: Tread carefully -- you are being watched.

"When we talk with voters about Bernie and his platform, each of us is the face of the campaign," the guide says. "The impression that we make matters, and we take that responsibility seriously. We treat everyone we encounter with care and respect, whether or not they agree with us."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/27/politics/bernie-sanders-volunteer-organizing-parties/index.html

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Bernie Sanders Campaign Sets Thousands of House Parties for Supporters

By Sydney Ember
April 27, 2019

Excerpt:

On Saturday, Mr. Sanders’s campaign plans to kick off its national organizing program with what it says are roughly 5,000 events across every state. Mr. Sanders plans to address supporters via livestream. The weekend also marks something of a turning point for Mr. Sanders’s campaign. For the first two months of his presidential run, he mostly held big rallies in early nominating states, including Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

The rallies were intended, in part, to showcase the enthusiastic crowds he is capable of mustering, but also doubled as opportunities to sign up supporters. Now, with the field largely set, the events this weekend reflect the campaign’s next stage — turning the names on those lists into active volunteers.

“I’m not going to tell you that money is not important — we’re going to raise a great deal of money,” Mr. Sanders said in a phone interview on Friday afternoon. “But at the end of the day, I believe now — and I’ve always believed — that grass-roots activism is more important and more effective than 30-second television ads.”

Mr. Sanders, perhaps more than any other candidate, is betting his campaign’s success on his grass-roots appeal. He hopes to have an army of volunteers spreading his message on the ground — knocking on doors, handing out leaflets, engaging on social media — to say nothing of the money his campaign hopes to continue raising through individual donations. He is also aiming to get volunteers involved in a “massive voter-registration drive,” focusing in particular on working-class and young people, he said.

“I think we are doing well in hanging on to the support of the folks that we had last time — not 100 percent, that’s for sure — and also reaching out and bringing new people in,” he said. “But you know? That’s what the fight is about.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/politics/bernie-sanders-2020-events.html


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