The
current housing crises facing Oakland and many other urban cities across the
United States cannot be blamed on bad decisions that were made by a local,
state, or federal governing bodies. The local governments like to blame the
state, the state then blames the federal government, and the federal government
shifts the blame back to the state and so on.
It is a never ending blame game. No matter who is to blame for the
criminal mishandling of the People’s money, which will be briefly discussed in
this article, the fact still remains that the people must begin to aggressively
organize locally in order to survive these institutional attacks on our
wellbeing and one of our basic human rights, which is housing. When truthfully looking at
history, the importance of organizing to provide housing for all people becomes
crystal clear.
Around
mid-20th century, the federal government began to insure massive
amounts of mortgage loans to mainly white families, who in turn began to leave the inner
cities (white flight) and dwell in white enclaves known as the suburbs. Blacks were denied these loans, and the inner
city neighborhoods they were forced to stay in were outlined in red (redlining)
by the federal government, and appraised at a much lower price than their white
suburban counter parts because they were less desirable, due to the crime of
being an all-black neighborhood. Also, the houses (which would eventually build equity and wealth) that whites moved into in the
suburbs had clauses in their deeds (restricted covenants) that the house could
never be sold to blacks if it was ever placed on the market. These racist federal policies in housing
effectively created a huge gap in wealth between blacks and whites, due to a
majority of American families’ wealth being in their homes, and created what
eventually became to be known as the ghetto, or inner city slums. This is only
one reason why there must be aggressive organizing around the human right of
housing.
Now
let’s fast forward to 2008, where mortgage lending companies and banks brought
the country economically to its knees by giving out toxic loans because they
knew that 90% of these loans were guaranteed by the federal government, and the
federal government’s response of bailing these corporations out with $700
billion dollars of the People’s money and effectively propping these
corporations up, instead of prosecuting them and letting their criminal
enterprises fail and all those housing assets be transferred over to the people
who they were exploiting. Now these
companies who received federal welfare, are buying up all of the property in
inner city communities and causing a catastrophic housing crises
(gentrification) due to their unbridled lust for profit in the form of rising
rents and inflated housing prices. These capitalist are pushing out anybody who cannot afford to pay their criminal rental and mortgage
rates.
In
light of all these injustices, The City of Oakland, has failed to protect its
residents from the onslaught of banks, greedy developers and mortgage companies whose
only motive is unchecked profit. The
City is more concerned with attracting wealthy tax paying corporations and
citizens then providing for the needs of the People. On April 5th, the City of Oakland
has a chance to enact a State of Emergency due to rising rents and stop all “no
cause” evictions, which is the first and most basic step they could take. But
those in the community who have been affected by all of these injustices must
organize and show up and put pressure on these officials to make the right
decision, and if they don’t we must use our collective power to remove
them.
The
truth is to solve the current housing crises, the revolutionary ideology that
housing is a human right must be the foundation and end goal of all of the
organizing efforts of the People. But
there are some steps an unified and organized People can force the City to take in
order to relieve the immediate suffering of the People. We can organize and demand
that the City of Oakland use the People’s money to employ local citizens to
build massive local housing developments that would guarantee every citizen a place
to live, which is our human right. We
could show the whole country how a local municipality should respond to the housing
crises caused by austerity and the criminal misappropriation of the Peoples
resources. Come out April 5th,
2016 at 5:30PM to City Hall (3rd Floor), and tell the City of
Oakland to do its job! Let’s struggle
together and win!
Unity in Struggle,
Timothy Akaamka
Interested
in becoming more involved in organizing around housing? Come out every Tuesday night at 7PM to
Qilombo Community Center at 2313 San Pablo St.
Oakland, CA or call 510-712-8808.
