Columbus Housing Justice

Buyer found for two Columbus Public Housing Projects

VTT Management has stepped up as a buyer for two Columbus public housing projects: Sawyer Towers and Lincoln Park.

Here is an excpert, but you can read the full article at the Dispatch:

Theodorakos is offering $2 million for the twin high-rise Sawyer Towers just east of Downtown and $2.2 million for Lincoln Park on the South Side, said CMHA Executive Director Dennis Guest.

According to the company’s Web site, VTT “specializes in the acquisition, revitalization and management of undervalued and distressed real estate.”

But Theodorakos apparently isn’t looking for subsidies, Guest said. His understanding is that the apartments would be renovated and offered at market rates.

If that’s the case, then any sale likely would not affect CMHA’s plan to empty the complexes and give residents Section 8 vouchers so that they can rent privately owned places. Sawyer Tower residents already are in the process of moving.

You can also investigate VTT Management online at their website.

“Our Mission: To Eliminate Urban Blight, One City at a Time!”

In practice, this means moving the public housing residents out, re-vamping the buildings into “exclusive residences” (language from VTT website), and selling them at market rates to folks following the trend towards a downtown lifestyle. Gentrification in process….

Sawyer Towers

Read about us online.

Check it out.  Someone wrote about our presentation at the Hootenany. A sample excerpt:

Columbus Housing Justice joins other groups such as South Florida’s Take Back the Land in confronting the fundamental need and problem of housing in our own backyards. And they aren’t the only ones looking inwards to solve problems. In today’s age, perhaps some of the most progressive issues involve, not necessarily starving children in Africa (although global hunger is indeed a problem, and one exacerbated by the global systems countries such as ours have put in place), but supposedly radical issues such as how to feed ourselves locally and sustainably. – IntoTheFray blogger Lara Heintz

The Housing Change We Need

Check out this great article by Peter Marcuse in Shelterforce: the journal of affordable housing and community building about HUD’s misguided and underfunded policies in trying to ameliorate the housing crisis.

I hate to write these words—but President Bush was right.

Speaking on Wall Street just before the G20 meeting, he said: “The crisis was not a failure of the free-market system, and the answer is not to try to reinvent that system.”

Indeed. The crisis was not a failure of the system; it is how the system works. And the answer is not to reinvent the system, but to reject it and try something new.

Marcuse makes the important point that the housing crisis was not a systemic failure, but yet another instance of the system working the way it is supposed to.  It just so happens that the way the system works is by screwing working people – by squeezing any extra wealth out of us, leaving us broken, indebted, and dependent on low-wage jobs.

Commodification of housing, however, is in a different category: It is the underlying problem. Commodification is the conversion of housing from something that provides shelter, protection, privacy, space for personal and family activities into something that is bought and sold and used to make money.

Part of the reason for the subprime mortgage crisis is the privatization of public housing that has occurred over the past three decades.  In five years, between 1978 and 1983, the HUD budget shrank 75% – from $83 to $18 billion.  Thanks Reagan!  Over the years, as public housing became dilapidated and cut the number of available vouchers, funding for housing programs was shifted to home ownership – tax relief for homeowners and federal support to low-income lenders like Freddie Mac and Fannie May.   This shift of burden for housing from public to private happened at the same time as real wages began to stagnate or decline in the US, yet the costs of housing prices and necessities like education and healthcare began to skyrocket, making households more and more dependent on debt.

Marcuse’s solution is simple: HUD should directly buy cheap and foreclosed properties and make them available as public housing.  They already have the capacity – the administrative infrastructure they need to manage thousands of properties.  He further advocates for experimentations in tenant control over these properties, which could manifest in the form of housing cooperatives, tenant unions, and community land trusts.

Yet, in the midst of a housing crisis, when millions of Americans face foreclosure and the possibility of homelessness, HUD is pursuing a policy of demolishing public housing units and further privatizing housing support.  At the same time, in Columbus, Ohio, the average wait time for a Section 8 voucher is 5 years, and that list is currently closed to new applicants.

Now there is an opportunity for the federal government to commit to an ongoing major public investment in the housing of its people. It clearly has the resources to do so—if it can make $29 billion available to back Bear Stearns, it can provide $85 billion for AIG, the $5.2 trillion liability taken on with GSEs, etc. bringing the investment in housing from $4 billion to $40 billion would be a drop in the bucket of federal expenditures. Use the funds provided to socialize the profit in the housing supply system. The balance between private for-profit ownership of housing and social ownership should be shifted dramatically in favor of the latter.

Exactly.  With trillions in bailouts for banks, where is the federal funding for public housing?  Why is that support which is provided allocated to the private market that created the crisis in the first place???

We are radical

Morgan and I recently gave an interview about Columbus Housing Justice to some friends researching grassroots groups. As I tried to give the interviewer a quick picture, I said something like “well, we take a more radical approach” in the middle of my description.

A few minutes later she revisited this, asking: “Before you described yourselves as ‘radical’. What does that mean to you? I guess when I think of ‘radical’ I think of socialists, anarchists, bombs …”

As Morgan and I developed the idea with her it seemed something worth explaining here on the blog as well. What we said, with some added detail here, was:

Well on socialism and anarchism – we don’t fly a particular ideological banner. So while individuals who volunteer with our group might identify as such, we welcome anyone interested in housing as a human right. We certainly don’t throw bombs. (And neither do most socialists or anarchists for that matter – big misconception. Though we could name many Democrats and Republicans…)

We use the word radical, first and foremost, to immediately signal that we are not your typical housing or non-profit group. What’s different about us, radical we would say, are essentially three things.

First, our structure. CHJ is non-hierarchical, meaning we don’t have a leadership or staff pyramid, and that responsibilities are shared horizontally. Monthly group meetings are run by a rotating volunteer facilitator, and projects are “bottom-lined” by any members who are willing to take final responsibility for making sure that the group moves forward on a given project. (See more at Points of Process).

Second, our method. CHJ does not restrict itself to the role of “service provider” or “advocate”. These entail a division between ‘us’  and ‘them’ that we reject (‘us’ being the organization, which gives handouts and speaks on behalf of others, and ‘them’ being the recipients of handouts and the voiceless who need spoken for). People from all walks of life, especially those harmed by housing injustice, are welcomed as members and leaders to the group. Together we can make sure our needs are met, our voice is strong, and our cause is advanced.

Third, our founding vision. We believe that housing is a birthright of all people, and that residents hold a collective right to direct control over the spaces where they live and work. We aim to create a Columbus where this is true in practice. This is a surprisingly rare, and thus radical, founding concept for a housing group. So rather than “optimization”, “increased provision”, “preservation”, or “assistance”, our programs are always grounded in a deliberate vision of transformation. (See more at Points of Unity).

So if you care about housing, come join our radical cause!