Many people are struggling to pay their bills. It’s a hard reality to face, often because people believe it’s their fault and reflects poorly on their character. Even though we’ve just been living through a global pandemic and a global recession. We’ve just witnessed that the effects of these events are unevenly distributed. Our systems don’t support all of us to flourish, yet there is this tendency to characterize economic hardship as a personal matter.
This post features three stories about people who don’t see that struggling with housing costs is a personal failing. In each story a group of people with housing challenges are helping each other out.
The first is from Cooper Park, a large public housing development in Brooklyn, New York. The tenants are lucky in one respect because their income determines the rent they are paying. They also often go without heat and electricity and are living in buildings where the outstanding repair bill is US$120 million. The article discusses how the tenants have worked with each other for decades to confront issues in their buildings and in their neighbourhood.
The second article is also from Brooklyn, which has a high proportion of residents who are tenants. In the decade following 2010, some neighbourhoods were under intense development pressure. Local groups were organizing to fight gentrification and in particular, the displacement of long time residents. Evictions and large rent increases were driving long time residents out of their homes. When the COVID lockdown began in 2020, temporary health measures slowed down the eviction process. The groups fighting gentrification added PPE and food distribution to their activities.
When the COVID restrictions were lifted, resident displacements continued to be a problem. Evictions resumed and rents took off. Interviews with local organizers highlight the broad range of supports that they’ve offered. The article also reveals how anti-displacement work contributed to that support.
The third story is a video from England. Increases in energy costs, food prices and other basic needs are putting many people at risk of losing their homes. The story is from Shiremoor in North Tyneside, where local residents have come together to help each other out. Some of the people in the story are ‘in work’ but their incomes aren’t enough to cover their basic needs. The residents started a food distribution program, a clothing exchange and community meals.
Although the specific situations in these stories vary, all of the people who speak in these examples are agreed that helping each other is essential to confronting housing issues. They see a long run effort with lots of obstacles and defeats. Working together makes it easier to keep going. They also demonstrate that there are multiple ways to contribute.
Read more about the public housing tenants in Cooper Park in Shelterforce: How These NYC Public Housing Residents Became Models for Tenant Rights Activism
The article about anti-displacement activism is in Prism: Brooklyn Housing Advocates Sustain Models Of Care Beyond Displacement
The video about Shiremoor is published in The Guardian: The women on a ‘war footing’ as the cost of living crisis deepens – video
