Discrimination

It seems that more and more people writing aboutt how housing is woven into racism and discrimination in the United States. Here are two recent examples, one from the...

This is a story that is more than 20 years in the making, years in which Toronto City Council could have exercised leadership to protect housing for residents with...

Sophie House and Krystle Okafor are both based at New York University. Building on the work of contemporary abolitionistsAbolitionism is often understood to be about the abolition of slavery...

While there are a lot of stories about public housing in New York City and Chicago, those from the US south are much less common. This one comes from...

In the late twentieth century, prior to its demolition, the Cabrini Green public housing buildings in Chicago had become the poster child of all that was supposedly wrong with...

Two days ago, affordablehousingaction.org published a post about work by Akwatu Khenti, who teaches and studies at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto....

Recently, affordablehousingaction.org posted a story about mobile outreach teams, which pair police officers and health professionals. Together they respond to 911 calls where it seems likely that there could...

Trapped in the public housing heart of a low income community on the wrong side of the tracks? With a little help from the community at large, why not...

During the first months of COVID in England, media attention focused on the high rate of infection among Black and South Asian residents. The homes of Black and South...

If public housing is meant to be transitional rather than transformativeTry: Public Housing Futures: Transitional Or Transformative?, it follows that public housing must be located within striking distance of...

AJ Golio, a PhD candidate at Tulane University, has penned a thoughtful article in Shelterforce about gentrificationFor an explanation of gentrification, try: Gentrification: What is it? How Does It...

Once upon a time (it can't be all that many years ago) many cities in North America required police officers to live in the community they policed. That was...

Not to belittle the microscopic investigations that are currently detailing all the tiniest wrinkles of discrimination which is an enduring shame to America — what was once, and may...

Candyman 1 and 2 are horror movies that fit into university curriculum on the subjects of . . . American racism The history of national hatred targeting Public Housing The...

Organizations in the U.S. that provide health care to people who experience homelessness recently issued a report about their work to change their discriminatory practices. You might think that the...

Advocates and community organizations are calling attention to inequities in the housing market in the United States. The burden of COVID-19 (who gets sick, who has to go to...

At the turn of the 20th century, what sane middle or lower class person would want to own a house? It was a time before Mr. Fixit-ness, before battery...

Shelterforce, which supports community development initiatives across the United States, is running a series about community land trusts. The series includes an entry level article that explains what community land...

Affordable housing is not just a collection of construction material and land costs. It’s a purse that must stretch to cover a rental or purchase . . . after...

In America during the last century, bank lending practices discriminated against poor neighbourhoods, often predominantly black. The process became known as "redlining." The term comes from insurance maps where...

Surveillance is a touchy subject in neighbourhoods where a majority of citizens have good reason to believe they are the victims of prejudice. On the other hand, home security is...

The Urban Institute has just released Who Owns The Twin Cities, which analyses residential ownership patterns in Minnesota's Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul). These communities have the largest...

Data geeks have something really special to celebrate in the link attached to this post. Researchers at the Urban Institute in the U.S. have gathered, organized and published a massive...

When it comes to enduring poverty in disgusting, dangerous, unhealthy conditions, grovelling apologies to sufferers don't quite cut it. But at the moment in England, that's what's being served...

Two important lies have been heavily pushed by developers eager for new work over the last decade or two. Lie number one: Public/social housing is a fundamentally flawed social...

While people with disabilitiesWhen speaking about people with disabilities, one wants to give preference to wording used in the disability community. Is it "people with disabilities" or "the disabled?"...

NIMBY — Not In My Back Yard. Keep current by-laws. The neighbourhood is perfect just as it is. No more housing development, even though the city needs houses. YIMBY — Yes...

On the face of it, President Biden's new plans to help low and no income citizens in America seems reasonable: more Housing Choice (Section 8) housing vouchers. Unfortunately, housing vouchers...

Does a robodog need a loveable lolling tongue, a welcoming wagging tail? Maybe. Scientific American thinks the New York Police Department got it all wrong with its recent pretenda-puppy parade in the...

There is persistent advocacy in many countries that is fuelled by housing development interests. It can be summed up by the idea of "just build more." In The U.S. there...

There was an uproar recently when Trumpian provocateurs in the U. S. House of Representatives proposed an American First caucus in order to (among other things) protect the country's...

Policing in poor neighbourhoods of cities, no matter how large or small, is contentious. Public Housing neighbourhoods are no exception. And public housing tenants, particularly in Black dominated American public...

It was an unfortunate traffic accident. The American dream lay affordable and enticing in the suburbs. Middle America could afford cars to pursue it. Nobody gave thought to the...

The use of a robot surveillance 'dog' during a police intervention in New York Public Housing seems to have a human 'creepy' value of 100% with complaints flying thick...

Ten years ago, the last building of Chicago's Cabrini-Green public housing project was torn down. During its lifetime, the 23 buildings housing more than 15,000 mostly black residents became a...

When it comes to American neighbourhood housing development, what does the term "community preference" mean? It's a policy that might be required by some level of government, or put in...

A belated recognition of urban aboriginal needs? Or a dismaying state-supported adventure in racist and economic apartheid? Vancouver, BC's city council has approval a First Nations construction project slated for...

How far can developers go to create phoney "separate but equal" housing projects? The answer is simple: as far as they like . . . when it's their money...

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is currently exploring the "bad and ugly" aspects of racist architecture as a prelude to a celebration of the "good"...

Some American social programs greatly benefit private enterprise that builds and/or manages the country's penal system. The term "benefits" in no way suggests that the jailing industry can (or...

Recalling the successes of FDR's 1930's New Deal, progressive politicians and their followers have a number of hurdles to overcome in re-inventing another New Deal from the myths of...

When compared with Canada as a whole, people in the Territory of Nunavut are four times more likely to live in a home in need of major repairs. Homes...

Lineups to get into stores have become a fact of life with COVID restrictions. Our local grocery store gives preference to front line workers. All they need to do...

This is the final post covering the Tyee's five part series about a green new deal for housing. The Tyee is based in Vancouver, where high prices are making...

Recently, we posted a storyTry: Biden-Harris: Timely Dawn Of A New Day For Public Housing? Unlikely that assessed the chances that Public Housing would see a revival in America...

A recent investigation by the BBC in England shows that landlords are continuing discriminatory practices against people who receive social assistance. A court decision on July 1, 2020 (reported...

Uniformed police are an inescapable symbol of White prejudice and oppression in Black America, a searing image, which will not be erased in a single lifetime. Less obvious is...

Neoliberal "small" governments over the last 50 years have developed low- and no- income housing support that was designed to replace "big government" hands-on public housing. These solutions have, by...

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), formed to create affordable homes, have been justifying their existence over the past few years by extolling the superiority of mixed income housing. It's an...

The demonization of public housing residents in America has been a price paid by "small government" beliefs that the public purse has no role to play in either the...

A recent article in Mother Jones recounts a story from Los Angeles about 10,000 units of public housing that were never built. The article is about Frank Wilkinson, who worked...

Much of what affordablehousingaction.org publishes about social/public/council housing could in the US be considered palliative care for a dying industry and its long-suffering tenants. American public housing has been...

By now, most people concerned about institutional discrimination in the United States have know about redliningSee more on the history of redlining here: Redlining: What Was It? And Should...

This summer, Ontario approached a limited control of the spread of COVID-19 and began to consider phased modification of its largely voluntary lockdown. But part of the population of...

America's widest circulation newspaper, USA Today, has used its resources to find out who is being hit hardest by COVID-19 in the US. Picking six areas where there was...

ThatcheriteA term named for United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, much admired in conservative circles for introducing drastic curbs on government social welfare spending. governments have for several decades...

Recent protests in the US have focused on current discrimination against Blacks, as well its deep roots in American culture and society since Emancipation. The unrest has triggered calls...

California's 'woke' politics help it to be one of the first out of the gate with at least a lukewarm endorsement of long overdue Black reparations. It's a refreshing...

An article linked below by a housing advocate from the US calls out progressives who suggest they are the political force most suitable for ending the race discrimination that...

This following article by a housing advocate from the US calls out progressives who suggest they are the political force most suitable for ending the race discrimination that has...

Some decades ago, The U.S. federal government outlawed overt segregation. The Veteran's Affairs directive that forbade government housing assistance to returning black WWII veterans is one example.For more about...

Useful articles on the subject of public housing have been a rarity in mainstream American publications. "Not in our lifetime," has been a characterization of a date when the...

A slightly more fast and loose post, ranting completely understated

"I'm sorry, Mr. Brewster Twillingate-Smithers III, but I will not rent one of my apartments to you because your income is zero, not withstanding your weekly million-dollar subsidy from the family trust."

A new book written by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surfaces how the American Dream of homeownership has played out for black people. Early in her career, Taylor worked as a housing advocate....

Democratic candidates for the U.S. federal elections in 2020 have broached the subject of reparations for the continued mistreatment of black Americans that followed emancipation. So far, while there...

At a recent conference, Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) advocates have been given a preview of the ultimate NIMBY solution. Up until now, NIMBY protesters have voiced their opposition...

UK politicians are distracted. An opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph, inadvertently tells us just how distracted they are. The article itself is behind a paywall, but the headline and...

In order to discourage the banking practice of redliningTry: Redlining: What Was It? And We Should Be Asking ‘What Is It?’ Because It’s Still With Us, And It’s Bad,...

A lot of people find emotional security from 'their special baby'. We're talking about the furry kind here, cats and dogs mostly, but not exclusively. They are important enough that...

Urban sprawl is beginning to receive a technical analysis that threatens its existence. It is the very foundation of the so-called "American Dream" — a single house on a...

Affordable housing is not just a collection of construction material and land costs. It's a purse that must stretch to cover a rental or purchase . . . after...

Institutional racism at the highest level is not at all distant in America's past. Earlier this month (February 2019) Virginia's governor admitted to a youthful yearbook appearance in blackface....

A recent report from SouthCoast Fair Housing indicates that a Rhode Island resident who actually manages to obtain a Section 8 voucher will be shut out of 93% of...

In truth, it was a teacher's slum that never was, but a sad parable nonetheless. These days, stories abound of middle class workers essential to a community who are less...

Way back when, remember Big Government? Oh. You think Big Government is still with us, a bloated zombie from a failed twentieth century socialist experiment, still hard at work draining tax...

All right, all right, there's no need to panic yet, neighbourhood Chicken Littles. The sky is not falling, nor has affordable housing cap-and-trade invaded your exclusive housing corner of...

In a remarkably lopsided Council decision, Minneapolis, Minnesota has made American history by shafting detached-house zoning in every city neighbourhood, even the most upscale and exclusive. This comprehensive decision is...

So why would a landlord ever want to rent a market rate apartment to a homeless person? It's exactly what you thought. They don't. Small and large studies in America show...

NIMBY almost inevitably marred a recent heart-warming Toronto tale of a single family's selfless gift to homeless women. A family purchased a mansion-sized house on a five lane commuter corridor...

An accepted weakness of the American Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program is that it perpetuates poverty-stricken neighbourhoods with substandard schools, lacking local transportation and other social opportunities. Even without...

Intersectionality. Affordability. Big words to do battle with homelessness. But from the bottom of the deepest trenches in that battle, the individuals involved are aware of the very real...

As elsewhere, private banks in the U.S. are profit-driven, with the interests of their shareholders first and foremost in their hearts. Because of this, they have traditionally been reluctant...

We'll leave our hat on first, an unusual act of mourning for the wreck of the USS Public Housing, driven quite deliberately onto the rocks. Conceived and capitalized as...

Evictions are a useful 'miner's canary' for the health of a city's rental housing. Instead of falling off the perch dead in a pocket of dangerous gas, the eviction...

It began as an art project about racism, inequality and social justice. Six Houston artists renovated 22 row houses in Houston's impoverished and predominantly black Ward Three. Sculpting with...

Smuggling a child-to-be into an apartment where management disapproves of children? Should be a snap if you're only a few months pregnant. Nowhere near as difficult as smuggling in...

If you are homeless, and cannot sleep over a heat vent, will you die? The odds are against it unless you are in a country with a frigid winter...

"Poor Door" is a recently coined term. Already, there are opportunities to expand it. Over the last few years, apartment developments with affordable units in New York have come under...

Are you concerned about Affordable Housing? Start a blog — we did. Stage a protest — many have. Or, you could make a piñata . . . .? ....

The Australian federal government has a new scheme to streamline the management of social housing occupants. Using the convenience of electronic funds transfer, social housing occupants can automatically have...

Rooming Houses have inherited the prejudices of another era. Low rent, low class, catering to single, rootless, "ne're-do-wells", a festering sore on the backside of any upright community. But do...