Do you hear that? The sound you hear is the beginning of a groundswell at the grassroots level that suggests change is coming. After decades of personalized misery expressed in bread lines, homelessness, ineffective justice, diminishing economic opportunity, and, for all practical purposes, the criminalization of poverty, people are beginning to connect with one another, identify common troubles, and seek public solutions. This may be the start of a major shift in public sentiment, namely intrusion into our currently limited and exclusive political discussions by those who are taken for granted, deemed unimportant, shunted aside, managed through the prison and social services system, and generally unseen. Poverty and justice are working their way back into discussions at the street level and people are poised to again hold local institutions and elected officials accountable. Here are some recent events:
A few months ago the University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP) sponsored a forum to celebrate its 30th anniversary. To mark this anniversary, UNHP released a report: Nowhere to Go: A Crisis of Affordability in the Bronx. The report demonstrates the extreme pressures on affordability, even in solid working class communities where over 50% of residents are paying over one-half of their incomes for rent. Discussions at the forum ranged from the lack of living wage opportunities to government’s failure to ensure that tax incentives are predicated on providing good paying jobs to the lack of, and problems attending to, housing subsidy programs. UNHP pledged that there will be follow-up discussions and action plans that promises to coalesce into broader efforts at the Bronx and city levels.
Just a few weeks ago, City Limits Magazine and ICPH co-hosted a “Tackling Poverty Conversation” at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. The event was attended mostly by local leaders and addressed the 1.5 million New Yorkers living in poverty; the nearly 50,000 people who currently crowd homeless shelters; and the increasing city reliance on housing homeless families in multi-family buildings that are being removed from the housing market to temporarily house homeless families at rates of up to $3500/month. These “conversations” are being held throughout the city and will likely lead to more awareness and action.
And most recently on June 5th, CASA/New Settlement held a mock Rent Guidelines Board hearing. Only two “tenant representatives” from the Rent Guidelines Board attended, but well over 200 tenants showed up to give testimony over a three-hour period. The take away from the event? There are tenants organizing around rent issues at the grassroots level. Whatever they target as an initial point of entry for expressing anger and resentment over paying rents that are too damn high, leaving families with more debt, a diminished quality of life, and for too many, homelessness — this ground swell serves as a platform for further action.
People get ready. There’s A Change A ‘Coming.
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