The Cost of Living Crisis No.3: British government solves the housing crisis by moving poor people into sewers. Landlords rejoice at the prospect of making even more money out of the poor.

#CostOfLivingCrisis #housing #landlords #housingcrisis #tenants #ukpolitics #uk #inflation #economy

#Gentrification is not an abstract moral failing—It is a result of #money and #power—of the #landlords, #developers, real estate flippers, and #investors who have it, and everyone else who does not. The people who move into those houses have more money than the majority of the people in the city can fathom, and often fight any attempt to #distribute that #wealth more evenly.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/gentrification-rhetorical-weapon-systemic-issue/

‘Banning no-fault evictions won’t stop landlords making us homeless’

The government has touted the Renters Reform Bill as a fix for tenants facing unfair eviction. But there’s a problem.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/renters-reform-bill-no-fault-evictions-section-21-landlords-tenants-homeless/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=newsie_social&utm_content=no_fault_evictions

#Housing #Landlords #RentersReformBill #England #UKGovernment #Homelessness

“Maintenance requests went unanswered for weeks,” a former VineBrook tenant told NBC News. “At one point there was an infestation of bugs I had to remedy myself because they wouldn’t fix it. The shower broke, the heating was messed up. Only when I put my rent into escrow with the court and withheld payments, that’s when they came and remedied what was wrong.”

https://pestakeholder.org/news/vinebrook-homes-predatory-practices-harm-tenants-and-community/
#VinebrookHomes #landlords

#RentControl laws on the national level? Biden administration offers a not-so-subtle push

by Medora Lee, September 6, 2023

"Rent control would prevent #corporate #landlords from profiting by using low-interest, government-backed financing while raising #rents and evicting #tenants, Hoang said.

"Though that may be true, critics say, rent control could hurt millions of people, including some who supplement their retirement with rental income.

"Among 49.5 million rental units, nearly 46% are small rental properties of one to four units, the National Association of Realtors said. More than 70% of those are owned by individuals, or mom-and-pop landlords. About 70% are also managed by them.

"'Cost of rental housing is expensive,' Geno said. 'If they can’t pass on expenses they don’t control, many owners will be upside down.'"

"Many mom-and-pop landlords were forced into forbearance during the 1½-year pandemic-related rent moratorium that allowed tenants to forgo rent payments without fear of eviction. Some even had to sell their properties and defer maintenance on their rentals."

And then corporations bought them up, tore down or gutted the places, then created condos or high-rent housing out of the reach of most people! Creating affordable housing would be great, but it takes time. And judging by the number of homeless and those seeking climate change and political asylum, this problem needs to be solved sooner than later!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/rent-control-laws-on-the-national-level-biden-administration-offers-a-not-so-subtle-push/ar-AA1ggiXW?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=8a51f854e3ac4dd9ce096c7ac81fbc04&ei=6
#AffordabeHousing #HousingForAll #AffordableHousingForAll

"As a result, some now charge fees for moving in and moving out. Some have fees for '#lease #administration' (whatever that is). One Minnesota #landlord collects a $100 'January fee' on the first month of the year."

People who don't #rent don't really understand just how awful the experience has become since they weeded out all traces of being #human from #PropertyManagers.

https://news.yahoo.com/landlords-start-nickel-diming-tenants-211423799.html
#Landlords start nickel-and-diming #tenants with #fees

#IAmDB

“Many tenants find themselves unable to speak with anybody from VineBrook until they’re in eviction court or until someone from the buildings or health department come out and issue orders.”
https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/i-team/legal-aid-files-to-join-city-lawsuit-against-vinebrook-homes
#VinebrookHomes #landlords

A Midwest Newsroom investigation uncovered neglect, aggressive evictions and rising rents where #VinebrookHomes moves in — mostly non-white neighborhoods.

https://www.kcur.org/housing-development-section/2023-05-10/vinebrook-homes-kansas-city-houses-landlord-tenants

#landlords

"The new rules are intended to effectively end a free-for-all in which #landlords and #residents have been renting out their #apartments by the week or the night to tourists or others in the city for short stays. Advocates say the practice has driven a rise in demand for #housing in already scarce neighbourhoods in the city."

#Airbnb bookings dry up in #NewYork as new short-stay rules are introduced | Airbnb | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/06/new-york-city-airbnb-short-stay-booking-rental-rules-laws-impact

I vividly remember my #landlords showing the new #flat while holding a newborn in their arms. Yesterday they asked me to put out the bin for collection as they forgot and already drove to their kid's #school enrollment. #TimeFlies #gettingold
#StillLivingInSomeonesBasement 🥲

If it were up to me, the federal government would embark on a multi-year program to condemn the property of all the corporate landlords like #VinebrookHomes, and stand up local housing #cooperatives to run them.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/corporate-landlord-tactics-rcna48373

#landlords

It makes sense: if #landlords in deprived areas are more likely to have funded their properties through a #mortgage, they'd also be more likely to pass on #interestrates rises to tenants... and indeed it seems this is what is happening.

One more dimension of how the #housingcrisis' impact is skewed towards the poor(er) & vulnerable in society.

Rentier #capitalism at work

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/03/uk-rents-rise-faster-in-deprived-areas-and-drag-more-people-into-poverty

At the heart of the #housingcrisis is the Q. of supply; there are a complex of issues but constraints on the supply of housing is key, whatever its causes.

So one key aspect of addressing the housing crisis is to increase supply, but this does produce some losers;

the two main groups are those who own houses (whose price might fall further) & #landlords (whose rents would fall);

as the #Tories privilege the interests of both groups, can we surprised they've done little to solve the crisis?

Won't someone think of the landlords?!

#landlords #nytimes

@DrALJONES Exactly that. And the wages of a relatively well educates #irish workforce are going straight into the pockets of #rentier #landlords.

by #HamiltonNolan:

"A new research paper by UC Berkeley economists finds that there are indeed (as anyone who has moved from a small town to a humming big city knows) earnings premiums for workers who live in certain areas—but 'local housing costs at least fully offset local pay premiums.' That is to say they found that all or more of the extra money that a worker earns by moving into an economically strong area is clawed back by housing costs. That big raise that your union fought for in the last contract? Send that right on over to the landlord."

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/housing-is-a-labor-issue

#housing #unions #union #workers #labor #landlords #rent #pay

“landlords are bad because they don’t work” no. #landlords are bad because they use the justice #system and the #police to render innocent #people #homeless. landlords are bad because they put barriers between living #human beings and having shelter. landlords are bad because they #hoard wealth and resources while their #community suffers

enough with the #ableist horseshit. nobody needs to work 40h a week to deserve to live"

http://tutas.org.au/

https://sequr.homes/

https://www.tumblr.com/nando161mando/727031720504901632?source=share

You can't actually tell from this terrible photo, that I took after he'd started, but this German tourist is PISSING on the flower bed I maintain, outside the unlawful STL, behind out tenement.

I don't even think he's staying there; the bloke of the couple who are came out with him and instructed him to piss there. The flat has a toilet.

I'd just like to thank all #Edinburgh #Councillors, and especially Senior #Council officers for supporting illegal #STLs & their #landlords, for this gift.

Water is leaking from my flat into the one below. This is due to cost cutting on previous repairs l. Obviously this isn’t the way my landlord sees it. She’s just rung up ranting about a problem with the freezer “caused” by a previous tenant and accuse me of a rat infestation

#AllLandlordsAreBastards #Landlords #Renters #UKPol

A great deal of discussion about police abolition concerns non-police responses to violent crime, but most police work is unrelated to violent crime. Most, maybe all, of this is economic in nature – designed to keep working people from using productive property to meet their own needs directly – to keep the commons enclosed. This work means the police are inextricably integrated into the economy in surprising ways that are largely undiscussed in the context of abolition, which would trigger monumental, almost unimaginable changes in how we as a society meet our human needs through work. It’s likely that the end of policing would mean the end of capitalism, which suggests that it won’t be easy to achieve given the magnitude of what’s at stake.

#Abolition #PoliceAbolition #Capitalism #Police #ACAB #LosAngeles #Anarchy #Anarchism #Enclosure #Commons #Landlords #TenantsRights #Squatting

https://chez-risk.in/2023/08/24/the-end-of-policing-means-the-end-of-capitalism-some-likely-but-rarely-discussed-economic-effects-of-abolition/