The Crime of Treating Housing as a Commodity
In New York City, working-class tenants are often victimized by predatory landlords. Their horror stories show the need for radical housing reform inside and outside the city.
21 Articles by: Fran Quigley
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Fran Quigley directs the Health and Human Rights Clinic at Indiana University McKinney School of Law.
Landlords Want Us to Think Rent Gouging Isn’t Price Gouging
We recognize extortionate prices for lifesaving medicine or bottled water after a natural disaster as price gouging. Landlords want us to believe that rent hikes forcing people into homelessness are just the market at work, but that’s not true.
A National Tenants Bill of Rights Would Give Power to Renters
Corporate landlords and private equity investors are overtaking the US housing system. As renters face increasingly excessive rent, a new National Tenants Bill of Rights aims to provide them with basic rights and protections.
Unions and Tenant Organizations Are Natural Allies
Across the US, labor unions are starting to ally with tenant organizers around affordable housing and tenant protection campaigns. The efforts reflect a growing sense of shared interests — and shared corporate enemies.
Social Housing Can Work
Confronted with a deepening housing affordability crisis across the country, some US legislators are turning to the successful social housing programs of countries like Austria and Singapore. We spoke to two of them, from Hawaii and California.
Governments Fund Gentrification. But We Can Stop It.
Today’s gentrification is not an accident, nor is it simply the effects of shifting preferences for urban living or the so-called invisible hand of capitalism. It’s the intentional, predictable result of policy choices. And we can halt it in its tracks.
We Should Look to Vienna for Answers to Our Housing Crisis
Vienna’s social housing triumphs show that when governments invest in housing as a human right, they can combat homelessness and inequality. It is an inspiration for what cities can accomplish if they elevate human needs over the pursuit of private profits.
A New Louisville Ordinance Aims to Block Public Funds From Aiding Gentrification
Across the United States, housing developers are receiving huge amounts of public money to spur displacement of longtime working-class residents. A proposed Louisville, Kentucky, ordinance would stop that.
Why We Need Rent Control
Across the United States, we’re in the middle of a brutal housing crisis. We need rent control to get us out of it.
Wall Street Is Holding a Gun to Mobile Home Residents’ Heads
In mobile home parks around the country, millions of tenants and owners are being mercilessly exploited and regularly evicted, often by giant Wall Street firms like Blackstone.
Public Housing Works. We Need More of It.
We’re in the middle of an affordable housing crisis. We can’t solve it without drastically increasing government funding for public housing.
Joe Biden’s New Relief Plan for Renters Is Incredibly Weak
Millions of renters are suffering immensely right now as they face down imminent evictions in a housing market that has seen rents skyrocket in recent years. Joe Biden’s recently announced renters relief plan won’t do much to aid them.
Joe Biden Could Singlehandedly Lower Rents for the Millions Crushed by Them
Rents are too high. Joe Biden should issue an executive order to lower them.
We’re in an Evictions Crisis. Here Are 4 Steps to End It.
When housing is a profit-making venture rather than a human right, we’re perpetually stuck in an evictions crisis. Right now, that crisis is particularly dire. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
America’s Housing Crisis Is About to Get Much, Much Worse
The Supreme Court has chosen to side with landlords over the millions of renters on the edge of eviction. The tidal wave of pain that will soon descend on the nation is hard to comprehend.
A System That Makes Housing a Commodity Can’t Serve Human Needs
Even before the pandemic, America was in the midst of a massive housing crisis. Now, it’s far worse. Our housing agenda has to include investing in public housing, universal rent control, just-cause eviction, and a broad push to decommodify housing.
We Have to Act Now to Stop the Coming US Eviction Crisis
A flood of evictions is about to slam the United States. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The federal government can stave off the crisis and fix the underlying injustices causing it. Here’s how.
Evictions Aren’t Just a Symptom of Poverty — They’re a Cause of It
The United States is deeply hostile to renters, especially in states like Indiana that are staring down an enormous flood of evictions. We need action immediately to avoid a humanitarian disaster of millions being kicked out of their homes this summer.
Ending Poverty in the United States Would Actually Be Pretty Easy
In the wealthiest country in the world, there’s no reason anyone should be poor. Period.
To Rev. Angela Cowser, “the Biblical Basis for Socialism Is Undeniable”
Rev. Angela Cowser, a cofounder of the Institute for Christian Socialism, argues that a society rooted in the dictates of the Gospel would look radically different from the one we have now. There is a name for what that change should look like: socialism.