Good response dealing with #fightfor15 #frackfree and - TopicsExpress

Good response dealing with #fightfor15 #frackfree and #blacklivesmatter movements but I especially liked this: Obama spoke about helping the middle class. He spoke about housing issues. Yet while cities like Seattle have to deal with astronomical rent increases and gentrification, we are simultaneously facing cuts to federal funding for low-income housing. Here in Seattle I along with public housing tenants and community activists just led a successful battle to stop a 400% rent hike for low-income housing in Seattle. I hope this example of resistance and struggle can spread nationally where other cities are confronted with similar attacks. Socialist Alternative, tenants, and I are campaigning for emergency measures like rent control to address this spiraling crisis. But emergency measures will not be enough. The so called “free market” has miserably failed to provide affordable housing. We need urgent public investment to build new affordable housing for working families. I am working on a plan for the Seattle city government to build thousands of high-quality publicly owned houses to rent at below market rates. But to win any of this, tenants and homeowners need to build their own housing justice movement, acting locally, but connecting nationally.