Due to a program known as RAD, public housing in the United States is being sold off to private developers who will convert these apartments from public apartments into market rate apartments to collect a HUGE PAYDAY as PROPERTY VALUE SKYROCKETS from this change in zoning class.

The most ridiculous part of this is that public housing was sold accompanied by messaging that making apartments available for private acquisition would be a payday for the people living in public housing. After all, if the apartments go up in value by half a million dollars this money can go towards communities that have struggled and place them on more equal footing. The key to this is the transfer of ownership from the public into private hands which was to be the private hands of the people who are poor and actually living in the apartments.

There's a lot of traps and misinformation regarding t his topic. Let's look at some of the ways that people are fooled into giving up what little value they still have left.

1. The complete and unfortunately completely understandable selling out of our media. Face it. Our media is paid for primarily by advertising. And who pays for this advertising? Real estate companies buy so much advertising that they now have their own dedicated channel called HGLTV. Home Garden and Living TV. The only one's who stand to gain from public housing advocacy are the residents that live there. It is really their own responsibility to investigate what opportunities exist for themselves and no one else. It's ok to watch TV for entertainment, but it's a mistake to believe that the message being promoted has anything to do with your own interests.

2. There's a lot of money out there and this money is used to buy people in positions of influence. Tenant Association presidents and government officials are targeted in particular as are housing advocacy groups and so forth. These groups with knowledge will mix up vital and critical information in ways to misdirect residents to engage in actions that may actually go against their own best interests. For example there are many different ways that residents are convinced to turn their apartments from section 9 to section 8 housing which is a less protected class. They are convinced to do this through erroneous association with other legislation, false ties to accessing government

3. Adding layers of complexity can make it difficult to address problems. For example an agency can create a branch to address an issue in the correct way during the policy phase but then hamstring it so in name it is working for the people but in actuality interferes with their ability to achieve real change. Also definitions and policy and conditions and communities change over time. Sometimes complexities are added to hide intentions and provide plausible deniability.

Right now we are working to organize a national symposium on this issue with different local activists from a number of states. Many local government agencies are already signing deals, however the ability of these agencies to sell property and the deals they have signed should be recalled and reexamined. There are a lot of troubling issues regarding these purchases. One of the major one's is...

Who is buying the projects?

One of the largest purchasers of public housing stock are Educational institutions. What does public housing have to do with education? Nothing.

Fact is, that these "schools" are not educational institutions but financial institutions. They leverage the futures of our children to buy public property through private enterprise to achieve amazing profits made possible in no small part due to huge government grants that help make these financial institutions profits further enrichening those who are already rich. These schools are connected to the people that "matter" and generate experts and studies that redirect the narrative back towards commercial interests.

What is the solution?

We must retake back over the messaging. We are encouraging residents to transform the look of the projects and to hang up signs on their doors, walls and to hang signs off their buildings to raise awareness. The TV and radio will not do t his for you.

We are also working with Rep My Block to get public housing residents into county committee positions which have disproportionate amounts of power due to their ability to appoint replacements when elected officials need to end their term early.

We have a flier program in effect. We have printed 10,000 fliers in order to help spread awareness. Please also engage with your tenant association community to exert influence over the existing systems that exist. Also seek allies in public housing and help put me in contact with other activists working on this and similar issues! (Join my mailing list to receive updates. Link above)

Further Housing resources

The above is just a small corner of the overall housing picture. Upcoming projects include a guidework for better understanding what happens when you go into the system trying to access services for those who have been displaced out of "normal" housing situations.

Also on my discord channel I have a number of resources including links to job resources and more.

Fitness