This is a new era for corporations in the United States: CEOs are speaking out on race—a topic with a deep history that continues to tear the nation apart.
PRI’s Marketplace featured a report on one way that New York City is seeking to empower tenants. The article, “New York is betting $155 million that it can cut evictions,” describes the city’s effort to provide legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction. The payoff to the city is reduced social service costs for shelter and relocation.
There are a discouragingly large number of reasons to see a bleak economic future for many Americans, including rising inequality, low social mobility, and shockingly pervasive financial insecurity. Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have documented “deaths of despair” tied to deterioration in economic and social wellbeing that creates a “cumulative disadvantage” that is all but insurmountable.
California cities are faced with a challenging housing situation. Wages have hit a plateau or are in some cases decreasing, while rents continue to rise.
While our region is one of the most diverse in the nation, both data and anecdotal evidence indicate that the area’s extraordinary economic growth in recent years has led to growing inequality.
After Measure S was soundly defeated at the ballot box this past March, the prevailing view seemed to be that it represented a vote in favor of greater density, particularly more infill and transit-oriented development. Which, in some ways, it was.
If renters paid just what they could afford in rent, the average household would have $6,200 a year more in their pocket to spend on groceries, childcare, medical care, and education—things one in five households have been skimping on to make rent. Collectively, that would amount to $124 billion that can help fuel economic growth.
Renters in dozens of U.S. cities are organizing demonstrations this week under the banner of “National Renter Week of Action and Assemblies.” The purpose is to push back against the Trump Administration’s threat to cut billions from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and make the case that renters rights are human rights.
Houston was a relatively affordable city before Hurricane Harvey. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment was in the low-$800s, putting it among the least expensive cities to live, according to Apartment List. Not only is Houston’s average rent well below that of cities of similar population sizes, like Philadelphia and Chicago, but it also was the largest city to see rent prices drop between this year and last.
Today (September 18), renters in more than 45 U.S. cities kicked off “Renter Week of Action,” a week of direct actions aimed at addressing rent increases, mass evictions and cuts to the U.S.Department of Housing and Urban Development. Right To The City