PHOTO/SANDY PERRY
SAN JOSE, CA — Over 100 tenants and their allies took action against the crushing rent increases caused by the Federal government sequester in a rally August 29 at City Hall. Some families received astonishing increases of $900 or more. Altogether, some 17,000 tenants on the Federal Section 8 housing program in
Santa Clara County received rent hikes ranging from 10% to up to 900%.
Mainstream media propaganda claims that sequester effects have been minimal, but the lives of Section 8 tenants have been turned inside out. 57% of voucher holders in Santa Clara County are seniors or disabled and 61% are on fixed incomes. There is simply no way they can afford rent increases of this magnitude. In many cases the result will be homelessness, dislocation, and destruction of families.
The government is further threatening to continue to do nothing, which will result in additional unbearable cuts next year.
Tenants called for immediate reversal of the sequester and allocation of adequate affordable housing funds to meet the needs of the American people. According to our constitution, the role of government is to promote the general welfare of the people, not the private benefit of corporations. The corporations were instrumental in instigating the sequester with their endless lobbying for corporate tax breaks.
Silicon Valley is the richest area in the richest country in the world, and it is richer now than ever before in history. There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from taking care of our most vulnerable people. There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from putting the needs of our residents before tax breaks for corporations. There is nothing, except a tragic moral blindness, that prevents us from paying attention to the human suffering going on right here in our own community.
To address these issues, CHAM Deliverance Ministry and other groups are planning a March to Heal the Valley from one side of Silicon Valley to the other this October 7 – 11. It will be a pilgrimage from the working class streets of East San Jose to the leafy corporate campuses of the North County to search for the true soul of Silicon Valley.
More than anywhere in the country, Silicon Valley has come to symbolize the glaring polarization of wealth that is destroying America. Marchers will crisscross the diverse neighborhoods and gather the unemployed, the people with little or no health care, the disenfranchised, the foreclosed, the underpaid, and people of conscience. Together they will march to the gates of the wealthiest corporations in the world to see who will join the campaign for a compassionate economy.
Marchers are calling on the corporations to contribute the billions of dollars and resources necessary to fund the housing, employment, health care, and education needed to end poverty.
To participate or for more information: Call 408-977-1275 or Email healthevalley@spiralcc.net
Sandy Perry is a longtime housing advocate from San Jose, CA.
