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Next steps in the battle for renters’ rights

By
Sandy Perry
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The People’s Tribune reported in May, 2017, about Paul Mayer, a 92-year-old WWII veteran who is being evicted from the only home he’s known for half a century in San Jose, CA. The scam that allows this is a federal program where low-rent tenants are moved out. Then homeless vets get a voucher that pays 30% of their income, but the landlord collects a market rate rent plus a bonus. So in this case, one vet is moved out and another is moved in. This is but another example pointing to the senselessness of a profit-driven economy that doesn’t have at heart the interests of everyone who needs housing but cannot afford skyrocketing rents. Paul’s family is fighting it as they don’t want this to happen to other people.

 
A massive “Renter Power” movement is arising in California and elsewhere in response to skyrocketing rents for millions of Americans. It has won some spectacular gains, like the recent triumph of tenant protections and rent control in San Jose. In the middle of these victories, however, comes the news that Los Angeles and Oakland just experienced 25% increases in homelessness last year even though both cities have tenant protections and rent control.
Tenants won the right to not be evicted when they pay the rent on time, which is important, but they are still losing ground. Limiting rent increases does not solve the problem when incomes fall or even disappear. The real right to housing means more than rent control. It means the right to stay in your home even when you cannot afford to pay rent at all. The real right to housing means a law guaranteeing that no one should ever have to pay more rent than is affordable, no matter how low the renter’s income.
The People’s Tribune reports from the front line of the movement for housing and against homelessness. Please help distribute this paper to get out the word. Donate and write your own articles for it. The PT is your voice, independent and entirely reader-supported.
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Sandy Perry is a longtime housing advocate from San Jose, CA.

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