September, 25 2019, 12:00am EDT
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"A Just Society" Sets the Standard for Housing Justice
Center for Popular Democracy network celebrates Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s landmark legislation.
WASHINGTON
Today, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced "A Just Society," a bold economic justice package of bills to address the root causes of inequality in the United States. The package contains six bills that propose: a vision of housing justice for renters, updates to the federal poverty line, expansion of the social safety net to include immigrants and people involved in the criminal legal system, just employment standards for federal contractors, and broad commitments to labor rights.
The housing justice bill, named "A Just Society Creates a Place to Prosper," was developed in partnership with the Center for Popular Democracy and its network of grassroots organizations at the center of the growing tenants' rights movement. The organizations, including Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Detroit Action, Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) in Chicago, Make the Road New York, and New York Communities for Change, among other affiliates, have led advocacy efforts on the local and state level for tenant protections and housing justice. Representative Ocasio-Cortez's bill builds upon these local and state victories on the national level.
The bill includes tenant protections like rent control, right to counsel for people facing eviction and just cause eviction standards. It also includes measures to rein in corporate landlords, like disclosure requirements of leasing terms, annual eviction rates and median rent. Lastly, the legislation allocates additional resources to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and stipulations on how Federal Housing Authority and Highway Trust Fund dollars should be spent.
Viewed together, the legislation would take significant steps to address the worst affordable housing crisis in a generation. During the financial crisis of 2008, American households lost $16 trillion in wealth. Many lost their homes and saw their savings and retirement funds depleted. More than half of all renters, over 21 million households, were rent-burdened in 2015, meaning that they spent thirty percent or more of their income on rent in 2015.
In a report released earlier this year, the Center for Popular Democracy, PolicyLink and Right to the City Alliance found that if rent control was adopted across the country, 42 million households would be stabilized.
"In this country, too many people are without a home, and too many of us are living every second terrified that we'll lose the struggle to keep a roof over our heads. A just society is built on everyone having a safe, affordable and stable place to call home," said Jennifer Epps-Addison, Network President and Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy. "Through deep investment in affordable housing, tenant protections like rent control, and reining in corporate landlords, this bill builds toward an economically, socially and civically healthy country. We were proud to work with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on this visionary housing bill and economic justice package that center the priorities of tenant leaders and low-income homeowners with the solutions they need to have a home to thrive."
"After receiving a 200% rent increase followed by a no-cause eviction, my son and I became homeless for three years. No one should ever have to go through the pain that what we went through. It is inhumane as a society that we allow landlords to throw families onto the streets all for the sake of profit," said Sasha Graham, a member of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment in Richmond, California. "AOC's bill moves towards a just society by putting the power back in the hands of tenants by improving the quality of housing stock, reining in corporate landlords, and ensuring that housing is available for those in need."
"I am a renter in Arkansas and have been harassed and threatened with eviction by my landlord. Many of my neighbors are having problems with mold and unsafe conditions in their apartments," said Ely Frankley, a member of the Arkansas Community Organization. "In a just society, we should all have access to safe and healthy housing. And when we do not, we should be able to speak up and organize without facing the threat of eviction and losing our homes. We should live in a country where we all can thrive and realize our full potential."
The 'A Just Society' bill package is crucial to people like me who do have a steady income but just can't afford to live in a city like Detroit anymore. Billionaire developers and the rising rents that come with them have pushed out so many Detroiters. I have looked for apartments all over the city but it seems there are none that I can afford with my income and that's just not right," said Donna Price, member of Detroit Action. "We need rent control now seeing that the problem we have is people in this country who work every single day and strive to make a living are forced to couch-hop and sleep at shelters. In America, we used to have a working-class -- now we just have the working homeless. This is my experience and it is the same for millions across America. It's about time Congress stood up to fight for people like me."
"My family and I call the beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada home, but when the glitz and glamour fade, we face the real threat of homelessness," said Anthony Giron, Make the Road Nevada member leader. "One emergency could put us on the streets like it did last year when our family of eight could no longer afford our rent. This forced us to live in a motel room with two queen beds and one restroom until we found the home we are at now. But Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's plan would address these very economic justice issues that families like mine face today. Every family deserves a just society that empowers them to thrive."
"I am a senior. I've raised my three children, my five grandchildren, and I even returned to school. Now I'm retired and I'm worried about paying my bills and my rent," said Alice Moore, a retiree and a member of Organize Florida. "A lot of seniors who are making $30,000 or more don't qualify for anything. It's frightening to think that at this time next year, I'll be giving over half of my retirement to pay my rent. In a just society, after working over 30 years, sometimes two and three jobs, I should be able to relax and enjoy my retirement without worrying about where I'm going to live and whether I will be homeless."
"As elected officials in localities across the country, Local Progress members are leading a municipal agenda that prioritizes an essential right to housing," said Philadelphia Councilmember Helen Gym, the Vice Chair of Local Progress. "We are winning real victories in our local governments, like our eviction defense fund here in Philadelphia and right to counsel. But we can't do it alone. We need a transformative federal policy with the money to back it up, and that's why we applaud Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's 'Just Society' plan. It's a visionary plan that makes moral and economic sense, and most importantly, is informed by what's moving in communities all around the nation."
The Center for Popular Democracy works to create equity, opportunity and a dynamic democracy in partnership with high-impact base-building organizations, organizing alliances, and progressive unions. CPD strengthens our collective capacity to envision and win an innovative pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda.
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"This administration has chosen to uphold the status quo instead of listening to the diverse voices of staff urgently demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians."
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A political appointee at the U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday became the youngest—and first Muslim American—appointee of President Joe Biden's to resign as his administration continues to "fund and enable Israel's genocide of Palestinians."
"Marginalized communities in our country have long been denied the justice they deserve. I joined the Biden-Harris administration with the belief that my voice and diverse perspective would lend a hand in the pursuit of that justice," Special Assistant and Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Maryam Hassanein, 24, said in a statement.
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"We welcome this principled resignation by another Biden administration official who took up their post believing they could help the nation, but instead realized they were becoming complicit in the administration's enabling of the far-right Israeli government's genocide in Gaza," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
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Breaking with many of his fellow Democrats, Maine Congressman Jared Golden suggested Tuesday that former Republican President Donald Trump's return to the White House wouldn't threaten U.S. democracy—and was sharply ridiculed for that take.
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Veteran journalist Mark Jacob said on social media that "Congressman Jared Golden, an alleged Democrat from Maine, waves the white flag against Trump in an unconscionable surrender to fascism. Maybe he thinks he can cut a deal. The cowards and quislings are making themselves known."
Some critics highlighted that the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority—which includes three Trump appointees—ruled Monday that Trump, and anyone else who occupies the Oval Office, has absolute immunity for "official acts." In her dissent, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that "the president is now a king above the law."
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Golden, who co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition, has a history of voting with Republicans on various climate, military, and student debt relief policies. His new opinion piece provoked calls for members of his own party to identify and rally around a write-in candidate "so Maine Democrats have an actual Democratic option in November."
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The melting of Alaska's Juneau ice field—which contains more than 1,000 glaciers—is accelerating and could reach a tipping point much sooner than predicted, according to research published Tuesday.
The study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, shows that ice loss from the Juneau ice field began accelerating rapidly after 2005.
The paper's authors found that "rates of area shrinkage were five times faster from 2015-2019 than from 1979-1990," while glacier volume loss—which had remained relatively consistent from 1770-1979—doubled after 2010.
"Forty years from now, what is it going to look like? I do think by then the Juneau ice field will be past the tipping point."
"Thinning has become pervasive across the icefield plateau since 2005, accompanied by glacier recession and fragmentation," the study states. "As glacier thinning on the plateau continues, a mass balance-elevation feedback is likely to inhibit future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a dynamic tipping point."
Study lead author Bethan Davies, a glaciologist at Newcastle University in England, said in a statement, "It's incredibly worrying that our research found a rapid acceleration since the early 21st century in the rate of glacier loss across the Juneau ice field."
"Alaskan icefields—which are predominantly flat, plateau icefields—are particularly vulnerable to accelerated melt as the climate warms since ice loss happens across the whole surface, meaning a much greater area is affected," Davies continued. "Additionally, flatter ice caps and icefields cannot retreat to higher elevations and find a new equilibrium."
"As glacier thinning on the Juneau plateau continues and ice retreats to lower levels and warmer air, the feedback processes this sets in motion is likely to prevent future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a tipping point into irreversible recession," she added.
Study co-author Mauri Pelto, a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts, toldThe Associated Press that the Juneau ice field is melting at a rate of about 50,000 gallons per second.
"When you go there the changes from year to year are so dramatic that it just hits you over the head," Pelto said. "In 1981, it wasn't too hard to get on and off the glaciers. You just hike up and you could you could ski to the bottom or hike right off the end of these glaciers. But now they've got lakes on the edges from melted snow and crevasses opening up that makes it difficult to ski."
As the AP reported:
Only four Juneau ice field glaciers melted out of existence between 1948 and 2005. But 64 of them disappeared between 2005 and 2019, the study said. Many of the glaciers were too small to name, but one larger one, Antler glacier, "is totally gone," Pelto said.
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Pelto said that "the tipping point is when that snow line goes above your entire ice field, ice sheet, ice glacier, whichever one."
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