Sweeps and Bans don’t “Solve Homelessness,” Housing Does! – RV & people bans, Echo Park Lake, and more

Hey Everyone! 

Sanctioned encampments have been popping up all over the West coast as an “emergency response” to homelessness in the pandemic. Now that COVID-specific funding is running dry, many local governments have proposed making these encampments a formal tier of the shelter system. In this webinar, we will discuss the implications of these encampments as a “service,” namely how they will and are being used to sweep and warehouse unhoused people on the streets, and how they are part of a larger trend whereby local governments fabricate and formalize “service resistance” in order to continue the criminalization of homelessness under Martin v. Boise. 

Oakland, CA. Oakland considers banning RVs from certain city streets

Councilman Noel Gallo on Tuesday introduced an ordinance that would ban oversized vehicles from parking on all streets with a width of 40 feet or less — the size of a typical two-lane road.
The ban is needed, he argued during a Public Works Committee meeting, to make streets safer for Oakland residents. But about a dozen activists and other community members called into the meeting to oppose the idea, which they worried would punish people with nowhere else to go.

Los Angeles, CA. Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN)

Since its inception, Skid Row-based nonprofit Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) has been at the forefront of addressing the city’s homeless crisis, exemplified by its EcoHood sustainable housing development.

Combining small footprint modular residences with solar power and other energy performance features, LA CAN’s innovative pilot project underway in South Central Los Angeles aims to create a blueprint for converting the city’s vast inventory of surplus properties into housing that working-class Angelenos can afford.

Los Angeles, CA. AFTER ECHO PARK LAKE RESEARCH COLLECTIVE

The After Echo Park Lake Research Collective brings together university and movement-based scholars with unhoused comrades to study displacement in Los Angeles.

We analyze and challenge systems of housing insecurity and scrutinize the investment of public resources in the criminalization of poverty and in carceral housing. Our research is a counterpoint to racial banishment and seeks to advance housing justice in Los Angeles and worldwide.

Sacramento, CA. Banish the Unhoused (SHOC)

The term “banishment” was coined by Pete White of the LA Community Action Network (LACAN) to describe how unhoused people are forcibly relocated even though they have no place to go.

There used to be talk of housing the homeless in government circles – like the “Housing First” model that promised actual housing as the solution to the crisis. In actual fact, California needs over a million new housing units by 2030 to meet the needs of low-income people, according to the California Housing Partnership.

Rep. Omar Reintroduces Homes for All, Manufactured Housing Legislation

March 24, 2022 Press Release

WASHINGTON—Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has reintroduced the Homes for All Act, which will dramatically expand the public housing stock in the United States and guarantee housing as a human right.

The bill will authorize construction of 12 million new public housing and private, permanently affordable rental units, driving down costs throughout the market and creating a new vision of what public housing looks like in the U.S. She also reintroduced the Frank Adelmann Manufactured Housing Community Sustainability Act. The bill would create a tax credit that incentivizes mobile home park owners to sell their property to the residents for the purposes of creating a cooperative.

The reintroduction comes after 60 Minutes reported this weekend on how the lack of construction of new housing and Wall Street greed is contributing to skyrocketing rent and fueling the housing crisis.