A housing crisis is gripping our country. This issue of the RESIST Newsletter takes a look at two aspects of the problem: the catastrophe in public housing and growing foreclosures affecting both homeowners and renters.

For more than two decades – under Presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and now Bush – housing activists have had to settle for crumbs. For the most part, organizers have been fighting battles on the defensive, working to protect existing federal programs such as public housing, Section 8 vouchers, and homeless funding plans.

People who care about access to housing hope that the next administration will increase the HUD budget, and many organizers are working for the creation of a national housing trust fund. But even the most ambitious proposal we’ve seen so far in this election season – former presidential candidate John Edwards’ call for adding a million new housing vouchers – would still be a relatively small increase compared to the need.

In many ways, New Orleans serves as a microcosm of the gentrification and privatization that are sweeping America’s cities. In his article, “New Orleans Public Housing Under Attack,” human rights attorney Bill Quigley details the crisis in New Orleans that serves as a roadmap towards understanding the push towards the abandonment of public housing in many U.S. cities.

For people struggling to make ends meet, housing is critical. Shelterforce, the magazine of the National Housing Institute, reported that most working-poor families spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing (Fall 2007). Fifty five percent of the poorest households – those earning less than $19,000 a year – spend more than half their earnings on housing.

Despite popular stereotypes, most of these families are not receiving any housing subsidies, and many face the pressures of gentrification on top of their struggles to make ends meet.

The housing crunch is hitting home across the board.

New economic figures show home foreclosures are now up nearly 50 percent over the same period last year. In May of 2007, 176,000 homes received foreclosure filings. This May, more than 260,000 homes received the same filing, according to the foreclosure listing company RealtyTrac.

This news came as the nation’s top banking regulator was accusing banks and mortgage firms of providing misleading information on loans and foreclosures stemming from the subprime mortgage crisis. The Comptroller of the Currency, John Dugan, says the financial companies have not provided accurate information on who they are helping and the rates of foreclosure. The information is critical, Dugan says, to determining the severity of the housing crisis and the effectiveness of the response.

Housing organizer Soledad Lawrence’s article takes a new angle on the mortgage crisis. Coverage of the crisis tends to focus on statistics and sad stories of people losing their homes. “A Way to Stop Foreclosures” highlights the work of City Life/Vida Urbana, a community-based organization and former RESIST grantee that has successfully prevented seven foreclosures in the Boston area.

Housing organizer Sam Finkelstein recently wrote that the struggle to save access to housing is the struggle for a progressive worldview that demands human rights, dignity and justice for all people. The housing crisis is not just a local or regional issue, but it’s one that requires local and regional strategies. This issue of the Newsletter provides the beginning of a roadmap towards exploring common tactics for ensuring that housing is protected as a basic human right.

Christy Pardew is the Communications Director at RESIST and the editor of the RESIST Newsletter.

Sources: Democracy Now!, Shelterforce

PHOTO courtesy of TML Daily.