June Newsletter 2018
A Win for Language Justice, Policing & Gentrification, Our Upcoming Spanish Newsletter, and Interrogating Ideas of “Affordable Housing”
A Win for Language Justice
Deepest thanks to all those who contributed to our interpretation equipment fundraiser!
With your support, ATU and Albany Park Defense Network were able to raise $1,390 and purchas equipment. This will allow us to continue breaking down language barriers and organizing for community control of housing. When we fight, we win!
Who’s Buying Chicago?
On Saturday, May 26, ATU hosted an asamblea where we highlighted some of the major developers we’ve fought and shared organizing tactics. We were pleased to see many new faces! This proves that people all over the city are ready to challenge greedy developers as they attempt to buy up our communities and remake them into playgrounds for the wealthy.
Topics we covered included how to look up building PINs, get detailed information about landlords and mobilize our networks for support. We also released a tactics zine in both English and Spanish. Contact mediacmte.atu@gmail.com for a copy.
Policing and Gentrification
“The headlines and our social media feeds have been flush with stories of ‘concerned’ white people calling the police on their black neighbors: the Oakland BBQ tattle-tale, the nosy Airbnb neighbor, and the Yale student distressed by her napping classmate, to name a few of the most prominent.
In these cases, the white neighbors’ ‘community watch’ ethic wasted a few hours of their victims’ time. But time and again we’ve seen police escalate these types of situations to physical violence. It’s easy to focus in on these viral incidents as unique, but we know that this treatment of people of color and the happy collaboration of many of their neighbors is far from exceptional, especially in gentrifying neighborhoods — and can be deadly.
The police — and those happy to call them at every turn — are part of the engine that drives gentrification and, ultimately, displacement…
Police concentration in low-income communities of color speeds up gentrification by causing financial hardship in the form of citation fines, making people of color police targets in their own neighborhoods, and by forcibly removing poor community members in the case of cash bond while awaiting trial. And of course, the criminal justice system so often does landlords’ dirty work for them: it is the police, after all, that enforce eviction orders.”
Check out ATU’s latest piece, “Policing and Gentrification: Mass Displacement and the ‘Community Watch’” on our blog and on It’s Going Down.
Spanish newsletter out next month!
Since our founding in 2016, ATU has been publishing monthly digital newsletters in English to get the word out about our work.
This has allowed us to highlight our wins, put out calls for solidarity, and create our own content like the piece above. But we recognize that many of our members who are Spanish speakers or don’t have easy access to technology can’t enjoy or contribute to these publications. Which is why we are proud to announce that our first in-print, all Spanish newsletter will be out this July! It will feature art, poetry and stories of hope and struggle from our members, as well as a few surprises! If you are interested in a copy, please let us know by emailing mediacmte.atu@gmail.com.
What is Affordable Housing?
Given our clownish Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson’s proposal to raise subsidized housing rents from 30% to 35% of a tenant’s income, we’re thinking about what it means for commodified housing to be “affordable.”
Many of us grew up hearing that the rule of thumb for affordable rent is 30% of your income. We know that housing that even meets this 30% standard is scarcely available to working class tenants, but why have we accepted a reality where landlords deserve even 30%? This rent standard’s impact can vary widely across tenants with differing incomes and expenses. Who decided that a disabled tenant on a $735/month fixed income could “afford” to throw $220 of that income towards a roof over their head? Or that a tenant working full time at minimum wage can “afford” to waste 30% of their income on sub-par housing in a food desert with poor transportation?
This standard has shifted over time, along with the dominant politics of the day. The first “percent-of-income” standard for housing costs was established by the federal government shortly after the 1937 United States National Housing Act created our public housing program: public housing tenants were expected to contribute 20% of what they earned. In 1959, The Housing Act gave local housing authorities more power to set their own rent guidelines, and underfunded agencies attempted to meet costs by raising rent far above 20%. Ten years later, The Brookes Amendment raised the national guideline to 25%. By 1981, the Reagan Administration raised it yet again to 30%. Over time, this guideline became naturalized and was adopted as a rule of thumb for both subsidized and private housing.
Clearly, this constantly shifting “rule of thumb” is an arbitrary number imposed upon tenants by the state and the interests of the property owners. We believe that housing is a human right, and that landlords are not entitled to any percent of the working class’ earnings simply because their name is on a deed.
The Autonomous Tenants Union (ATU) is an all-volunteer organization committed to organizing for housing justice from below and to the left. As an independent collective based in Chicago, we strategize together to defend and enforce our right to dignified housing. We believe that housing is a human right not a commodity! We fight for an end to all of evictions, and for community control of housing through the building of popular power.
ATU holds monthly tenant assemblies — open to all residents of Albany Park and anyone anywhere facing a landlord-tenant crisis — the 2nd Saturday of each month, and tenant assemblies — open to the public — the 4th Saturday of every month. Asambleas are bilingual and held from 4–6 PM at 3253 W Wilson Ave with childcare provided.
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