Public Comment

The ugly daily reality of the nationwide housing crisis is forcing new leaders to organize around the vision of housing as a human right. Oakland’s #moms4housing is a protest against global corporate investment groups that are buying up and hoarding housing – NOT to shelter people but to shelter billions in investment money while sprawling homeless encampments grow nearby, along with sky high rents and housing insecurity.

No political party protects workers from the death grip of corporate predators. A national epidemic of evictions, homelessness, and housing insecurity is spreading to every region of the country. In California, over half of renters pay over one third of their income for housing, and over a third pay more than half. Hundreds of thousands are homeless.

To build an effective movement we need to understand the real cause — the capitalist economy that is failing us. Why? Because automation dominates the production of things everywhere across the world. Robots cost less than human workers, so jobs are disappearing as we speak, and they are not coming back. Together these situations have caused the rise of the broadest and deepest movement for housing in the history of the U.S. Oakland’s #moms4housing are the latest expression toward unity that are beginning to overcome the scattered, divided, and localized nature that has characterized the struggle so far. Women are standing against corporate predators and taking steps toward a new economy that puts human beings and the planet first.