October 23, 2007 marks one year since the rise of the Umoja Village Shantytown in the Liberty City section of Miami in response to the crisis of gentrification and low income housing. In the year since this "people power" action, much has changed and much more remains the same. Black and other poor communities are ravaged by the crisis of gentrification and low-income housing while the same government which extracts taxes from us, does nothing to alleviate the crisis. One year later, the issue of community control over land remains fundamental in solving the crisis.
As the real estate bubble explodes around us, vacant foreclosed homes litter our communities and speculators choose to hold onto vacant houses and apartments, waiting for the next market swing in order to make their millions. For it's part, in spite of all the scandal and crisis, Miami-Dade County doggedly maintains an unconscionable and immoral stockpile of vacant public housing units, units which otherwise would shelter some of the 41,000 families languishing on the housing assistance waiting list.
All the while, the homeless population grows, particularly among the "under-housed," those not living on the street, but doubling and tripling up in single family homes, including public housing, where the extra families live illegally, endangering the housing security of the entire extended family, sometimes right next door to a boarded up, vacant unit.
We are forced to conclude that Miami-Dade County intentionally leaves units vacant, or tears down public housing all together- exemplified by the HOPE VI funded Scott-Carver public housing project demolition- as a means of fueling the real estate "boom." When governments take units of low-income housing off of the market, the value of the remaining privately held units increases, as families scramble to find new living arrangements. This is nothing short of tax financed market manipulation, designed to decrease supply at a time when demand is sky high, resulting in a government sponsored- not market driven- real estate "boom."
In the end, human beings are homeless because developers and speculators seek to profit from the misery of the poor. The laws allow it and the government provides direct assistance. There should be no right to profit from human misery.
In spite of the crisis, scandal and controversy, the reality is that local governments continue to enrich wealthy developers and have intentionally failed to address this crisis in any meaningful way. Neither Miami-Dade County nor the federal government operates based on the interests of poor Black people. As such, we are left with no other option than to provide for the people for whom the government is not providing.
Take Back the Land, again, asserts the right of the Black community to control land in the Black community. In order to provide housing for people, not for profit, this community control over land must now take the form of direct community control over housing.
Consequently, Take Back the Land has initiated the process of moving families and individuals into vacant housing, whether public, foreclosed upon or privately owned and intentionally vacated.
As of this writing, several families have already been moved into housing and several more are desperately awaiting their turn. We will move families and individuals into vacant housing units all across Miami-Dade County.
Housing is not a privilege reserved for the wealthy. Housing is a human right, and we, hereby, assert our humanity.
Miami Herald Story on the Housing Takeover by Take Back the Land: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/282253.html
forward,
Max Rameau
Take Back the Land
a project of the Center for Pan-African Development
www.TakeBacktheLand.net
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