The chapter by Tony Schuman introduced a totally new concept to me, self-help housing. I had never heard of this before and, as such, it took a while for me to understand that the self-help tradition could be applied to housing, since we have spent such a long time talking about how residents of communities are often incapable of making real change in the face of government and big businesses. Although in theory this idea is for the people by the people, like any proposal, there are shortfalls, and Schuman discusses these. Not only are the issues of wage levels and income distribution unaddressed in projects, the attitude of self-help homeowners is generally very elite even towards public housing, which can imply that the results of programs like these aren’t actually for the poor. However, it remains true that self-help organizing is an important activity for local housing activists.
The chapter by Seth Borgos discusses a protest method known as squatting, which is occupying a vacant property without permission in order to fix it up and make it livable. Borgos reports that squatting has assisted hundreds of low-income families with finding affordable housing. This ties in well to the discussion we recently had in class: We read an article explaining that there is a massive number of properties that are vacant that can be used for housing, but the government is certainly not quick to do anything about it or even present honest numbers to the public. Squatting seems like an excellent idea to carry out in the face of a government who won’t act.
The article by Desiree Fields discusses a movement for equal financing in the face of inequality that never happened but still should. She presents a shocking statistic; despite the nature of the 2008 recession, 05% of the post-recession development has gone to the top 1%. This was a very difficult article to understand as it used many terms I am not familiar with, but what I gathered is that a popular movement toward financial equality set in place by en educated public and taking from the top 1% would help to balance our economy.
