“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ” Is this the condition that I feared?”– Seneca
I argue that there are three necessary traits that individuals must adopt if they are to be successful in attaining and maintaining affordable housing. These are: Stoic Dignity, Calculated Aggression, and Communitarian Sense, to be described below:
Stoic Dignity: Individuals caught in the throes of the Affordable Housing Crisis are often victims of antipathetic treatment by their landlords, who deliberately withhold, deny, and cease domestic services in order to drive out financially weak tenants. The tenants must not grant any leverage to such behavior. Rather than feel threatened by the degradation of their daily life, they must, in the midst of the combative process, remain resolute and unperturbed by environmental factors. Those tenants who have no qualms about suffering from the weather, power shortages, leaks, loud ambience, etc. can translate admirable stubbornness into a bedrock of action. With this “I shall not be moved” mentality, nothing short of police interference can relocate a tenant from their domicile, a measure that many more timid realtors and land lords will be unlikely to call for without a negotiation process.
Calculated Aggression: To accomplish one’s aims, one must know how to attack their adversaries where and when they’re vulnerable. Faced with eviction and unfeasible rents, a tenant community must take all necessary measures to pressure their aggressors. These can include but are not limited to:
- Protests at the offices of the aggressors.
- Letters to Congressmen addressing the issue
- Articles online addressing the issue, via online news and blog posts.
- Vandalism of antagonist property
- Appeal to Councils, City Boards, Municipal Government, and friends of the community who may have useful connections to press the issue and take action.
- Loitering, Vandalism, and Hooliganism in one’s neighborhood to decrease neighborhood appeal.
Once attention has been gained and negotiations begun, the community must, when face to face with their adversaries, be utterly relentless. Bargaining may be allowed, but only to the direct favor of the community. All arguments should proceed from reason rather than emotion, and friendliness must be extended to the adversary, to disarm them. Appeals to humanity are highly effective, but must be conducted in a deceivingly diplomatic, charismatic fashion.
All of these actions are not realistically effective unless pursued en masse. This leads to the third trait:
Communitarian Sense: To hold the greatest bargaining power, communities must be of one mind and one action. To this end, Tenant’s Unions (like the one in Crown Heights) must be formed to ensure community participations in strikes, protests, meetings, etc. . Additionally, it would be ideal if entire housing developments made the social transition into communal living. With the obliteration of individual property, and the combined efforts of all to finance rent payment of the buildings, it would become extremely difficult for any one family or individual to get evicted, supported as they would be by the aid of the majority, and protected by that majority’s potential wrath towards the powers from above. Such a unified social unit, strengthened by bonds of duty and armed with both environmental resilience and a drive for offensive action, would be the most potent force in quelling the tide of gentrification, rezoning, and real estate that threatens quotidian and domestic life.
