1. First of all, there is no housing crisis.
2. Housing is not in crisis.
3. Housing needs no trauma counselors.
4. Housing needs no lawyers. Housing needs no comrades or friends. Housing needs no representatives. Housing needs no organizers.
5. When we call this crisis a housing crisis, it benefits the people who design housing, who build housing, who profit from housing, not the people who live in it.
6. It encourages us to think in abstractions, in numbers, in interchangeable “units,” and not about people, or about power.
7. We don’t have a housing crisis. We have a tenants’ rights crisis.
"The movement’s role is not to solve the housing crisis, it’s to win tenants more rights, to build so much power amongst tenants that we make demands not requests."
“101 Notes on the LA Tenants Union • Commune.” Commune (blog), July 19, 2019. https://communemag.com/101-notes-on-the-la-tenants-union/
Alex Bayley is a tech industry refugee, independent researcher, writer, educator and community builder. They live in Ballarat, west of Melbourne, Australia.
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