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The Itinerant US Left Has Found Its Home in the Occupy Movement
Far from alienating middle America, the progressive movement has captured the public and political imagination
At the auction of foreclosed homes at Queens supreme court in New York, the official carefully explained the process for one person to make an offer on another person's misery. As the bidding was about to begin on what was once the home of Valencia Williams, around 20 people stood up and started to sing: "Mr Auctioneer / And all the people here / We're asking you to call off the sale right now / We're going to survive but we don't know how."
Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement pause while cleaning up their campsites in Zuccotti Park, near the financial district of New York in October 2011. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters
As the clerk ordered them to sit down and be quiet, or face arrest, some left but others remained standing, repeating the single laconic verse. They were still singing over the clink of handcuffs, and as they were led out of the room. Each time an officer opened the door to take a protester out, the singing from the hallway would seep back in. Finally, when the room had been cleared, the auctioneer put Williams's home back on the block.
Earlier that morning, at an orientation session, the organisers spelled out their goal to the protesters. The aim was to intervene at the moment where the American dream (home ownership, individualism, social mobility) meets the American reality (poverty, corporate greed, vulture capitalism). They hoped not just to disrupt but to stop the process and force a reckoning between the antiseptic atmosphere of the auction and the grim consequences of the eviction. "We have two objectives," said one of the leaders. "To bring as much beauty to this ugly event as possible, and to shut this shit down."
The legacy of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is still in the making. Those who believe it came from nowhere and has disappeared just as quickly are wrong on both counts. Most occupiers were already politically active in a range of campaigns. What the occupations did was bring them together in one place and refract their disparate messages through the broader lens of inequality. The occupations were less an isolated outpouring of discontent than a decisive, dynamic moment in an evolving process.
Over the last decade in the US there has been an itinerant quality to the progressive left. Activists have sought shelter in the anti-war movement, Howard Dean's primary campaign, gay rights, immigrants' rights or the Obama campaign. Each more powerful and hopeful than the last; each too narrowly focused and lacking the social or economic base to sustain it. In the occupations, these political vagrants found a home.
The trouble is (as London's St Paul's protesters, whose appeal against eviction was denied last week, can testify) that while this home offered space for debate and organisation, it was no less precarious than the house of Valencia Williams in Queens. Vulnerable to harassment and eviction by the state, it was only a matter of time before they were moved on.
But while taking over public land to advocate for the public good has had an important practical and symbolic function, it was never the sole or even primary aim of the occupations. The dismantling of many encampments has not prevented the activists who were drawn to it from continuing with the work they were doing before.
Indeed, the occupations have left them re-energised and reinvigorated, with new recruits and a broader template within which to work. Accusations that they were too vague, too white and too elitist to engage with the needs of ordinary working people have been contradicted by the many concrete actions they spawned or to which they are connected.
"The occupation was always about values," explains Michael Premo, who was one of the founding organisers of OWS and involved in the action to block the auction in Queens. "It was about reconfiguring the relationship between people and profit so that people are privileged instead of profit. There's a natural affinity between those values and struggles over housing and land."
The radical Brazilian educator Paulo Freire once asked, "What can we do today so that tomorrow we can do what we are unable to do today?" The occupations have been central to creating new possibilities.
Organising for Occupation (O4O), which executed the protest in Queens, was working on issues of housing justice months before OWS emerged. "The campaigns are separate but there is some crossover," explains Karen Gargamelli of O4O. All those I spoke to in Queens had been involved in OWS in some fashion.
In Nashville, Occupy Our Homes, which came directly out of the Occupy Nashville movement, forced JP Morgan to back off the foreclosure on Helen Bailey, a 78-year-old veteran civil rights activist. Roughly half those involved in the campaign were housing activists before, explains one activist, the others came to it through the occupation.
In Portland, Oregon, WeAreOregon has been working against foreclosures for some time, and is now concentrating on persuading people to stay in their homes and not be intimidated by the banks. It has been joined by Unsettle Portland, which came out of the occupation. Earlier this month they packed an auction and helped delay the eviction of a single mother while she challenges the banks.
Polls have shown almost twice as many Americans agreed with OWS than disagreed with it. Far from alienating middle America, the movement has captured the public and political imagination. It has shifted the national debate from debt to inequality and the focus of the problem from victims of the crisis (the poor) to its perpetrators (the financial institutions). A Pew poll released in December revealed 77% of Americans believe there is too much power in the hands of a few rich people and corporations, while those who believed "most people who want to get ahead can make it if they are willing to work hard" was at its lowest point since the question was first put in 1994.
It also has the Republicans rattled. In his address to the Republican Governors Association in December, rightwing pollster Frank Luntz said: "The public … still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we're seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we've got a problem."
The relationship between the physical space that the occupation movement has held and its political efficacy has not been settled – and perhaps never will be. Its importance doesn't lie in what it means, but in what it does. It started by changing how people think about the world they live in; now it's strengthening their confidence to change it.
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40 Comments so far
Show Allhey, Gary!
articles like yours fascinate me in how closely they approach property rights, but never actually mention them...
I can't help but think that intentional, and lame...
please be clear...
should people pay to own land, or not?
should they physically fight to submission those making them buy it?
should they continue working the living world into poisonous, childless product?
I believe people should not own land, and should fight to free the land from both possession and industrial devastation...
and quickly, before the choice no longer exists, or has become moot...
Answer your own question. You figure it out for yourself. Do we need property? I'd say we need a societal convention that motivates people to defend the right to universal ownership/control of industrial production. Does this mean property rights? I think yes. Does this also mean limiting those property rights to something like ten man-powers, to practically preserve the universality of the right? I say yes. What do you think? We can't delay the mental activity too much longer while gluttonizing on petro-opiates.
Hey, rtdrury!
I did answer my question, as I have done ad infinitum in this forum...
I am challenging this author to reconcile his position on property...
I suggest we abandon the 'right' to both property and industry on September 22, 2012...
no delay in mental activity, this is a prudent and straightforward plan...
I'm waiting for others to answer...
You have weighed in with a qualified, if a bit surly, 'yes' on property and industry...
This still has you closer to my view than many, but...
While I agree with you about abolishing individual land ownership, that begs the question, which is how do we the people assemble enough power to make it so.
This article was about the strategy of establishing a social, economic and political base for a mass movement. Got anything to say about that?
Or do you fall into the accusing camp?:
"Accusations that they were too vague, too white and too elitist to engage with the needs of ordinary working people have been contradicted by the many concrete actions they spawned or to which they are connected."
I recommend this article, if you're interested in the actual work of building a mass movement:
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/24/occupy_helps_labor_win_on_the_west_coast/singleton/
Occupy is radicalizing labor, and labor can provide an economic, social and institutional base to aid Occupy in becoming a truly mass movement.
I don't think it is possible to build a movement, as there is no gold ring that appeals to all...apparently, not even a viable planet...
property, industry, chemicals, electricity...these must go...
it is now for those who see to act in numbers as large as will, again, together, to disable economy and technology...
I suggest whatever happen do so on September 22, 2012, as I believe remaining windows of opportunity are rapidly being closed...
the battle has reached the atomic level...words need not apply...we fight to live...
"I don't think it is possible to build a movement"
So you think that people will just magically get rid of "property, industry, chemicals, electricity..."?
To get large enough numbers to act you need a movement.
We the 99% cannot depend upon nor trust our own government.
The 99% are blooming this spring!
http://the99spring.com/
It is not our government. Our government has been purchased by the 1% and 'our' representatives took the bribes and are now working for their contributors instead of heeding the voice of their constituents. The whole mess is a question of morals and ethics. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are bought and paid for. They do not give any concern for you or your family; or even for the planet Earth on which we all depend for our lives.
We must face the fact of this corruption of our political system and NEVER AGAIN VOTE FOR EITHER OF THESE TWO BUNCHES OF SELFISH GREEDY PEOPLE WHO SO LACK ANY SENSE OF COMPASSION OR EMPATHY.
There are other candidates on the ballot. Do not fall for that 'lessor of two evils' lie. Vote for good, not for less evil. Our nation is sinking into a morass of greed and selfishness. Stand up and vote for what is good. Goggle Rocky Anderson for President.
How many of that itinerant left are going to wander back to the Democratic party when election time comes?
That is the modus operandi of the fake opposition party. They throw a few crumbs to their voters, but save the whole loaf for the 1%. The dems are not the lesser evil, they are just as evil. Obama is a prime example; Joe Mastercard is a prime example; Hillary is a prime example; and on and on and on.....
I would argue that they are a greater evil because by giving the illusion that there is a "lesser evil" part of the Duopoly they are able to distract and/or co-opt people who should know better and be doing other things.
I think you have a valid argument!
"It also has the Republicans rattled. In his address to the Republican Governors Association in December, rightwing pollster Frank Luntz said: "The public … still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we're seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we've got a problem."
Frank Luntz should worry. The walls of capitalism will tumble down in a horrific crash. When the anger that led to massive demonstrations in Spain, Greece, and the ME comes to a boil in the USA, it will get really ugly and violent.
Yep.
That's why indefinite military detention without trial is now federal law.
That it was passed by huge bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate tells us that our "leaders" are very aware of what's coming.
The only question which remains is whether those in the military will take their service oaths seriously enough to refuse the orders which would imprison American patriots.
"indefinite military detention ... passed by huge bipartisan majorities"
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Consider that, along with the fact that it was Obama's department of "homeland security" and the FBI that coordinated with democrat party mayors in cities from coast to coast to expel Occupy from their encampments, beat and pepper spray non-violent citizens as they exercised their first amendment rights, and then threw them in cages by the thousands ... the author was negligent not to even consider if democrats have also been rattled by Occupy.
"Consider that, along with the fact that it was Obama's department of "homeland security" and the FBI that coordinated with democrat party mayors in cities from coast to coast to expel Occupy from their encampments, beat and pepper spray non-violent citizens as they exercised their first amendment rights, and then threw them in cages by the thousands ... the author was negligent not to even consider if democrats have also been rattled by Occupy." -- Franciszek2
I agree --otherwise, the Democrats and liberals wouldn't be working as hard as they are to co-opt the movement, taking on a populist rhetoric intended to neutralize and to marginalize those of us who really are of the left.
Most of my friends are allowing themselves, again, to be fooled!
What was it Bush once said about being fooled?
Wasn't he funny?
"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me... You can't get fooled again."
-- President George W. Bush, February 18, 2002.
That's exactly the quote I was talking about in my post!!
Frank Luntz is quite correct to be scared, as Occupy has via its' own method, countered the blather he is infamous for putting out and turning into winning strategies in a relatively short time.
Itinerants:
Find your way to the streets tomorrow, FEB 28.
Be in Solidairty with Occupy to fight against police suppression.
If not, you are next on the list.
Solidarity
The occupy movement has a precedent in revival camp meetings from the 1800's. It's that old time secularism.
What Occupy has succeeded in doing is to continue the confusion between the issues of the fallen middleclass (a recent development) and the traditional poverty in this country.
This confusion spells more disaster for those who have been poor all along. Once again we are lost in the shuffle. The "solutions" for the fallen middleclass are NOT the solutions for those of us who have been poor (and invisible!) all along.
"It (OWS) has shifted the national debate from debt to inequality and the focus of the problem from victims of the crisis (the poor) to its perpetrators (the financial institutions)."
This article is about foreclosure, and yes, people being foreclosed on are victims.
Stopping foreclosures will help the people who are victims of that catastrophe, but it will NOT help those of us who have never HAD a home, and are left without.
The solution for the foreclosures is the action now..... interrupting the foreclosures. That is fine and good, but don't confuse that with the HOUSING CRISIS that has been going on for poor people for a long time now.
There is a shortfall of at least 3.5 MILLION low-income units. What is needed is a commitment to creating low-income housing, and creating the budget to do so. The HOUSING CRISIS began when Reagan cut the budget in the early 80s. Funny, that never became a "Left" issue.
The devastating budget cuts have not been fought, because it wasn't of interest to most of the "left". So, the homelessness crisis grew and grew. The Low-Income Housing budget is still being cut.... 3.8 $BILLION this year, with $6 Billion more to come. I don't hear a big protest and actions about *that*. Stopping foreclosures, as important as that is, will NOT eradicate the homelessness epidemic.
Bemoaning the fact that there are so many homeless people and a lot of empty, foreclosed homes is also a red herring. If there were some magic hand that tomorrow made those homes available to homeless people, it would just be one more inadequate and temporary solution. Those homes will NEVER be permanently given to homeless people!
What is needed is..... LOW-INCOME HOUSING.
Is there any chance of that becoming an important issue with "the Left"?
These are two different things, and conflating them continues to leave POOR people, not those who have recently fallen into difficulties, but people who have been poor all along, in the same position...... poor, homeless and ignored.
I would say that homelessness & housing for all members of our society is part of our societal obligation to Promote the General Welfare. We've been under this obligation since our 18th century Constitution became the law of the land. In fact, ALL manifestations of the welfare state would be included under the General Welfare clause, and should be pursued vigorously. The moral obligation is to FIND A WAY to make it work, NOT to find excuses for not doing it. The time has come to live up to professed ideals; to "walk it the way we talk it". A time may come when all professed upholders of these civilized ideals will have to defend them with their lives, against the barbaric, fascist global onslaught that would turn people into cattle, and slaughter the majority of them; this is brazen, bald-faced evil.
Millions of people have no home, but according to the King County assessor's office, Bill Gates's house and property were worth $113 million in 2002. It takes 10 years to earn $1 million at $100,000 a year. So it would take a person 1,130 years to earn enough to buy that house at $100,000 a year.
We need to start talking about these issues in terms of EVIL. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, the Walton, the Kochs, and all the other billionaires and millionaires in the world are evil and we should lock them up and throw away the key, and their kids, too. We can seize their assets and give them all to the poor.
"We can seize their assets and give them all to the poor."
Which poor?
Those of us who have been without housing for DECADES, or those who have recently lost their home ownership due to foreclosure?
The issue of POVERTY has been successfully obfuscated.
Of course you are right, inb, and your words are music to my ears!
However, that is NOT even the understanding of most of the "Left", let alone a priority. The thoughts and actions are stuck on middleclass.
The long term goal would be to get the right to housing into the Constitution, as many countries have done. It is a goal of the UN Bill Of Rights, and should be pushed by OWS just as much as stopping foreclosures is pushed!
The short-term goals, of course, are upping the low-income housing budget, and creating low-income housing in each location. Is there any push for this in your area? What is the local OWS doing in this regard where you are?
The right to housing is ALREADY in the Constitution. It's covered under the General Welfare.There is NO OTHER way to interpret general welfare than in that way that HELPS people to live well, and to fair well, in their daily lives. THAT is my point. We need to RECOGNIZE what it means. It's NOT a "goddamn piece of paper". That is the voice of evil talking. We need to recognize we haven't lived up to our professed ideals. We need to walk it the way we've been talking it, for the last 230 years, for ALL members of our society, ESPECIALLY the homeless/poor. Amendments are in order, to clarify & specify the particulars of our "General Welfare". Food, clothing, shelter, healthcare (including care for the aged in their retirement, and for the young, in all ways), and the people's control over the means of procuring their general welfare, or common good, or well-being, would be a good start.
How we get "from here to there" I'm not yet sure. I hope the GA's hash this out. I imagine it'll be years to come to full fruition. the seeds need to be planted NOW, however. There's no push for specifics. Like you've indicated, we need to get the issue "on the radar", starting with how SHAMEFUL it is to allow things to get to such a desperate state.
How we get "from here to there" is for voices like yours to be heard!
So far, most Occupiers are stuck on the middleclass issues. That's why I'm not involved, and why I don't use the term 99%. We poor haven't been included, so why pretend.
I'm fine with Amendments. Whatever it takes. Label it as you wish... what you are proposing makes sense, and I'm fully in support. Amendments, clarification --all good, as long as it results in Housing for ALL!
But, none of that will happen until Occupiers understand the difference between people who have been poor all along, and those who have recently fallen.
As Cat in Seattle said, we have been ignored for decades, and now the piper is being paid. The confusion is still there, and needs--desperately needs!--to be understood!
Thanks, Kanary, for several excellent posts. The Great Recession has pushed many formerly middle class people into the low income group, and this accounts for much of the new attention to inequality. It's important now to make sure that whatever solutions are offered to deal with inequality are not simply mechanisms to restore some of those formerly middle class people to their middle class birthright, while leaving everything else as it was.
I think all discussion of the Constitution is irrelevant to this. It has never included any economic guarantees, whether of housing, decent pay, etc. The intricate and lengthy Amendment process is not a useful route to decent housing for all, since the upshot -- even if it were to succeed -- would be nothing but court cases.
"Thanks, Kanary, for several excellent posts. "
Thank you for the acknowledgement. Being an outcast is lonely business.
"The Great Recession has pushed many formerly middle class people into the low income group, and this accounts for much of the new attention to inequality. It's important now to make sure that whatever solutions are offered to deal with inequality are not simply mechanisms to restore some of those formerly middle class people to their middle class birthright, while leaving everything else as it was."
May I quote you on this? Very well stated! Just one quibble.... some of us had a "middleclass birthright" many years ago. Through illness, injury, etc., we have lost that, and been LOST in the system.. and lost to "progressives". Could we ALL be restored? ALL of us, including those who were NOT born middleclass?
"I think all discussion of the Constitution is irrelevant to this."
I respectfully disagree. It is a long-term fight, but one worth it. Having these rights in the Constitution would help future generations. We *can* walk and chew gum at the same time... we *can* make the present better, and straighten out the Constitutional language. Both are needed.
Again, thanks.
Kanary----- Exactly . It was the great middle class, who in the 1968 & 1972 elections sold out and decided that Law and Order was more important than social justice.
--- Nixon got 60% of the votes and it's been downhill ever since. Now the middle class is finding out how thin the line is separating them from the poor
Yup. Hippies and blacks having freedom and gaining power scared the hell out of the middle classes. So did the perceived high crime rate.
Johnson's unpopularity due to Vietnam and race riots also helped elect Nixon, as did a newly aggressive business lobby.
The real solution to a great extend is mandatory judicial foreclosure, which means that someone must have clear title or the people who have a title keep it. Often banks have these properties so lumped together to make a pile of money of these mortgages as they're bundled together. In such cases often no clear title can be located but those living in the house. This brings all to a halt. Quite a few states used to have such laws. In one case, the Deuche Bank supposedly had title but had it in bundle and couldn't produce the title for the specific property thus the judeg ordered that the owners who had a specific titlle be allowed to remain and ruled against the Deutche Bank. That we could use a lot more of.
Also stop all this talk about a US left. We haven't had one since the 1830s with any potential for power. We've had those in the center who allied themselves with the left.
Do remember even Henry Wallace said he believed in capitlist democracy, surely a oymoron, But he was a decent fellow as was the president he served under, and he defended capitalism. We've yet to have a genuine democratic socialist get elected to the presidency or even a sizable number of senate seats. Minnesota once had a trotskyite governor who was popular in the 1930s and 1940s and aligned with the New Deal, but that's about it.
Maybe the OWS can at least broach the subject of getting rid of the source of problem, capitalism. That's the real need. Some of us have to get the ball rolling on that. The sooner the better. Capitalism can't be made good, as it isn't any good. It destroyed the natural and extended family replacing it with a marketing unit known as the nuclear family. We need to talk about that. Much of our problems are rooted in that. When that came out of society, it was easy for the "There is no such thing as society" mad mind set to come to the fore and ultimately be lionized when we should have rode out of town on the rail everywhere on this planet.
Interesting cheerleading, and maybe partly correct. I certainly hope so. But Occupy has not been entirely successful in all places, in some communities they have only succeeded in turning away people who would otherwise love to join the fight for economic equality and justice. A strictly peaceful movement protesting in public places and not overtly violating straightforward and well-accepted laws has a great deal of support from everybody. The violent types, and those who talk Occupy into illegal activities that only harm their connection to the real 99%, are a great threat to the viability of Occupy, and in some places have already done great harm. I wish I didn't live in one of the latter places.
"The violent types" .... you mean the police? Certainly you're not referring to unarmed citizens who chose to defend themselves from being brutalized by the heavily armed and armored militarized police thugs deployed by the state?
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What do you consider to be "violent"? Barricading streets? Tying up traffic? Disrupting someone's work day? Demonstrating? Exercising your First Amendment righs? Setting up an encampment? (USA Today implied that was in fact an act of violence in a November 14 article) ... what about defending yourself or another person from violence? Is self defense violent?
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Is getting arested an act of violence (not by the cops ... but by the person being arrested ... once again USA Today implied that only those on the "violent fringe" are the ones that get arrested) ?? Breaking a window .. is that violent? Disobeying the authorities? Refusing to recognize the authority of unconstitutional but "straightforward and well accepted laws" like the patriot Act? Generally disrupting the status quo .... violence?
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"the American dream (home ownership, individualism, social mobility)"
That's a mixed up bag of ideas, with the wrong connotations attached, naturally. And the media should be calling it out for what it is.
The need for home ownership stems from the need for self-determination. The people cannot have their personal visions/agendas stymied by elites. They must have the balance of individual and collective initiative. Home ownership, which includes enough space to produce necessary food/materials, i.e. ownership of production, must be a civil right, to enable individual initiative. Notice how this provides for shelter and health also as civil rights. If you look into it further, it also enables sustainability, and wildlife rights. Collective initiative is enabled through participation in public policy.
Universal ownership/control of industrial production and public policy are The People's Agenda. This is non-negotiable. This will remain The People's Agenda, forever. This will remain in the top priority slot, with utmost prominence. Call it "the benevolent dictator to trump all benevolent dictators".
There is a healthy type of individualism that serves community. Learn the difference between the healthy type and the unhealthy type.
Social mobility cannot be justified. That implies class hierarchy. We're working to replace that with a flat class structure. Hierarchy of ideas, yes. Hierarchy of people, no. The news today is that we're making great progress. The distractions keep coming, but we keep deflecting them, more easily by the day. Exciting times for the people. Doom/despair for elites.
I am wondering how other "developing" countries are dealing with this housing issue. They don't seem to have the rampant homelessness this "developing" country has and they have worse financial issues than we do (Iceland for one who has virtually no homelessness). They are capitalists, they are not even as rich as we supposedly are. What is the difference that allows their people to have homes while ours do not?
As was mentioned upstream from my comment, poverty is not just suddenly happening with "the falling middle class and home ownership." We have had homelessness as an embarrassment to our so-called "lucky ducky poor" for decades now.
Occupiers need to consider the long term devastation this nation has imposed on the poor not just address what has recently manifested itself. Like an untreated cancer this issue has been festering for a long time, at least 4 decades. That it is now spreading and showing alarming symptoms is telling us it has to be immediately removed deep to THE SOURCE. At this stage you cannot just slap a bandaid over it when it has been ignored and allowed to grow until it is at Stage 5 and the patient is dying.
Occupiers need to begin to address the homeless FIRST, then the ones losing their homes. They can do this by uniting with the homeless and demanding affordable housing. At the very least the ones losing their homes are then able to go to another more affordable home by joining the ones who are already where these home owners are headed.
My low income and homeless friends in NYC have addressed it but we do not see THIS on the media radar. They have done some very sophisticated work that was done by mostly the homeless with the Poverty Initiative Group:
These homeless were told by 6 figure city planners what they eventually accomplished was "impossible" to do when in fact it only proved the 6 figure planners were in essence "doing nothing" for their generous wages.
These enterprising people have found and documented literally thousands of empty properties in in all their neighborhoods. Then they tracked them and put them on a database to prove the reasons for homelessness was far from the cry there is not enough housing to go around. That is a myth. This untreated cancerous condition is about allowing the 1% and the banks to simply let their properties to lie empty and make a profit rather than be compelled to use these properties to create vibrant neighborhoods. It would more than adequately cover all the homeless on the streets of NYC.
Furthermore they said this is the practice in other cities too.
The work is already done, the database created and it is free, it is simply needed to track these things in other cities to show the same to their own city planners and council members. If half the Occupiers did what a couple hundred of these low income people did who canvassed the entire city of NY, they could prove the lack of affordable housing is prevalent in most if not all cities. then these people losing their homes would at the very least be moving toward housing that is more affordable.
Here is the press conference given in January that is being ignored, it is long but worth your time if you want to truly do something constructive about housing in this nation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvwu4eN0CSw&list=LLnXU4R0Cu6v9VXigeflGvqA&index=4&feature=plpp_video
Cat in Seattle
This debate between the "always poor" and the "newly poor" is exactly why the American Left needs to re-establish itself as a party or organization that challenges the capitalist system in favor of a new type of "democratic socialism" or "economic democracy." (Michael Moore called it plain old "democracy" in his movie "Capitalism: A Love Story," but that's probably not a clear enough break from the status quo.)
We can't "solve" poverty in America without radically restructuring society, and we can't radically restructure society without a clear alternative. Not to mention the minor issues of climate and the empire.
All the one-issue groups and the multi-issue coalitions are fine, but at the end of the day, where do we want to go, and how will we get there? Who is with us and who is against us? If the balance of forces is currently unfavorable, how do we transform that balance? Speaking in the name of the 99% is one thing; making it real is a whole other project. We had better be ready for the long haul.
More democratic 'Deck Chair Re-arranging' committee work.