Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
Some of you who know me might know I spent the last three years serving on the Iowa City Housing and Community Development Commission (HCDC). And I’ve been the chair of HCDC since July 2021. As I finish up my 3-year term, I wanted to write a bit about all that and about housing in Iowa City (and elsewhere!).
The short version: HCDC does great work on community problems, but it’s not built for solutions to deep or structural problems.
I’m sure many readers know I live in Iowa City. And I’m sure many people in Iowa City know landlords here run a swindle each August and September. OK, so landlords run at least a few swindles. But I’m talking about the Great Annual Security Deposit Theft.
It’s a source of much wailing and gnashing of teeth among tenants in this college town. Anger over it stood out as a key reason for our local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America to start a tenants union.
Through Commune magazine – by way of our local tenants union – I recently heard about Woodbine. It’s a space in Queens for food aid in the coronavirus era. Among other things, the Commune article discusses the rent strike, that object of lots of recent fascination.
As Commune puts it, the slogan of the nascent New York rent strike is ‘can’t pay, won’t pay.’ People in Iowa City talk about the same thing, often with the same slogan. So, what’s happening here? Is it a good time for a rent strike? If so, is it best to organize a rent strike around inability to pay rent during hard times?
I love the idea of public housing. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of you who have spoken with me about it. But many people don’t love it at all. Why? Sometimes they display racism, white fear or fragility, et al. I’m not going to spend too much time on that. At other times, they worry about crime, livability of neighborhoods, et al.
To be clear, it’s tough to disentangle the latter from the former. But sometimes people who live in public housing themselves – or who live nearby – express those concerns. That’s worth taking far more seriously.
Hi all – I’ve got a couple of upcoming public speaking events on tenants union activism! First, a brief talk with a college class. That’s not a public event, exactly. Second, a brief chat during a breakout session this Saturday at the Quad Cities Socialism Summit, hosted by the Quad Cities DSA. It’s this weekend.
Public speaking isn’t exactly my favorite thing to do, but I’ve gotten comfortable enough with it over the years.
As I’m sure some of you are aware, I’ve written about tenants unions here before. And I’m a board member of the Iowa City Tenants Union. We held our first meeting back in June, and now we’re hard at work on various issues related to security deposit theft, maintenance, discrimination, direct action, utilities justice, and housing policy.
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