FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
|
|
FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
“We need to step back in time to the Tom Bradley administration, when LA first acknowledged that it had an affordable housing crisis. Like the Depression, in the 1980s, only one family in five could afford to buy a home, 200,000 families were doubled or tripled up, 40,000 families lived in garages, and 150,000 families were homeless at some point in a year.
… Since the days of LA Mayor Tom Bradley in the 1980s to date, from Washington, DC, to LA’s City Hall, the Democratic Party’s approach has been a three-legged stool: jettison zoning and environmental laws, abolish government housing programs, and bend over backwards for glad-handing real estate speculators.” —From the blog of a former city planner.
LOS ANGELES, USA — There have been changes in the Boyle Heights neighborhood. This old barrio, once home to mainly Latino and Asian families, is now seeing the rapid construction of new apartment buildings. Along major traffic corridors there are shiny new Metro rail lines. Old buildings are being renovated and rented out to new small businesses.
You might think, “Progress has come at last!” But this change displaces the working-class families that have lived here for generations. Groups of residents are fighting to simply have a place to live and to raise their children. A 2014 article gave the median income for this area as being almost half of the median income for Los Angeles County. The owners or bosses have shown no compassion or consideration to the people who have been their tenants, sometimes for generations.
When MetroLA was in the planning stage for the rail system, they had to “overbuy” land and homes to allow for possible locations of subway stations and rail lines. This made them landlords. The result is a housing market in which the residents are being squeezed out. Families seeking apartments to occupy while their old homes are renovated are finding few empty units. Those that are available are more costly.
Additionally, there is the market for “overnight accommodation” (such as Airbnb) near Downtown Los Angeles. An online search for overnight rentals in the area led to Beverly Hills phone numbers.
Outside investors have the best chance at the properties available. “Open house” listings reveal that homes now sell for almost one million dollars, if they are large and attractive. Where are working people to live, to educate their children, to work and play?
If there had been human interaction and real communication with the people most affected by the transit system, then city planners might have done things differently. They might have anticipated the rapid decrease in single-family homes and tried to prevent the increasing sales of property to non-residents. Instead, the city government has done the opposite. Using “double-speak,” language that conceals their real intent, rules and regulations are bent and broken to allow for more rapid sales and building projects.
As things are, the city government is part of the capitalist state. Time and money are most important to them and to their new bosses!
It is plain common sense that workers and their families need housing and transportation. Under a new system, one that makes decisions based on the needs and will of the people themselves, such problems will no longer exist! This system will be communism. Money, investors and landlords will be gone for good.
Ironically, the whole system of public transport in Los Angeles was built out of the pockets of the poorest sectors of the population. These grievances are spreading across the whole area. There have been recent protests in Santa Ana, a city that is also home to working-class families, mainly non-white.
Wherever land is selling more cheaply, those with more money than feelings seem to be more than willing to deal with heartless landowners and with “glad-handing” city and county officials Working-class people will not stand for this indefinitely!
If we picture a world without money, these things would not take place. The land will be used as the needs of the masses dictate. Everyone will have comfortable housing and a supportive community. We will plan new cities and new forms of mass transportation for a more collective way of life. Join the International Communist Workers’ Party in the struggle to create a better world!