the guy by the door …

The Future of Housing Under the Current Regime:

[Photo: Courtesy of Direction Home]

What to Do About It?

Some muckahs from the Law School and;

some real people¹ from City Life/Vida Urbana

presented:

I had hoped they would say what I have been saying all along. We need a moratorium on foreclosures and we need to write down the value of these predatory mortgages.  Steve, who you can see above being arrested for Harvard labor, has lead a number of eviction blockades. He provided a very concise [ 10-minute] summary of market failures in real estate.  Melonie was one of the foreclosed upon homeowners. The lawyers represented people in both foreclosure procedings and in post-foreclosure eviction proceedings.  Law student Nicholas Hartigan, said that his hope was to get enough  homeowners resisting foreclosure and eviction to force the banks to change their way of doing business.  This is better than letting the tide of foreclosures go unopposed, but a change in bank policy is more easily undone than legislation. But in the current environment, legislation is also harder to get.

¹Anything but a One Dimensional Man, when Steve Meacham was a tenant organizer in Cambridge, between arrests, he did radical stuff like driving the truck for the food pantry. Walking the walk – it’s a good thing

The upside of growing old at Harvard is that you have young people to remind you of all the important things going on in the world. [The downside is the constant reminder that i'm not the guy i used to be.] Anyway, thanks to some Harvard Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance [BGLTSA] folks tabling outside the Harvard Science Center, i am now aware that today October 11 is National Coming Out Day. i’m thinking that the ‘Supporters’ thing means that even if you are not BGL or T, but just a boring old het, you can still wear the rainbow ribbon. You could view it as a King Christian X of Denmark thing. Or maybe you want to avoid the regrets of Pastor Martin Niemöller. Just a thought.