Tenants Organizing as Corporations Gobble Up Housing Around the
World
By Michael
Kane
AIMCO, the landlord of Lincoln
Place, owns or manages more than 115,000 units of the U.S. Dept. of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) housing (about 7% of the entire HUD housing stock), our
local affiliates have encountered them for years.
In 1999-2000 we organized a national
campaign, coordinated press events in several cities, and a national
demonstration at their DC office during our annual conference in 1999.
We collaborated on a Sacramento Bee series
exposing AIMCO.
For a brief period
(2003-2004), the then VP for HUD housing, Chuck Turner, actually approached us
and met with our national Board in two meetings and several conference calls
(with our organizing network also) to discuss common ground (this was a period
when they were trying to dump some properties to non-profit purchasers to
consolidate their portfolio), but this dialogue ended when Turner left AIMCO
about 18 months ago. We got a few improvements at the building level in Kansas
City, New York, etc., but not much
else.
In particular, the stunning
revelation about the Deutsche Bank role in AIMCO opens up a whole vista of
potential connections and strategies, linking with a housing network in Germany,
who are focusing on the role of Anglo-American investment groups buying up the
social housing stock in Germany and converting to condominia. There are many
groups in the US who are working against AIMCO, this is a major opportunity for
collaboration.
• • • • •
The
National Alliance of HUD Tenants (NAHT) has joined the Habitat International
Coalition (HIC), a global housing rights network headquartered in Chile,
we’re the North American board rep. HIC has picked up our suggestion for
coordinated International Housing Rights Days of Action each October in
different countries and cities, timed with the UN’s World Habitat Day. HIC
has also agreed to sponsor a Working Group on the Privatization and
Globalization of Habitat, which I and others coordinate.
One current project is to raise the
themes of housing rights and anti-privatization through a demonstration and
march and other activities at the UN’s World Urban Forum in Vancouver,
June 19-23.
Michael Kane
works at the National Alliance of HUD Tenants in Boston.
Posted: Sat
- April 1, 2006 at 06:11 PM