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Tune in now: Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1 fm....yahoo search...geo-file m...hotmail... |
What to do about rent increases:
I was born a socialist who researched the issue, extensively. Results: The socialists will never win the revolution, the christians will not end poverty, and rents will keep going up, forever. (Possibly the economy will collapse at some point, then everyone will suffer.-otherwise, rents will keep going up until the end of time.)
The recent WTO protests indicated why the anarchists will not win either. Many thousands of people organized for months to have peaceful demonstrations, but what got the news was less than a dozen vandals who took advantage of the "hands-off" anarchist mentality to steal the show. A few people vandalizing under anarchy led to a military/police crackdown on the whole area of the city, and the police had an excuse to suspend civil rights (right to assemble)
A similar thing also happened in Chechna. The people wanted an independent goverment, but they were not able to control the terrorists in their midst, so Russia's next alternative was to simply bomb everything. A similar thing happened to our project, Little Planet.
But there is a solution: Buy land. If you own land, then you aren't hurt economically when rents go up. If you want, you can even economically benefit from increasing rents. The easiest way to become a landowner is to buy it.
But for many reasons, it should be preferable to buy the land for nonprofit ownership. When land is privately owned, it is basically part of the cycle of greed of increasing rents, and it can be a huge emotional burden for the owner. Let me tell you, I've owned, I've rented, I've lived on nonprofits, and I've researched the issue extensively.
I would like this website to become a forum for discussing how we can help make things better in the future, and what to expect. The best way to prepare for the future housing crisis should be too wortk with others to buy land as a nonprofit, but it is not the easiest. Nonprofits that deal with money this much are faced with a lot of sticky fingers trying to share the wealth prematurely.
Anyway, the student co-ops were started by people who wanted an alternative to landlord owned student housing. Most students have special housing needs because they will only be in Berkeley a few years, and they can't really buy a nice place to live very easily. Having a nice place to live is so helpful for school that the lack of housing is apparently driving low -income Californians away from UC Berkeley. (I could only attend because I had established relatives in the area)
If you can imagine struggling several years to start a new nonprofit land trust dedicated to ending takerism, free land stewardship, and a non-capitalist economy, please keep in touch. I am dedicated to these principles, and was making great progress until Spring '98, when an "anarchist conspiracy" of several people successful carried out a scorched earth policy after I refused to yield to their demands.
Anyway, I've been trying to get back on my feet, and I am still dedicated to this goal, and I still have some resources to back it up. Starting this sort of elaborate community is a lot of work, but it really won't a happen until at least several people make enough of a leap of faith to get to know each other, and start casting a net to meet a few more people worth that effort. (I mean several people who want to work towards this same idea-not anarchy, but a fair economic system with democracy and written agreements and everything)
Background: I feel knowledgeable about real estate, economics, transportation/energy, politics and foreign policy. I read a lot. My education started at a 200 acred village/land trust dedicated to a free school, and I started reading very young, and mostly grew up on some rural farms surrounding a nonprofit sustainability research farm/commune. I later worked in campaigns, construction, computers, agriculture and recreation.
My degree is real estate/"urban land economics" from HAAS at U.C.Berkeley, the equicalent of an MBA from most schools. I retired shortly after graduating. Most of my life is dedicated to research (reading) and I am particularly aware of transportation/energy issues and real estate.
To clarify, I discourage private property ownership, but I became involved in a large project that started in '94, for which I bought 10 properties to hold temporarily. Instead of the project successfully started a nonprofit investment movement, it was attacked and the funds were misspent while the embezzlers used personal attacks on me as a cover for their activities. Since then, my retirement used to finance these properties has been virtually wiped out, but we can still do some great things. This organization needs to have good communication!
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higher rents?