News

Wave of Evictions Leads to Homeless Crisis in Spain

The number of Spanish families facing eviction continues to mount at a dizzying pace — hundreds a day, housing advocates say. The problem has become so acute that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has promised to announce emergency measures on Monday, though what they may be remains unclear.

Hurricane Sandy: at General Assembly, UN chief highlights challenges and lessons learned

November 09, 2012 In a briefing to the General Assembly, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today highlighted the world body’s challenges, responses and lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy, while also reiterating his call for more action in regard to climate change. “Storms and emergencies pose great tests and challenge. They may bring out the best in […]

Slum dwellers live in fear of eviction in Saudi Arabia

November 12, 2012 Close to Makkah’s Grand Mosque and the glitzy 5-star hotels surrounding it lie slums whose mostly immigrant dwellers fear they will be evicted to make way for new high rises and malls. In one such slum on Jabal (mount) Omar, humans, cats, lizards, and mosquitoes co-exist among piles of garbage, with sewage […]

U.S. Asks New York Landlords for Vacant Apartments to House Displaced Families

November 11, 2012 City, state and federal officials are trying to assemble a pool of vacant apartments in New York City that could supplement the city’s shelter system in housing hundreds if not thousands of families displaced by storm damage and power outages. Although many people have clung to their homes despite having neither heat nor […]

More than 12,000 displaced due to rains in northern Dominican Republic

November 12, 2012 Dominican emergency authorities reported yesterday that 12,365 people have been forced from their homes and more than 3,000 houses have been destroyed in flooding from intense rains across the northern part of the country over the past three days. The Emergency Operations Center, or COE, said in a communique that it decreed […]

‘Deserving’ families to get council housing priority in the UK

November 9, 2012 Homeless families will be rehoused to free up social homes for ex-servicemen and people who volunteer Working families, ex-servicemen and people who volunteer will get priority in council housing lists over those who are homeless or destitute under new Whitehall plans. Vulnerable homeless families will be rehoused in the private rented sector, often […]

One of the World’s Oldest Tribes halts Dam Construction in Malaysia

November 06, 2012 by Maxine Newlands (freelance journalist and academic researching environmental politics and the media) The controversial Murum dam in Malaysia is the first big overseas project for the China Three Gorges Project Company (CTGC) which is building hydro- and coal-fired power stations in 23 countries. So how it resolves its current conflict with […]

Bulldozers clear the way in Russia’s Olympics showcase

November 05, 2012 The workers arrived at Sergei Khlystov’s gate on a Friday evening to bulldoze his home and clear a path for sewage pipes to the Olympic village being built in the Russian city of Sochi. Khlystov and his 33-year-old son-in-law, Maxim Samokhval, at first tried to block the bulldozers but then stood aside and […]

Villagers face imminent forced eviction at a dam site in Manipur, India

November 1st, 2012 The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from the Mapithel Dam Affected Villagers Organisation and the Committee on the Protection of Natural Resources in Manipur that the villagers of Riha, Thawai, Lamlai Khullen, Chadong along the Thoubal River in Ukhrul district, Manipur are likely to be evicted by force to […]

For many, D.C. housing waiting list offers little more than hope

November 04, 2012 Ceola Lewis has been waiting a long time. In 1975, Lewis signed up for the District’s Housing Choice Voucher Program, which used to be known as Section 8. At the time, she was 19, living with her mother and working a string of low-wage jobs to provide for herself and her newborn daughter. […]