América do Norte

Fixing the mortgage game: Hill vs. Goliath battle in Bronzeville

Published in Monday September 9th, 2013 In Social movement news

About five years later, Hill’s monthly statement from Saxon Mortgage Services Inc. increased by $500. According to Hill, Saxon explained it covered homeowner’s insurance, which her carrier confirmed she already had. Hill said Saxon led her to believe it would make the correction. Saxon subsequently returned her third payment of the usual amount, warning her account was now in arrears.

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The New Flood Insurance Disaster

Published in Friday August 30th, 2013 In Opinion

There was no question that the nation’s troubled flood insurance program needed an overhaul when Congress passed legislation last year to eliminate many of the subsidies that had put the program about $25 billion into debt. But these reforms offered too much tough love and too little compassion for flood-prone homeowners.

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South Carolina City Takes Steps to Evict Homeless From Downtown

Published in Monday August 26th, 2013 In In the media

With business owners sounding increasingly worried about the threat they believe the homeless pose to Columbia’s economic surge, the City Council approved a plan this month that will essentially evict them from downtown streets.

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Thousands of Marylanders are losing homes in second wave of foreclosures

Published in Monday August 12th, 2013 In In the media

Maryland is getting a second dose of the housing crisis — a sequel that foreclosure experts and state officials knew was coming but no one wanted to see.

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One Vermont Town Fights a Farm to Improve Housing for Migrant Workers

Published in Thursday July 11th, 2013 In In the media

In Salisbury, town officials have made the unusual choice to intervene in a case of second-rate worker housing. At a dairy farm owned by Randy and Jean Quesnel, two Latino farmworkers have been living in filth for years. The laborers, who are in the country illegally, live in a small bunkhouse affixed to the barn where they milk cows. The two-room dwelling has an open wastewater drain in the middle of the concrete floor. There’s no indoor toilet; the workers must walk past the cow stanchions to a Porta-Potty outside the barn.

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Financial Crisis Just a Symptom of Detroit’s Woes

Published in Wednesday July 10th, 2013 In In the media

As officials negotiate urgently with creditors and unions in a last-ditch effort to spare Detroit from plunging into the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history, residents say the city has worse problems than its estimated $18 billion debt.

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Group says foreclosure crisis still alive in West Seattle

Published in Thursday July 4th, 2013 In In the media

“Foreclosure isn’t a sexy topic anymore and the media doesn’t really want to talk about it anymore,” Johnson said. “They think the economy is fixing itself, and everything is getting sorted out and everybody is getting better and let’s all pretend this isn’t happening.”

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Dream home resource center – Hammer Museum

Published in Tuesday June 25th, 2013 In Mobilisation and agenda

Dream Home Resource Center, Olga Koumoundouros’s most recent investigation of home ownership, addresses the immateriality of real estate transactions and the shift from home as emblem of the American dream to house as commodity.

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City of Abbotsford, BC, dumps chicken manure on homeless campsite

Published in Friday June 7th, 2013

Homeless advocate and journalist, James Breckenridge, says the city of Abbotsford has been ‘hunting’ its homeless people for months. This week, a well known camping place for homeless – a small clearing where people live together and watch each others belongings – was hit. The city dumped and spread a significant quantity of chicken manure over the area.

Abbotsford Spreads Chicken Manure In City To Rid Itself Of The Homeless

Published in Friday June 7th, 2013 In In the media

City of Abbotsford employees have spread chicken manure over land within city limits used as a camp for the homeless. According to advocate for homeless, James Breckenridge, this is but the latest in a series of tactics used by the City in an apparent effort to keep the homeless moving.

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