Tag Archives: Public Housing

Anti-Capitalism, China, Communism, Unions, Women

SMASH THE CUTS TO SERVICES WORKING CLASS PEOPLE NEED THE MOST!

Above: China, May 2013: Prospective tenants visit a new public rental housing complex in Shanghai. In the first nine and a half months of 2015, socialistic China had started construction of almost 7 million public housing units. The Chinese government has planned for 18 million public housing dwellings to be built or rebuilt between 2015 and 2017.

STOP THE SELL-OFF OF PUBLIC HOUSING!
MASSIVELY INCREASE PUBLIC HOUSING JUST LIKE SOCIALISTIC CHINA IS DOING!

On 16 July 2015, a speakout rally was held in the multi-racial working class Sydney suburb of Auburn to oppose the cuts by governments of all stripes to public services. The protest was held under the slogans, Smash the Cuts to Services Working Class People Need the Most! Stop the Sell-Off Public Housing. Massively Increase Public Housing – Just Like China is Doing. No to Abbott’s Squeezing of Public Hospitals and Schools. Rollback the Former ALP Government’s Cut to the Sole Parent Payment.

The demonstration was held because the capitalist big-end of town and the governments that serve them are waging all-sided attacks on the services that working class people need the most. These attacks, alongside bosses’ cuts to workers’ conditions, are making life harder and harder for working class people. Whether we are employed workers, unemployed workers, single mothers, pensioners or students, we are all feeling the pinch.

One of the crucial public services that are under attack is public housing. We need public housing because the greedy private sector developers who determine what is built in the private sector know that they can make a lot more money building expensive homes for the wealthy rather than affordable homes for the masses.

Bulli, 11 October 2014: Members of the Illawara-based Public Housing Union and pro-public housing activists from Sydney – including Millers Point residents and Trotskyist Platform supporters – protest the sell-off of yet another public housing dwelling as yuppy real estate agents conducting the sale look on.
Bulli, 11 October 2014: Members of the Illawara-based Public Housing Union and pro-public housing activists from Sydney – including Millers Point residents and Trotskyist Platform supporters – protest the sell-off of yet another public housing dwelling as yuppy real estate agents conducting the sale look on.

So we need low-rent public housing to alleviate this situation. But what are governments doing? The very opposite! From Millers Point and the Rocks in the inner city to Auburn, Bonyrigg and Claymore in western and south-western Sydney to Bellambi and Wollongong in the Illawara, the authorities are selling off or demolishing public Continue reading SMASH THE CUTS TO SERVICES WORKING CLASS PEOPLE NEED THE MOST! →

Anti-Capitalism

FIGHT FOR PROPER MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC HOUSING. STOP THE NEGLECT AND STOP THE SELL-OFFS

One of the damaged pipes that the NSW Department of Housing and wealthy maintenance contractor Spotless had left in a terrible state of disrepair at a public housing residence in Waterloo in inner city Sydney.
One of the damaged pipes that the NSW Department of Housing and wealthy maintenance contractor Spotless had left in a terrible state of disrepair at a public housing residence in Waterloo in inner city Sydney.

FIGHT FOR PROPER MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC HOUSING

STOP THE NEGLECT AND STOP THE SELL-OFFS

THE SUFFERING OF A PUBLIC HOUSING TENANT

The tenant, sixty year-old Virginia Hickey, wants her story told as she knows that many others living in public housing are going through similar experiences. Ms Hickey (known affectionately as “Aunty Bowie”) has lived in her house in Douglas Street in the inner city Sydney suburb of Waterloo for many years. She is the primary carer for two of her grandchildren and, additionally, two younger grandchildren, one with a serious diabetic condition, stay with her on weekends.

28 June 2014: Members of the Illawarra-based Public Housing Union, Millers Point public housing tenants, supporters of public housing and Trotskyist Platform rally in Auburn to defend public housing. The main rally banner reads: “Stop the Sell Off of Public Housing! Smash the Attacks on Services That Working Class People Need the Most. Massively Increase Public Housing – Just Like What China Is Doing”
28 June 2014: Members of the Illawarra-based Public Housing Union, Millers Point public housing tenants,
supporters of public housing and Trotskyist Platform rally in Auburn to defend public housing. The main rally banner reads: “Stop the Sell Off of Public Housing! Smash the Attacks on Services That Working Class People Need the Most. Massively Increase Public Housing – Just Like What China Is Doing”

The family’s ordeal actually began several years ago. Maintenance on the home was so neglected by the housing authorities that the whole place was falling apart the stove was not working, the taps were faulty and everything from the roof to the walls to the flooring were in a terrible condition. Eventually, after pressing the Continue reading FIGHT FOR PROPER MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC HOUSING. STOP THE NEGLECT AND STOP THE SELL-OFFS →

Anti-Capitalism, China

MASSIVELY INCREASE PUBLIC HOUSING! SOCIALISTIC CHINA IS DOING THAT SO LET’S FIGHT FOR THE SAME HERE!

One of China’s many new public housing complexes. Last year China started construction of over ten million new public housing dwellings.

MASSIVELY INCREASE PUBLIC HOUSING!
SOCIALISTIC CHINA IS DOING THAT
SO LET’S FIGHT FOR THE SAME HERE!

5 June 2012 – More and more of Australia’s poor are skipping meals because they can’t afford to pay for the food. In an annual survey by the Salvation Army of those who have sought its help, more than half the respondents admitted to skipping meals in order to pay for other necessities (ABC News Website, 16 May.) Other startling findings were that a third of those surveyed could not afford heating and a third could not afford medicine prescribed by their doctor.

Charities are reporting that an increasing number of people are seeking their help. Low-income people are being crippled by punishing rents and utility charges. And job slashing by business bosses are hitting working class people hard. The official spin about the supposedly low unemployment rate masks the reality that about 600,000 people are officially unemployed in this country. However, perhaps an even greater number of people are not recorded in official unemployment figures only because long-term lack of success in finding a job has discouraged them from looking for work or because they are a single parent unable to find affordable childcare. Meanwhile, one and a half million people are not able to get as many hours of work as they want to. They are not counted in the deceitful, official unemployment figures as those figures will not classify a person as unemployed if they obtain as little as one hour of work in a week. The drive of the business owners to maximize profits is forcing more and more workers into tenuous, low-wage casual jobs. That is why charities are reporting that an increasing proportion of those seeking help are not unemployed people but the working poor. These are typically people with young children who just can’t get enough hours in part-time jobs to get by or can’t make ends meet on the paltry minimum wage. Continue reading MASSIVELY INCREASE PUBLIC HOUSING! SOCIALISTIC CHINA IS DOING THAT SO LET’S FIGHT FOR THE SAME HERE! →