Sanders, AOC Unveil $180 Billion Green New Deal for Public Housing

The legislation aims to repair and upgrade public housing by securing renewable energy sources for approximately one million federally owned public housing units, affecting some two million people.

Safe, affordable housing is a right.

"Under capitalism, housing provision is based on what will make developers, lenders, and landlords rich -- not what average people need to survive. That’s why we’ll never get decent, affordable housing for everyone under the free market.
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"The hyper-financialization of home mortgages in the mid-2000s is perhaps the most dramatic example of how treating housing like a speculative commodity can spiral out of control, grotesquely distorting the provision of a basic necessity.

"After the 2007–2008 financial crash, many liberal capitalists argued that better regulations on the secondary mortgage market might have prevented the worst aspects of the crisis. There might even be good reason to welcome such regulations. But the constant oscillations of housing prices will never disappear under capitalism, because these boom-bust cycles are inherent to any kind of capitalist commodity."

The rest of the story: Capitalism Can’t Give Us Affordable Housing by Robbie Nelson (Jacobin)

A step in the right direction

San Francisco approved a ballot initiative, Prop C, despite opposition by incoming governor Gavin Newsom, aimed at curbing homelessness, dealing a political blow also to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who publicly opposed the measure. It's set to raise up to $300 million to fund housing, mental health and homeless initiatives by taxing large corporations. Dorsey opposed it because, he said, it could prove stifling for smaller corporations, a position that drew him into a public feud with vocal initiative backer Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.