Category Archives: social justice
W.E.B. Du Bois’ Essay “Of Work and Wealth” in “Darkwater”
Labor Membership Boosts Incomes, Families And Economy
“A new report presented by the Center for American Progress co-authored with economists Richard Freeman and Eunice Han is only the latest look at how labor unions enable working people to do better. The report, “Bargaining for the American Dream: What Unions do for Mobility,” looks at “economic mobility” and “intergenerational mobility” and finds that mobility is better where unions are strong….
“The study found that areas with higher union membership demonstrate more mobility for low-income children:
● Low-income children rise higher in the income rankings when they grow up in areas with high union membership.
● An increase in union density is associated with an increase in the income of an area’s children – as much as or more than high school dropout rates.
● Children of non-college-educated fathers earn more if their father was in a labor union….”
Richmond Becomes First City in Contra Costa to Approve Rent Control
“In a raucous meeting that lasted more than six hours and drew hundreds of people, the City Council early Wednesday made Richmond the first city in Contra Costa County to enact rent control.”
More at Contra Costa Times
“Americans” Are Progressive
Great speech by Elizabeth Warren:
“The American people are progressive and our day is coming. Our values are America’s values, and America’s values are progressive values.”
Criminalization of Queer People Worldwide
While celebrating the gains of queer people, such as the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriages, I feel it’s important to remember that you can still be arrested for your sexual orientation in 75 countries and punished by death in 10 countries around the world.
San Francisco Opens First Homeless Shelter for LGBT Youth
The best news I saw this Queer Freedom season was the San Francisco opening of “Jazzie’s Place”, amazing apparently the first homeless shelter for queer youth in the world.
Thanks to Gary Sponholtz for this great video of the ribbon-cutting event!
Fewer Poor Uninsured After Health Law, Study Finds
Obamacare has been (and continues to be) an unequivocal success story at obtaining health coverage for poor folks in the U.S. according to recent findings by the National Health Interview Survey, confirming earlier polling by Gallup and others:
“In all, about 32 percent of poor Americans were uninsured in 2014, down from 39 percent in 2013. The share of near poor Americans who were uninsured declined to 31 percent from 39 percent.
“In states that expanded Medicaid, the share of people under the age of 65 who were uninsured stood at 10.9 percent in 2014, down from 14.9 percent the year before. In states that did not expand, where uninsured rates were higher to begin with, the share dropped far less, to 16 percent from 18.4 percent in 2013.
“Mr. Levitt said the law seemed to have had a greater effect on the long-term uninsured. The report found that the share of Americans uninsured for more than a year dropped to 9.7 percent from 12.4 percent, compared to a drop of about one percentage point for people who had been uninsured for just part of the past year.”
More at NY Times
Immigrants for Sale
An enlightening film about CCA and Geo, the for-profit prison corporations lobbying through ALEC to detain immigrants and continue the trend of overwhelming incarceration in the USA, which now has the highest per capita prison population in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SonJYh4yl2M
No longer available…
Limited Land Supply Drives Mission Housing Moratorium
Why a Mission Housing Moratorium makes sense:
“A new report released Friday shows just how limited the land is in the neighborhood and what is likely to occur if development is not “paused,” helping to explain why Mission community leaders are fighting for the proposal.
There are currently 13 sites located in the Mission on which 40 or more units of additional housing could be developed, the report from The City’s budget analyst found. These are considered the key parcels for nonprofit below-market-rate developers who can receive federal funding for developments of that size.
Supporters of the moratorium want The City to buy these parcels. These sites could generate a total of 851 below-market-rate units. But if developed by private developers, just 102 of the 851 units would be offered at below market rate. And that’s only if the builders elect to meet The City’s housing construction requirement that 12 percent of the units on site are offered at below market rate. Developers can also pay fees to skirt that requirement.
There are also 324 sites in the neighborhood on which five or more units of additional housing could be developed. If all of these sites were developed, that’s 4,240 new housing units. Looking at historical trends, just 293 of the more than 4,000 units would be offered at below market rate.
In the past five years, 60, or just 9.6 percent, of the 627 units constructed in developments of all sizes in the Mission were offered at below market rate, the report said. The report also found that of the below-market-rate units built in the Mission between 2010 and 2014, none were for those of the lowest income levels, but instead lower and moderate incomes.
There are currently 90 developments comprising 1,227 new units planned for the Mission, of which 1,060 are covered by city development requirements. If developers include 12 percent of those 1,060 units at below market rate, that would be about 127 homes.”
More at SF Examiner