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Category: Tenant Rights

  • Berlin: Protests Against End Of ‘Rent Cap’ And Real Estate Swindlers

    The repeal of the Berlin “rent cap” by the Supreme Court means massive rent increases, arrears payments and poverty for hundreds of thousands of people. The ruling, which exacerbates homelessness amid the coronavirus crisis, has a signal effect for the whole of Germany and is emblematic of the inhuman enrichment policies of the ruling elites in Germany and Europe.

    Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, spoke on Twitter on Thursday of a “deeply disturbing judgment” and, referring to the pandemic, warned, “The German government still has an international legal obligation to respect the right to housing vis-à-vis tenants.”

    Despite the threat posed by COVID-19, more than 10,000 people took part in spontaneously organised protests that same day.

    The post Berlin: Protests Against End Of ‘Rent Cap’ And Real Estate Swindlers appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • There’s Only One State Where Falling Behind On Rent Could Mean Jail Time

    Arkansas state Rep. Nicole Clowney, D-Fayetteville, introduced a bill Thursday that would repeal the state’s criminal “failure to vacate” statute. First enacted in 1901, the law allows landlords to seek criminal charges, which can result in jail time, for tenants who fall even a single day behind on rent and do not vacate a property within 10 days. Everywhere else in the U.S., evictions are exclusively a civil matter.

    The legislation comes after a ProPublica and Arkansas Nonprofit News Network article in October revealed how criminal charges brought under the statute can snowball into arrest warrants and jail time for tenants. A deputy county prosecutor who criticized the law, saying it essentially criminalizes poverty, was fired for his remarks.

    The post There’s Only One State Where Falling Behind On Rent Could Mean Jail Time appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Housing Justice Group Puts Power Back In Tenants’ Hands

    Brandy Granados’s road to activism began in November 2018 when the heater in her Kansas City, Missouri, apartment exploded. She went without heat for two months during a winter that included multiple blizzards. She continued to pay rent, she said, but in response her landlord didn’t fix the heater; instead he tried to evict her and her children. 

    Desperate for help, she was connected with Tara Raghuveer, an area native who had returned after graduating from college with the goal of solving residents’ housing insecurity. “I figured I could either just sit there and be mad about my situation, or I could do something about it,” Granados said. 

    She was able to fight off the first eviction attempt in court, but the landlord removed her to retake possession of the house. She ended up in a homeless shelter for three months. The loss of her home has left her son suffering from anxiety and trauma.

    The post Housing Justice Group Puts Power Back In Tenants’ Hands appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.