National Housing Work Group

Who We Are

CRNHR’s Social Housing Work Group (a.k.a. PETRA or RHRA Opposition) began meeting in 2008 to create an avenue for grassroots groups and like-minded housing rights organizations and advocates to collectively respond to the defunding and selling off of our public housing.  We believe that public housing is an invaluable community resource that can serve as part of the solution to the affordable housing crisis we face today and that federal privatization and deregulation policies jeopardize the long-term sustainability of this public good.

Goals

  • Preserving and expanding public and subsidized housing through publicly-accountable and equitable reforms.
  • Building leadership, unity and power amongst the people most impacted by federal housing policies.
  • Changing the perception of and ending the criminalization and abuse of our communities.
  • Developing models of participatory development built upon human rights principles.
  • Ensuring the human right to housing is enforceable in the United States.

Our Demands

Enact Equitable and Publicly-Accountable Housing Finance Reforms

  • Prioritize basic housing needs before corporate and wealthy homeowner tax breaks and profits. Begin by replacing the Mortgage Interest Deduction with a tax credit and use the $400 billion saved over 8 years to fully fund and expand public and Section 8 housing.
  • Ensure tenants have the right to enforce organizing rights and are protected from intimidation and retaliation.

Stop Community Destruction and Displacement

  • Enact a moratorium on all demolitions and dispositions of publicly-funded units until federal law guarantees like-for-like replacement, affordability rates and right to return.
  • End destructive policies, including the Obama Administration’s Transforming Rental Assistance initiative and the HOPE VI and Choice Neighborhoods programs.
  • Overturn the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 deregulations that moved away from 50 years of federal responsibility for decent housing for all.
  • Repeal laws that criminalize our communities and lead to “housing push-out,” including the “one-strike” law.

Preserve and Expand Tenant Organizing and Management Rights

There ARE equitable and publicly-accountable alternatives to the privatization and deregulation of our low-income housing programs and we are organizing nationally to win them.  To learn more or get involved, contact us!