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I Will Fight For Universal Homes - editorial in this week's Waterford News & Star!

#WeAllThrive #Democratise #Decentralise #Decarbonise #Waterford #EcoSocialist #Progressive #Independent #GE2024 #IrishElection #Democracy #UniversalHomes #HousingForAll #HousingCoops #RentControls #PublicHousing
A photo of a sponsored editorial in Waterford News & Star which reads: Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have failed our generation. Many of those I know struggle to afford rent despite having good jobs. Others were pushed out of the country, away from their communities, friends and families, in order to be able to obtain a better quality of life in Sydney, Vancouver, or elsewhere in Europe. I always tell people that I am experiencing the ‘Irish Dream’ of living with my parents in my late twenties; just like roughly 2 in 3 people my age (68% of those who are 18-34 years old). Everyone knows that these parties continue to ruin our chances of getting a home, and it’s easy to point out their economic illiteracy (or nefarious incompetence) in housing policy, but it is a much more challenging task to highlight a radical, positive, and tangible alternative vision for a better housing system. In this editorial, I will attempt to do so; in detailing this, I bring my experience in tenants’ unions in recent years, both as an active member of Living Rent Tenants’ Union in Scotland and as a founding member of CATU (Community Action Tenants’ Union) Waterford, in addition to my personal experience living and renting in various cities and countries throughout Europe. I have extensively researched the various housing models in existence across the world, and one stands out for its complete success in avoiding a Housing Crisis despite existing within an economy built on Western values and facing a large population increase in recent years; the Vienna Model. We know the ingredients which allows Vienna’s housing system to thrive; a mix of expansive near-universal public housing (80% of Vienna’s population qualifies based on income limits), support for housing co-ops, and stringent rent controls which set a maximum rent for each property based on a rent index designed by local government. Taken together, this represents a conscious and complete rejection of the financialisation of homes wh…
November 19, 2024 at 7:41 PM