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Vol. 12, no.2                  THE LITTLE WAY                      Spring 1994

While the nation is focused on crime and health care, the most critical issue has yet to surface. Nowhere is our injustice more visible than in housing.

While some advocates applaud the U.S department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Henry Cisneros’ funding initiatives to assist in the homeless and overcome racism in housing acquisition, housing activists look in horror at the continued disappearance of affordable housing and the subsequent expansion of homelessness. That the money will be coming out of low-income housing increases the absurdity. The growing separation between the rich and the poor threatens the peace, stability and the existence of our cities.

In 1970, there was a surplus of 400,000 low-income units, presently there is a deficit of more than 4.1 million and the situation worsens daily. Over 5 million Americans are suffering a net loss of over 150,000 units of affordable housing a year as their rent increases to half their income (down 15% since 1974) and t

hey are forced to live in housing that is rapidly disintegrating without adequate heat or plumbing.

Meanwhile the income of the richest 5% increases 61% while their housing subsidy increases to $100 billion a year in tax mortgage write offs!

On March 30, HUD held a conference at the Grand Hyatt Hostel across the street from the Zacchaeus Soup Kitchen. Jennifer Lyons of the Olive Branch disrupted Cisneros’ speech, alerting him to using the homeless to conceal a disastrous housing policy. His aides were soon dispatched to Zacchaeus to set up the 2pm meeting with Cisneros. Meanwhile, the Olive Branch and their supporters gathered after the soup kitchen closed to begin demonstrating outside the conference. The demonstration culminated with the arrest of Jennifer and Mike Riggs of St. Anselm’s after blocking off 11^th street.

On April 20, while the Clinton housing bill was being introduced at Eastern Market and the students of Archbishop Carroll High School demonstrated outside, Harold Moss told Cisneros that he found it difficult to reconcile a proposed 80% cut in Public Housing construction while the Secretary was saying that they would be “shoring up public housing”. Harold also made it clear that the increment of 76,000 was an insult in the face of a 5 million needed. The Secretary agreed and Harold was not arrested. On April 25, accompanied by Brian Anders, while attending the subcommittee hearing on HUD’s new bill, Harold was again forced to interrupt as Representative Louis Stokes reminded Cisneros that budget considerations took priority over people. Mr. Stokes was in turn reminded that history would record that a black man sat in a capacity to allow millions of Americans to live on the streets. Harold was removed from the hearings but was not arrested.

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