Vol. 74/No. 33      August 30, 2010

Only 455 vouchers and 200 public housing spaces are available and applicants could only hope to get placed on the waiting list. Located in the Atlanta metropolitan area, East Point has a population of 40,000.

“It’s ridiculous out here,” Ashley Philips, 25, told the Wall Street Journal. “People are talking about, ‘Go find a job.’ But there are no jobs.” Jacquelyn Cuffie, 50, noted, “It’s difficult to pay [the rent] with a disability check.”

Some camped out for close to three days in temperatures that neared 100 degrees. Under these conditions, a number of people collapsed in the heat.

The local police were in riot gear. Officers from four other police agencies were also out in force.

After waiting hours in line, housing personnel and the cops abruptly reorganized the crowd, forcing many to lose their position.

In the confusion that ensued 62 people were injured, as police enforcement incensed the crowd with pushing and shoving. “Renee Gray, a single mother holding her one-year-old daughter, came looking for a housing break and nearly got trampled,” reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

At least 60 people were taken to the hospital because of the heat or scuffles; some were carried out on stretchers.

Lisa Potash, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia, campaigned in East Point the weekend after the applications were distributed.

“The fact that people were left standing in the hot sun for hours and treated without respect is an example of the day-to-day indignities that working people are faced with. The housing stock should be made available to all based on human need, not profit.”

Other cities that have opened their subsidized housing waiting lists have also had thousands of applicants. This summer the Chicago Housing Authority opened its list for the first time in a decade. Nearly 100,000 applied online the first day. Within the four-week window to apply, 215,000 people did so.

Eligibility for Section 8 housing is limited. A family’s income cannot exceed 50 percent of the median income for the county or metropolitan area in which they choose to live. Subsidies are paid directly to the landlord by the housing authority and families pay the difference between the actual rent charged by the landlord and the subsidy.
 
 
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Housing should be a right  
 
 
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