#renters reform bill

[chriswhodrawsstuff]

The bloke on page 8.

I spend a lot of time trying to fight injustice and failing spectacularly. It’s usually just me, you see, and as my nemesis is usually the British government in some form or another, ‘just me’ is rarely enough people to make much of a dent in a monolithic concern like the neoliberal government that has run this country into the ground since the late 1970’s. Today, a document arrived in the…

[fitzrovianews]

'No fault' evictions increased by 52 percent in London in the year to March 2024

The number of “no fault” evictions in London increased 52 percent in the last year — more than five times the rate seen in the rest of England and Wales, a City Hall analysis reveals. Sadiq Khan said the data showed how the Government’s failure to ban the evictions — also known as section 21 notices — had been a “huge betrayal”. Section 21 notices are used by landlords to evict tenants with two…

[landlordsassociation]

How increase your tenants rent?

[afloweroutofstone]

It's simple, we build massive amounts of public housing, loosen zoning laws, replace property taxes with land value taxes, directly promote the creation of housing co-ops and community land trusts, end homelessness through housing first approaches, create a land registry to eliminate the need for title insurance, establish a national renters' bill of rights, replace the home interest deduction with a progressive tax credit on primary residences, and implement 20-30 other reforms. Housing fixed

[ayeforscotland]

This is perhaps a bit off topic for your blog - but how do you think the new UK government is going to handle rental reform?

I'm currently renting and have been advised to get a pet for my mental health. But my landlord won't allow it. With the rental reform bill dead, I'm not sure what recourse renters have any more. Any thoughts?

Don’t think it’s off topic at all, and sorry to hear that your landlord is denying you a pet.

The answer is, unfortunately, that I do not know. I don’t think Labour have given much indication they are pro-tenant, given their general ambivalence towards social housing construction.

I’m not sure if you have any recourse with things the way they are. Sorry, I know that’s not the answer you want to hear.

[tweetingukpolitics]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rachel M. Cohen at Vox:

For years, the easiest thing to do about building new housing was nothing. The federal government largely deferred to state and local governments on matters of land use, and states mostly deferred to local governments, which typically defer to their home-owning constituents who back restrictive zoning laws that bar new construction. That’s slowly changing as the housing supply crisis ripples across the country. Experts say the US is short somewhere between 3.8 million and 6.8 million homes, and most renters feel priced out of the idea of homeownership altogether. The lack of affordable housing is causing homelessness to rise.

In Washington, DC, Congress has held more hearings on housing affordability recently than it has in decades, and President Joe Biden has been ramping up attention on the housing crisis, promising to “build, build, build” to “bring housing costs down for good.” But it’s at the state level where some of the most consequential change is taking place. Over the last five years, Republican and Democratic legislators and governors in a slew of states have looked to update zoning codes, transform residential planning processes, and improve home-building and design requirements. Some states that have stepped up include Oregon, Florida, Montana, and California, as well as states like Utah and Washington. This year, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey passed state-level housing legislation, and Colorado may soon follow suit.

Not all state-level bills have been equally ambitious in addressing the supply crisis, and not all states have been successful at passing new laws, especially on their first few tries. And some states have succeeded in passing housing reform one year, only to strike out with additional bills the next. Real housing reform requires iterative and sustained legislative attention; it almost never succeeds with just one bill signing. Trying to determine why exactly a housing reform bill passes or fails on the state level can be difficult, though advocates say it certainly helps when a governor or other powerful state lawmaker invests time and political capital in mobilizing stakeholders together. Given that housing challenges are not spread equally across a state, sometimes it can be hard to decide whether to pass statewide laws that apply equally to all communities or to pass more targeted legislation aimed only at certain areas. Partly due to pressure from voters and from more organized pro-housing activists, legislative trends are starting to emerge. More states and housing experts are thinking not only about passing laws to boost housing production, but also about how best to enforce those laws, close loopholes, and demand compliance.

States can make it easier to build more housing in a wider variety of places

While states typically grant local communities a lot of discretion in land use policy, more lawmakers are realizing that balance may have tilted too far. As researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis outlined last fall, some states are now looking to increase housing production by enabling more multifamily housing and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to be built without having developers first seek approval from local planning agencies or elected boards. This accelerated construction process is known as building “by right.”

For example, Oregon passed a law in 2019 allowing fourplexes (a multifamily home that typically houses four families under one roof) to be built anywhere in large cities and for duplexes to be built anywhere in mid-size cities. Before, a developer would have needed to seek special permission to build such housing. States like Utah and Massachusetts are incentivizing the construction of new multifamily housing near public transit, while states like California and Florida are making it easier to build residential housing in places zoned for retail. Other states, like Maine and Vermont, are making it easier to build ADUs, which are second (and smaller) residential units on the same plot of land as one’s primary residence, like apartments or converted garages.

Vox reports on how states are finally beginning to step on solving the housing crisis.

[mariacallous]

Climate change and its related disasters have brought a new set of risks to homeowners, renters and the value of property—but also a chance for change. The multiple challenges posed by these disasters offer an opportunity to reevaluate our housing policy, especially concerning making traditional housing markets more effective and inclusive.

Among the many sectors and industries requiring climate solutions, stable and affordable housing is critical to developing disaster resilient communities. Despite the need to prepare for a climate-changed future, structural reform in the housing sector is an underused tool for helping communities develop ways to better endure disasters. This is particularly true in the many Black-majority neighborhoods that are more vulnerable to disaster impacts.

Housing issues often amplify the impacts of a disaster on Black communities

Black communities, which are often more vulnerable when floods, fires or disasters occur, often bear the brunt of climate impacts due, in no small part, to poor quality housing and community infrastructure. Yet, many of these same communities have limited control over local housing decisions, exacerbating their vulnerability.

These neighborhoods, often situated in historically devalued areas with poorer quality infrastructure in which homeowners have fewer resources to draw on, face unique challenges when disasters occur. As the damage from floods, storms, and wildfires becomes more severe, the economic security of homeowners in the most disaster-prone areas is threatened by rising insurance premiums in addition to damage to assets and a reduction in home equity, which all eat away at a family’s wealth. Homeowners in cities like Charleston, for example, are likely to face hefty costs to stay dry, such as the expense of raising foundations.

In the most at-risk areas, like low-lying coastal plains threatened by sea level rise, climate-related disasters are undermining the viability of entire neighborhoods. That impact is sometimes increased by city councils that are reluctant to invest in adaptations to the built environment — buildings, design codes and other human-made conditions — that could lower the threat posed by a disaster.

But housing quality can also indirectly amplify the impacts of disasters. Poorly insulated housing, for example, can increase the cost of heating and cooling during temperature extremes and raise healthcare costs when, for example, residents expose themselves to health risk to avoid a high AC bill.

Community-led solutions can help reduce impacts of disasters

Giving residents a voice in housing development processes and decisions can jump-start local efforts to mitigate the effect of climate disasters. Initiatives like Struggle for Miami’s Affordable and Sustainable Housing and the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative exemplify how community-driven approaches can bolster housing resilience and protect vulnerable populations. SMASH, located in Miami-Dade County, uses community land trusts to give residents an opportunity to have more control over their neighborhood. Recognizing that those who experience housing challenges are often best placed to lead the efforts to fix them, SMASH helps residents to weatherize their properties against climate extremes and works with property owners and local governments to stop evictions during disasters.

JPNSI, operating in some of the most disaster-prone areas of New Orleans, advocates for policy change to better protect renters’ rights after a disaster strikes. By building coalitions of local Black, Latino, women, youth, elderly residents— some of the most vulnerable groups across the city — JPNSI has succeeded in changing local regulations. These changes address two of the largest sources of insecurity before, during, and after climate-related disasters: a disproportionate number of short-term rentals and high rates of eviction.

What these initiatives share is the use of community-led action that, by addressing housing inequities, helps lessen a community’s vulnerability to disaster.

The urgency of addressing disaster-induced housing insecurity:

As temperatures rise, intensifying the frequency and severity of climate-related disasters, housing insecurity is likely to escalate the most for households and communities where housing is already precarious. From 2019 to 2023, there were 102 separate billion-dollar climate-related disasters, at an average cost of $122.5 billion per year. Disasters amplify displacement, highlighting the urgent need for proactive measures to safeguard housing stability.

In the most exposed places, like Miami-Dade County, Florida, climate-related displacement is one of the largest threats to Black communities. Census data indicates that roughly 3.1 million adults were displaced by disasters in 2022, 1 million of whom came from Florida, displaced by Hurricanes Ian and Nicole. In the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metro area, 39.6% of the displaced population was Black, far exceeding the proportion of Black residents in the area at 19%, and higher than the percentage of displaced Latino residents (37.8%) and white residents (18.8%).

Without structural reforms, disasters could exacerbate housing affordability issues, pricing residents out of ‘safer’ areas, and further marginalizing Black households. In high elevation neighborhoods, such as Little Haiti in Miami, where a luxury real estate development is already planned, residents fear that they will be pushed out. There is a growing concern that cities could see a new form of displacement, “climate gentrification.” The controversial term, used by some researchers, describes what occurs when residents of relatively wealthy communities, finding their higher valued neighborhoods becoming unlivable due to events such as sea-level rise, begin buying-up property viewed as less at-risk, driving up costs and pricing out the original residents.

These challenges demonstrate that structural reform in the housing sector is a linchpin to supporting residents of Black neighborhoods to strengthen their communities. By reframing housing as a vehicle for social equity, we can reduce the adverse impacts of climate-related disasters and empower marginalized communities.

Investing in community-led disaster resilience

By integrating housing reform into broader disaster preparedness strategies, we can build resilient neighborhoods from the ground up, ensuring the preservation of Black communities’ integrity and vitality. Initiatives like those led by SMASH and JPNSI, still nascent across most of the U.S., are demonstrating the potential of structural reforms in the housing sector to reduce vulnerability to disasters, protect communities from mounting costs and diminish the threat of disaster-related displacement.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Cruelty As The Point

So, okay. This is the point at which I really have to stay away from the news for awhile.

Story I caught on the BBC. Woman, 56 years old, gets told by her landlord that she's being evicted. Why? Well, technically there doesn't even have to be a reason. It's called "no fault eviction", and while a Renters' Reform Bill was signed off last week, the abolition of no-fault evictions (which was promised to us by Michael Gove) was sort of postponed indefinitely. Anyway, the reason he gave was "I want to bring this place in line with the fire code", but ... I mean ... shouldn't it have been already? And even if it wasn't, couldn't he have just ... got her to stay in alternate lodgings for a few months while he fixed it? My thinking is that he pulled something that sounded less like greed out of his arse, and his actual plan was to slap on a coat of paint and put it back on the rental market at way more than he was getting from this lady.

Anyway. This lady is obviously distraught. She can't afford a deposit and first month's rent on a new place at this point. So she turns to her local council. See, that's how it's supposed to work. If you are in real need of housing, you are supposed to be able to apply for council housing. Thing is, Margaret Thatcher gave everybody the right to buy their council house / flat from the government ages ago. Which you'd think would be good, because everyone deserves to have a secure permanent home, buuuuuut ... she kind of didn't build any new ones to replace the ones that tenants bought. So there are very, very few council properties available, and so the queue to get one is hugely long. However, if you have sufficient need, you can get nudged to the head of the queue ... if the bean-counters at the council office agree that you have sufficient need. And their criteria is ... well.

This woman who'd turned to the council as her last hope got a letter in return, just before her actual eviction date. And it said, and I am not paraphrasing here (at least not any more than the BBC did), "We have determined that you would tolerate being made homeless or remaining homeless, and are therefore not a priority." And thus they turned her down.

They determined that a 56-year-old woman would be fine literally sleeping on the streets, and turned her down without any kind of listing of where else she might be able to receive help.

The BBC and several others called the council on this absolute horror, and are also checking with others in that council to see what kinds of letters they got. The council's response was effectively, "We could have worded that better, and will take care to do so in the future, but she really wasn't a priority".

This country makes me fucking sick. Like, literally. I had a massive discount on an order from my favourite Indian place that I needed to use, so I had my favourite Indian meal, and now I'm not sure I will be able to keep it down, because the sheer fucking cruelty of so much of the leadership of this country is literally making me want to throw up.

I can't even think what would cheer me up at this point. Suggestions on a postcard, please; I can't take the absolute sickening despair of living in a country that so actively wants people to suffer and die.

Oh, if you also want to be depressed? The article.

[tomhardysurinal]

Renters Reform Bill sounds kinda shit tbh?!

So in tenant's favour:

no more section 21 evictions

landlord has to "reasonably consider" (🙄🙄) requests to have a pet on the property. They can also add the caveat that the tenant must have insurance to make sure the pet doesn't damage the property (🙄🙄)

Can't be refused for being a benefit claimant

In landlord's favour:

Can only evict if they intend to sell, move a family member in, if the tenant "willfully refuses" to pay their rent, or if the tenant is "antisocial" (come onnnn 😂 see below)

No measures to tackle rent hikes

Greater ability to evict "antisocial" tenants. A parallel tory framework for "tackling antisocial behaviour" btw is defining antisocial behaviour by "any behaviour capable of causing nuisance or annoyance" 😂 unreal

Reduce notice periods to evict tenants who breach their tenancy or cause damage

So... you're saying instead of the two-month notice period they now have to give under section 21, your landlord can just say their adult kid just wants to chill in it which will presumably never be verified, they could just as easily hike your rent and force you out, they could try to find cause to call you antisocial and evict you, or you could cause damage to the property (hmm I wonder if that includes shit like damp and mould that they're too cheap to protect against themselves 🤔) and they could still evict you. And I'm not seeing what this new proposed eviction notice for those things would even be? That's just section 21 with reasons as defined by your landlord. At least they can take your dole though!!! And make up a cat allergy to not let you have one!! 😃

For something that was being posited as a big game changer where you'll now be able to raise maintenance concerns with your landlord without worrying about revenge evictions this sounds like it'll not do anything to stop that if the landlord just puts in 0.1% more effort than now. Which they're still loathe to do because they're THAT fucking lazy

[chriswhodrawsstuff]

The Landlord's Last Hurrah

A friend of mine is currently being threatened with eviction for complaining about the mould in her rented house. After five years and fifty-five thousand pounds in paid rent she has been presented with a Section 21, notice to quit, because after years of being gaslit by the owner that the state of the property is down to, wet washings on radiators, too many showers and even her breath and that…

[neutralgray]

A Synthesized History: An Amateur Comparison of the Perspectives between the "Patriot's," the "People's," & The "True" History of the United States - Part 9

Full Essay Guide link: XX

(Patriot - Chapter 10-11 | People - Chapter 10-11 | True - Chapter 18-19)

Rent, Reconstruction, and Revisionism

In regards to U.S. history, the 19th century was the setting for many failed revolutions, peoples' movements, rising capitalist forces, and the end to the dominant socioeconomic system of racial slavery. The Civil War had exposed an ugliness underlying the supposed liberties offered by this empire of liberty, however it was not the sole struggle of this period. The late 19th century was influenced heavily by anti-rent movements, labor movements both in the industrial and rural sectors, attempts at political reconstruction, and the ongoing conflict with Native Americans in the west.

The anti-rent movement had started earlier in the century, in the year 1839. The purpose of the movement was to oppose the patroonship system, which allowed for a select few families to legally own significant portions of land and property. One such family was the Van Rensselaer family, who had a $41 million dollar fortune and controlled enough property to have over 80,000 dependent tenants. Many farmers either couldn't afford their own property or were gridlocked among so much purchased property that they had no choice but to rent from these affluent families. This "generosity" from the affluent did not just come with the price tag of rent, however. Laws imposed order that clearly favored landlords, such as giving landlords the right to any and all timber on farms run by their tenants.

Anti-renters initially pushed an anti-rent bill with over 25,000 signatures on it to Congress who then killed the bill. General discontent and civil unrest naturally followed. A deputy was later killed when he tried to sell the livestock of a tenant. Now that violence was being seen, it was only natural that the government would step in and pretend it couldn't have done so before. Troops were sent to quell the "rebellion," and one prominent leader, Smith Boughton, a country doctor, was sentenced to life in prison for the absurd charge of "high treason." Others followed suit, being found guilty of whatever crimes a court could stretch to fit. Anti-renters tried pushing proposals to break up huge estates but they were always defeated or ignored. It was, however, made illegal to sell tenant property for non-pay of rent. It was a small victory among many larger defeats. This would be a repeating theme for most similar grassroots movements that followed.

Some protests served to highlight the general absurdity of legality, making it clear that "order" was only order so long as the determined laws could be imposed by force. This was especially highlighted in the Dorr Rebellion (named after its leader: Thomas Wilson Dorr). The rebellion was an attempt to push proper democracy in Rhode Island, a state that was shockingly still using its original 1663 colonial charter as a basis for its state government nearly 200 later. Rhode Island only allowed land owners to vote, a requirement virtually all states had done away with. The members of this rebellion held its own unofficial convention, wrote its own constitution complete with voting reform, and held its own vote for governor-- an unofficial election in which over 14,000 people (5000 of which owned property) voted in. The rebellion was, of course, crushed by the state through use of federal troops and state militia. It was a bold form of rebellion, though, and its unique approach to "going through the motions" of government demonstrated that the only real difference between their stunt and the acting government was that the Rhode Island government had the means to forcefully impose their rule of law over the supposed laws drafted by Dorr's rebels. And should one still challenge the notion that the only difference is a means of force or imposition of order, let's not forget that that Constitution overrode the Articles of Confederation simply because a handful of powerful individuals decided that the agreed Articles were no longer their ideal draft for government.

Dorr's Rebellion did bring about some change, though. It caused enough of a shakeup that Rhode Island did rewrite its charter and expand voting rights. The 1850's would see similar small victories with the anti-rent movement as well. Laws would change some aspects of the manorial system, but would not inherently change the functional relationship between landlords and tenants. It was a predictable pattern: people would be upset over a grievance, protest would happen that may or not escalate to violence (sometimes pushed to violence by the state), the rebellion/riot/protest would be crushed by military might and the law, some meager revisions of law would be passed as a conciliatory measure, and most everyone would stay in the same class of wealth they were in at the start.

The two-party system thrived in situations like this. Resistance would rise up and then get crushed by political might. With violent revolution and/or disruptive demonstration protests, the people would be made to feel like their cause was hopeless. The people would then be encouraged to protest through the ballot box, letting their vote speak for them. The two parties held their platforms, with one generally offering slightly more "democratic" choices on a hot-button issue. The people would vote, and if their party won they would be offered whatever consolation the political party in control would be willing to offer. Revolution could always be choked out and replaced with a much "safer" reform. This political system of control may not have been mapped out and designed with this deliberate intent, but because the political ruling system changed as needs changed, it allowed for "stable" government ruling, if not a humane or compassionate one. The law could be made flexible through executive presidential action or judicial constitutional review. Simultaneously, the law could be made rigid through Congressional slog, lobbying, voting imbalances, and general political trickery. It demonstrates that the law was, and still is, as flexible or as rigid as the system needs it to be to maintain its current stability and power base.

The 1800's had seen a significant shift in urban development. In 1790, less than 1 million people lived in cities. By 1840, that number jumped to 11 million. By 1850, over 6 million of these potential laborers were working in factories. The 1850's saw company mergers becoming more common, with massive companies developing monopolies over whatever sector they represented. The workforce in those factories would also change as the decades continued.

Racial divides developed among the lower-class developed when companies used cheaper labor from select groups, which often led to struggling immigrants competing in that job market to lash out at other disadvantaged ethnic or racial groups. Another minority growing in the workforce at that time were women, many of whom found occupations in textile mills, domestics, education, and varying factories. Groups of women laborers often organized and went on strike. While some of these strikes were met with mixed success, many others failed which led to blacklisting and shunning select leaders in those communities.

Class consciousness never got the chance to develop as a social power base among the lower class in the United States because of the country's rapid and mixed history of restrictions and uneven extensions of labor law protections. Despite this lacking development compared to European powers, riots broke out in both the Union and Confederacy that opposed draft laws enforcing conscription on citizens while allowing the rich to pay their way out of it. This may be interpreted as growing resentment between the rich and poor.

Major strikes among railroad laborers spread to smaller businesses across the country. Railroad laborers had even more incentive to strike than most laborers. In 1889 the Interstate Commerce Commission reported that over 22,000 people were killed or injured working on rail lines. Railroad companies also helped create a system of financial control by linking to one another, linking to banks, and linking to insurance companies. With many heads able to move the money in a perpetual circle, it allowed for continued generation of profit for a few while avoiding an obvious "monopoly."

Laborer protection was undercut by the government, by their employers, and by the turning century's natural progress. Steam and electricity began to replace the need for human muscle-- phones, typewriters, and adding machines sped up the work of business. Manufactured ice allowed for long transports of produce and meat, which would give birth to the food and meatpacking industry. Steam power changed textile mill productivity and coal provided power to many growing machines of industry. These new sources of power fueled much greater production at a fraction of the cost. The world was changing.

The Farmer's Alliance was core of the Populist movement that dominated the 1890's, and partly came about because of the push for mechanization. Steel plows, reapers, and mowing machines were becoming the standard to keep up with demand. These machines and the large chunks of land needed to use them on cost money, of course. Farmers would take loans with the hope of paying it back with the profits generated from their produce. Unfortunately, farmers had little control over market prices and this would cause their debt to grow as they failed to pay it. The land would then be seized by the government and the farmers would become tenants on what was their land. In response, the Farmer's Alliance was established in 1877 and by 1887 it would have 200,000 members with 3000 sub-alliances. The alliance often affected elections and successfully elected sympathetic politicians simply by having the sheer volume of active voters to do so.

The Farmer's Alliance was not perfect, however. They had numbers but republican and democrat votes combined still outweighed them. The Alliance was also often shaken up by racial dividing points that weakened the ideological and cultural cohesion of the Alliance. Populist leaders often folded into the Democrat party due to political deals that further diluted and obscured the unique identity of the Alliance in misaligned messy politics. Perhaps the greatest failing of this rural farm movement, though, was a failure to meaningfully link with urban labor movements seen in manufacturing industries. Despite class struggles on both rural and urban fronts, the two causes remained separate and thus the potential for true class consciousness of lower class laborers was circumvented.

The Civil War paved the road for the Union to strip away certain labor protections and offer greater legal power for companies to generate profit. In 1886 alone, the Supreme Court struck down over 230 state laws that were passed to regulate corporations. Acts like the Sherman Act were supposed to prevent corporate monopolies but the Supreme Court demonstrated their uncanny ability to interpret any law in a way that made it completely useless. According the high court, monopolies in manufacturing "could not" be regulated in the same way as a monopoly of commerce. Companies were growing in power, the South had been branded a cultural shame that all but forced them to accept the new status quo, and the North accepted many of these decisions as necessary to help the recent war effort. The "empire of liberty" had been completely, internally battered.

To heal the drift across the nation, the project of "Reconstruction" began. The objective of Reconstruction was two-fold: justice for the freedmen and and reconciliation with the ex-Confederates. The contradiction lie in these ideas potentially being antithetical to one another. The Union wanted to re-establish political unity and control with the South as soon as possible while attempting to establish a framework for for ex-slaves to work as free men. The union did not however, immediately offer to make these freedmen citizens or compensate them for years of (now) unlawful bondage. The best way to achieve this goal was a natural debate across political lines.

Some radical republicans wanted the south to be severely punished with economic and legal sanctions. Many southerners were bitter and relied on Union charity while resenting the military occupation of their states. There were four major issues at the heart of this fractured political body:

What economic compensation, if any, would be given to freedmen?

What would the political status of freedmen be?

What extent would federal laws governing the South actually be enforced?

Who best determines the pace and priority of progress-- the president or Congress?

President Johnson pardoned multiple ex-Confederate officials and insisted Southern leadership largely remain unchanged. Few confederates were actually punished. There were no war crime trials ever issued, no charges of treason, no military tribunals, or executions. Jefferson Davis, president of the defunct Confederacy, only spent two years in prison. His vice president, Alexander Stephens, would later rejoin Congress and end his political career as governor of Georgia. This demonstrated a complete unwillingness to actually push for genuine ideological change in the Southern political structure. Schweikart and Allen suggest that political pressure from white voters who were more likely to cause trouble caused the Johnson administration to avoid acting, though this may offer Johnson too much of a passable excuse for his lack of federal assertiveness and authority.

One of the first federal acts to pass through Congress and launch Reconstruction efforts was the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was vetoed by president Johnson. Congress overturned this veto, and this was the first bill to override a presidential veto. The 14th amendment of the Constitution was attached, which shifted citizenship from a state determination to a national policy. Agreement with the amendment was a requirement for acceptance back into the Union.

Special Field Order #15 was an order issued by William T Sherman, which granted coastal land previously owned by affluent ex-Confederates to freedmen. This was roughly 400,000 acres being divided to freedmen in 40 acre sections. President Johnson undid this action, of course. Denial of land ownership doomed freedmen to do the same grueling work they had already been doing just to afford to stay alive.

Hostile racist sentiment also permeated the general political culture. This was demonstrated by Southern political cartoons of the era which often lampooned efforts such as the ones made by the Freedman's Bureau. The Bureau was created by Congress to assist freedmen, but Southern political strips depicted the organization as nothing more than a haven for freeloaders and "lazy black men."

After Johnson, General Grant was elected president. Grant was a war hero and a general sympathizer of progressive causes, but his administration would be bogged down by contrived political scandals and negative associations. This did not mean, however, that Grant's administration did not have some success. When the Klu Klux Klan began to generate real political fear and pressure, Grant's administration pushed the Klu Klux Klan Act of 1871. This act greatly limited the Klan's power and severely discouraged its many inspired groups. Still, even with these successes, Northern voters were tired of paying taxes that went towards the federal occupation of the South.

As federal withdraw took place in the 1870's, a shifting cultural narrative began to take place in the South, illustrating the consequence of only half-finishing the project of reconstruction. Many speeches given by former Confederates in this decade called for an emphasis on reunion between the divided nation, focusing on healing the national body over the broken racial caste that had formed. In 1875 the governor of Virginia, an ex-confederate general, James L. Kemper, had a statue put up of General "Stonewall" Jackson, Lee's famous 2nd in command. Kemper dedicated the statue to "all" people as a memory of heroism. Southern Revisionist fantasies of the war had already begun. This revisionist history would become so culturally pervasive that it tinged the complete federal body of the United States. In point of fact, the first film to ever be screened in the White House was The Birth of a Nation, a 1915 film dedicated to portraying the Klu Klux Klan as heroes protecting the purity of white leadership and white people. Just a few short decades after fighting a war meant for unity and abolition, a film dedicated to a rebellion founded on racist exploitation of people for profit was showcased as a work of art in the symbolic "home" of the federal U.S. government. It was clear that the South may have lost the war, but they had won the peace.

During the height of the Reconstruction era, when Southern governments actually had Republican leadership, many key liberties were gained. These included public schools, more asylums, more hospitals, and more orphanages. In South Carolina funds were allocated for medical care of the poor. Alabama began to offer free legal counsel for poor defendants. These were all products of a grand yet unfinished political upheaval. Because the work with Reconstruction was not done by the time the Union lost interest in pushing and maintaining it, discriminatory "Jim Crow" laws began to become a new norm in the Southern states. This followed the Amnesty Act of 1872, which allowed for previous Confederates to run for office. This was an attempt to "heal" the gap between the two territories but what it really did was ensure that highly influential individuals who carried hostile sentiment over the Civil War would carry their ideological baggage into office and pervade the general well-being of the state. These rising ex-Confederate leaders had little stopping them from enacting their laws as well. Despite a moral victory with the Civil Rights Act of 1875, this act required federal troops to enforce it in the South. As the Southern states emptied of occupying Union soldiers, the noose tightened around many freedmen's necks. Laws defined by racial status limited the ability of black Americans to take on certain labor, vote in elections, and freely travel.

In this same era as rent protesting and failed sociopolitical projects, the ongoing conflict between the United States and Natives continued. By 1890 the west could no longer be considered a "frontier" as the population density had become too great. This of course meant that further conflicts with Native Americans was inevitable. Many of them had moved time and time again, but with the federal power of the United States spanning from east to west, there were very few places left for Natives to go. Most Native Americans east of the Mississippi were dead, forced away, or isolated by the time of the Civil War. Native Americans in the west now had to share the buffalo they survived on with white hunters who put a massive strain on buffalo herds, which doomed some tribes to struggle. Four major conflicts took place during this era:

1864-65: The Sand Creek Massacre of Cheyenne Natives, when American troops killed Natives after their chief, Black Kettle, had surrendered

1860's: On and off skirmishes with the Lakota Sioux in the 1860's, which included the death of one Lt. Colonel William J. Fetterman and his 80 men by Red Cloud and his forces

1875-76: Sioux and Cheyenne forces driven to conflict due to a sudden surge of people on their land due to the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railroad and a gold rush

1890: Conflicts with spiritualist "Ghost Dancers," which culminated in the slaughter of Sioux Natives at Wounded Knee

In 1887 a "benign" act was passed, the Dawes Severalty Act. Supported by president Grover Cleveland, this act allowed Native Americans to select land for reservations, with up to 160 acres of land being offered to family heads. It also allowed for the legal sale of any unclaimed land, ensuring the U.S. benefited even further. An entire generation of Native American people had little real choice but to accept this act of "generosity." After the American government had beaten them down time and time again, it was telling that this generation was also plagued by high infant mortality, alcoholism, and poverty.

While the Natives were being killed, further pushed, or otherwise morally battered, the United States continued its formal expansion. In 1867 the territory of Alaska was purchased from Russia. In 1890 an omnibus bill admitted Washington, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota as states at the same time. A year later, Idaho and Wyoming were admitted. In 1893, American settlers overthrew Queen Lili'uokalani in Hawaii and formed their own provisional government, which the U.S. would formally recognize. In 1896, Utah finally became a state following years of rejection due to practices of polygamy among its Mormon population.

By the end of the 1890's there was no frontier anymore. America was the west and the west was America.

Final Thoughts:

Despite the fact that no one really reads these and they're largely for my own educational benefit, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this essay comes after a lengthy hiatus following the Civil War entry. This is a lot of information to go through and so I will periodically take breaks when I feel it necessary to space out the learning.

For this section in particular, I regret to say that a lot of information was trimmed down to what I felt were the core necessities. Obviously this essay series is an application of my own learning, and is not meant to replace the original texts to anyone who stumbles upon this. If you feel you need to know further details, I strongly encourage reading the books! That said, a lot of what I've covered here has been touched on in previous topics, minus the growing but fractured labor class movements across the United States.

Reconstruction and the immediate fallout was touched here but also in the final sections of my last essay, which should provide an overall picture of how republican ruling provided benefits but was then pushed out by racist lawmakers who had no interest in following federal laws they disagreed with. This was so prevalent that black congressmen and politicians were sometimes purged out of office by their more numerous white peers.

At this point in history not every inch of American territory on the continent was a formal state, but this would not be far in the future, with Arizona being the last stated admitted in the contiguous United States in 1912. The United States didn't merely touch from coast to coast now, it owned the entire coast line and everything between it. With this in mind, it's no surprise that Native Americans continued to suffer. Generations had been forced to move under threat of death and cultural destruction and now there was nowhere left to move to.

Even with the Patriot's History authors trying to set up plausible excuses for why certain moral actions couldn't be taken sooner, the story of the United States is an exhausting one. As a white person myself, I realize that while I can understand the conceptual basis and fear many minorities have in this country, I lack the empathetic experience because my life has never been codified that way by society around me. This education has been enlightening. I set out with the purpose of learning the context of modern American politics by revisiting the buildup to today-- the context of history which leads us to modern struggles. To see that racism and slaughter were there in the very beginnings of this "great melting pot" of culture while so many immigrants flocked to the "land of opportunity" is a contradiction I may never fully understand. I suppose it illustrates the complex and nuanced reality of actually living in a different time wherein multifaceted aspects of one's culture and personal struggles exist within a larger scope than the mere problems of a hypocritical country.

Jefferson did once say that history can only truly be understood by the ones living in that time. Still-- still, it's an exhausting repetition of the same evils, which are still relevant today.

[sarasa-cat]

Gov. Greg Abbott, Republican of Texas, is expected to sign a bill in the next few days that would make it immeasurably more difficult for cities in the state to govern themselves. The bill would strip cities of the ability to set standards for local workplaces, to ensure civil rights, and to improve their environments, trampling on the rights of voters who elected local officials to do just that.

The bill, recently approved by the Texas House and Senate, would nullify any city ordinance or regulation that conflicts with existing state policy in those crucial areas, and would give private citizens or businesses the right to sue and seek damages if they believe there is a discrepancy between city and state. That means no city could prohibit discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. employees, as several Texas cities have done. No city could adopt new rules to limit predatory payday-lending practices. No city could restrict overgrown lots, or unsafe festivals, or inadequate waste storage. Cities would even be banned from enacting local worker protections, including requiring water breaks for laborers in the Texas heat, as Dallas, Austin and other cities have done following multiple deaths and injuries.

Already the state won’t let cities ban discrimination against low-income renters, and it prohibits them from cutting their police budgets. Dozens of other bills have been introduced to restrict election reforms by Texas cities and counties, including one that would let an official, most likely a Republican, overturn election results in a single place: largely Democratic Harris County, which includes Houston. “The bill is undemocratic,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg of San Antonio told The Texas Tribune. “It is probably the most undemocratic thing the Legislature has done, and that list is getting very long. Local voters have created city charters, and I can’t imagine that they will be pleased to have their decisions usurped by lawmakers.”

…

Link above has an embedded unlock code that should slip you past the paywall for the rest of it.

The link above isn’t just about Texas but all of the states purposefully changing laws to roll back any progress or protective measures that have already been passed by voters or to disenfranchise the voice of voters in the near future.

[cazort]

These policies can be relatively easily fixed by reforms in tax policy.

A really simple way to do it is to raise property taxes on properties that are neither occupied by owners nor long-term renters. If the property taxes doubled or tripled on these properties, suddenly the people hoarding these properties would actually be harmed by the increase in property values because it would mean their tax bills would become incredibly steep.

These tax increases would not affect homeowners nor renters, because people who either lived in the house or rented it out would pay normal rates. It would also incentivize landlords to renovate properties quickly or sell them, because if they sat unoccupied their tax rates would soar. So it would discourage casual house-flipping where someone buys a house and works on it for 6-9 months to sell it for a higher price, instead favoring professional contractors who get in-and-out quicker.

If someone really wanted to do AirBNB? They could run it like a business and ensure the place was rented out often enough that they made enough money to justify paying the extra tax. It wouldn't totally shut down AirBNB, it would just keep it from being used lazily and halfheartedly as a form of squeezing extra money out of properties held primarily for speculation.

[brian-betsy]

Agent pens open letter to Michael Gove calling for a fairer PRS for landlords

Agent pens open letter to Michael Gove calling for a ‘fairer’ PRS for landlords https://propertyindustryeye.com/estate-agent-pens-open-letter-to-michael-gove-calling-for-a-fairer-prs-for-landlords/ The housing secretary is being urged to reconsider the Renters' Reform Bill in its existing form Brian Betsy

[ukimmigrationmatters]

Game Changing Renter’s Rights Bill Explained - What Landlords And Tenants Should Know As New Government Bill Introduced To Parliament    

Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer presented the Renters Rights Bill to Parliament on Wednesday during PM Questions.

Watch video version - https://youtu.be/iqXll_itlNA

The Bill appears to be a rebrand of the Conservatives Renters Reform Bill which failed to become law before Rishi Sunak’s disastrous snap election.

I would urge you to read to Bill or at least the ‘Guide’ published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-the-renters-rights-bill/82ffc7fb-64b0-4af5-a72e-c24701a5f12a

Many landlords are retiring, considering their options or selling up after years of landlord bashing, red tape and higher taxes under Section 24.

Less new landlords are entering the market in such great numbers due to higher mortgage rates, stricter lending criteria and lower yields on but-to-let properties as prices have risen much faster than rents.

The Renters' Rights Bill 2024 signals a major shift in the dynamics of the private rental market. While these changes aim to protect tenants and ensure fair practices, buy-to-let landlords will need to adapt to new regulations and potentially alter their investment strategies. Smaller landlords could be pushed out by corporates and hedge funds looking to build or buy thousands of properties for rental.

Section 24 Landlord Tax Hike

Interview with Chartered Accountant and property tax specialist who reveals options and solutions to move your properties from your own name into a limited company or LLP whilst mitigating the potential HMRC pitfalls.

Email charles@charleskelly.net for a free consultation on how to deal with Section 24.

Watch video now: https://youtu.be/aMuGs_ek17s

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