in early November 2017 I flew to
Barcelona to join mayor attic allow in
launching a new international initiative
called the shift the shift brings
together stakeholders who believe
housing is a human right not a commodity
we had spent months planning this event
the office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights and an international
network of cities had agreed to support
the event the night before the launch
I received a whatsapp from the mayor’s
assistant saying that the leaders of the
Catalan independence movement all of
them had been arrested and were in jail
and maybe the mayor wouldn’t make it to
the launch of the shift the next morning
I went to the palatial City Hall in
Barcelona and I was led to this
incredibly regal room and there was
nothing to do but sit and wait and hope
that the mayor would show up she had
every reason not to but I was hoping she
would because the mayor and I believed
that we are at a critical moment because
of the incredible disruption to housing
that’s happened housing is now viewed as
an asset a commodity a way to grow
wealth it’s not viewed as a home a place
of warmth security where we grow our
families and share memories and stories
but it hasn’t always been this way in
the 60s and 70s housing was understood
as a way to secure to have security
personal security but not to grow wealth
and governments were involved they
enacted legislation and policies they
wanted to create a diverse
range of housing options for households
of different income levels so they made
available home ownership rental
apartments subsidized housing public
housing homelessness and unaffordability
of housing that we see today barely
existed certainly not on today’s scale
now I don’t want to paint too rosy a
picture but I think housing really was
viewed as a social good and in that way
it was more closely aligned to housing
as a human right which is a place for
all of us to live in dignity now
fast-forward to 2018 housing or
residential real estate is now big
business in fact it’s the biggest
business amounting to a hundred and
sixty three trillion dollars which is
more than the it’s more than double the
total GDP of the entire world and
financial actors have invaded housing
banks pension funds private equity firms
stockbrokers shareholders all of whom
view housing as a place to park excess
capital and there is an abundance of
excess capital and what really worries
me is that the private equity firms are
preying on the misfortune and the
financial ruin of families let me give
you an example take Blackstone it is the
largest private equity firm in the world
they manage a hundred billion dollars of
real estate Blackstone has gone on a
shopping spree they’ve been buying up
thousands and thousands of foreclosed
homes
in the u.s. Spain Ireland and the UK
they know that foreclosure creates this
population that is still in need of
housing so they take these homes and
they flip them and turn them into
rentals and sometimes they put them on
the stock market and the business model
for Blackstone is that they have to keep
increasing rents why to satisfy their
investor clients to make sure those
clients get a good return on their
investment and that means pushing out
lower-income households and moving in
more affluent ones it’s clear to me that
Blackstone has as their priority their
investor clients and not tenants and
that’s a problem because Blackstone owns
80,000 houses and is the largest
landlord in the US but the
commodification of housing doesn’t stop
there
billionaires individuals of ultra
high-net-worth are also parking their
money in housing millions of houses that
are investor owned stand vacant around
the world with their owners having no
intention of ever stepping foot inside
meanwhile a hundred million people are
homeless worldwide and then there’s
Airbnb corporations and investors are
buying up apartment buildings and units
across cities and they’re converting
them and into short-term rentals for
tourists that takes away housing supply
for longer term rentals and local
residents and where are governments in
all of this well they have receded from
the position that they had adopted in
the 60s and 70s in fact they’re closely
aligned with investors they subsidized
home
ownership they give tax breaks to
investors they lure foreign investors
into their countries by waving golden
visas and citizenship they bail out
banks and financial institutions and
when governments do that they also then
just leave housing to the unregulated
private sector now the decision to
divest housing of its social value and
to support the commodification of
housing is not just any policy decision
it is an attack it’s a rejection of
their international human rights
obligations and it’s having dire
consequences the relationship now
between landlords and tenants is
transactional corporations have no
qualms raising rents to unreasonable
letter levels and evicting tenants for
minor matters and the influx of capital
into cities is escalating the cost of
housing and skyrocketing housing prices
mean that those who sustain cities are
being pushed out nurses garbage
collectors firefighters police officers
baristas at your local Starbucks when I
was in Northern California the area
where all those high-tech firms are many
tenants came up to me and told me that
their rents had doubled overnight
sending them into a kind of economic
tailspin I met people working at
animation studios and in medical firms
living in tents on the sidewalk
and everywhere I go every city I go to I
hear the same thing whether it’s Toronto
or Vancouver Sydney or Melbourne London
or Paris Buenos Aires or Mexico City if
we want to restore human rights to
people we need a seismic shift a shift
where housing is valued as home not
equity and where we invest in people not
capital surprisingly the sector at the
very center of financialization has
taken a step toward this shift the CEO
of black rock arrival to Blackstone
Larry Fink recently wrote an open letter
to the CEOs of major corporations and in
it he said shareholder profit is not an
end game corporations must do social
good and must contribute in a positive
way to society I think think made some
good points but governments have a
really important role to play – they
have to engage in this shift a couple of
years ago national level governments did
convene and they committed to ensuring
access to adequate affordable housing
for all by 2030 now it remains to be
seen whether this is going to be a
political commitment that’s upheld or a
but speaking of political commitments
and promises let’s go back to me sitting
in Barcelona in this regal room
wondering whether mayor kalau was going
to show up or not I was having
culty weighing these things you know the
launch of the shift
the mayor’s political allies in jail
what was going to be the priority well
mayor kalau knew her priorities and she
showed up and she gave a rousing
passionate and lookin eloquent speech
about the importance of the right to
housing for people and for cities and
then she unveiled the Barcelona
manifesto which asks cities around the
world to form a network committed to
housing as a human right and rejecting
housing as a commodity and it’s out this
city level where I am seeing some of the
most impressive challenges to
financialization the City of Vancouver
now has a vacant home tax as does Paris
the City of London has policy whereby
any new buildings going up have to have
a portion of affordable housing Toronto
is wrestling and trying to regulate air
B&B a mayor in a small city in Chile
stopped a luxury development because it
was displacing local residents now you
may think this is all too little too
late
but I think that these are incredibly
important to stem the consequences the
disastrous consequences of
financialization you know 1.6 billion
people are living in grossly inadequate
housing this is unsustainable
I have seen people including in affluent
countries US Canada Europe living in
informal settlements in tents in
encampments underneath highways and
bridges and along railway tracks in the
harshest of kin
missions with no sanitation no water no
toilets no shower no electricity they
are hanging by the thinnest thread I
have met mothers who have had to
relinquish their children to the state
because they can’t afford adequate
housing I have seen children playing on
heaps of garbage as if they are backyard
trampolines I have met people with
disabilities living in darkened rooms at
the back of a house or in homeless
shelters or institutions because they
and their families have no social
supports I have seen condos in the sky
sell for ninety five million dollars I
have walked around ghost towns where
investor capital has replaced people and
homes I have seen all of that and I have
seen more and I don’t want to see it
anymore what I want to see is for us to
think twice to think twice before we
assume homelessness is caused by
individual failure rather than
government and societal failure to think
twice before we booked an Airbnb on our
next vacation in a city that doesn’t
regulate them to think twice before we
decide to buy investment property and to
think twice before we accept that
governments leave housing to the
unregulated private sector what I’d like
to see is for all of us
individuals government’s corporations to
make the shift so that our actions small
or large
demonstrate our understanding that
housing isn’t a commodity it’s a human
right thank you [Applause]
Barcelona to join mayor attic allow in
launching a new international initiative
called the shift the shift brings
together stakeholders who believe
housing is a human right not a commodity
we had spent months planning this event
the office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights and an international
network of cities had agreed to support
the event the night before the launch
I received a whatsapp from the mayor’s
assistant saying that the leaders of the
Catalan independence movement all of
them had been arrested and were in jail
and maybe the mayor wouldn’t make it to
the launch of the shift the next morning
I went to the palatial City Hall in
Barcelona and I was led to this
incredibly regal room and there was
nothing to do but sit and wait and hope
that the mayor would show up she had
every reason not to but I was hoping she
would because the mayor and I believed
that we are at a critical moment because
of the incredible disruption to housing
that’s happened housing is now viewed as
an asset a commodity a way to grow
wealth it’s not viewed as a home a place
of warmth security where we grow our
families and share memories and stories
but it hasn’t always been this way in
the 60s and 70s housing was understood
as a way to secure to have security
personal security but not to grow wealth
and governments were involved they
enacted legislation and policies they
wanted to create a diverse
range of housing options for households
of different income levels so they made
available home ownership rental
apartments subsidized housing public
housing homelessness and unaffordability
of housing that we see today barely
existed certainly not on today’s scale
now I don’t want to paint too rosy a
picture but I think housing really was
viewed as a social good and in that way
it was more closely aligned to housing
as a human right which is a place for
all of us to live in dignity now
fast-forward to 2018 housing or
residential real estate is now big
business in fact it’s the biggest
business amounting to a hundred and
sixty three trillion dollars which is
more than the it’s more than double the
total GDP of the entire world and
financial actors have invaded housing
banks pension funds private equity firms
stockbrokers shareholders all of whom
view housing as a place to park excess
capital and there is an abundance of
excess capital and what really worries
me is that the private equity firms are
preying on the misfortune and the
financial ruin of families let me give
you an example take Blackstone it is the
largest private equity firm in the world
they manage a hundred billion dollars of
real estate Blackstone has gone on a
shopping spree they’ve been buying up
thousands and thousands of foreclosed
homes
in the u.s. Spain Ireland and the UK
they know that foreclosure creates this
population that is still in need of
housing so they take these homes and
they flip them and turn them into
rentals and sometimes they put them on
the stock market and the business model
for Blackstone is that they have to keep
increasing rents why to satisfy their
investor clients to make sure those
clients get a good return on their
investment and that means pushing out
lower-income households and moving in
more affluent ones it’s clear to me that
Blackstone has as their priority their
investor clients and not tenants and
that’s a problem because Blackstone owns
80,000 houses and is the largest
landlord in the US but the
commodification of housing doesn’t stop
there
billionaires individuals of ultra
high-net-worth are also parking their
money in housing millions of houses that
are investor owned stand vacant around
the world with their owners having no
intention of ever stepping foot inside
meanwhile a hundred million people are
homeless worldwide and then there’s
Airbnb corporations and investors are
buying up apartment buildings and units
across cities and they’re converting
them and into short-term rentals for
tourists that takes away housing supply
for longer term rentals and local
residents and where are governments in
all of this well they have receded from
the position that they had adopted in
the 60s and 70s in fact they’re closely
aligned with investors they subsidized
home
ownership they give tax breaks to
investors they lure foreign investors
into their countries by waving golden
visas and citizenship they bail out
banks and financial institutions and
when governments do that they also then
just leave housing to the unregulated
private sector now the decision to
divest housing of its social value and
to support the commodification of
housing is not just any policy decision
it is an attack it’s a rejection of
their international human rights
obligations and it’s having dire
consequences the relationship now
between landlords and tenants is
transactional corporations have no
qualms raising rents to unreasonable
letter levels and evicting tenants for
minor matters and the influx of capital
into cities is escalating the cost of
housing and skyrocketing housing prices
mean that those who sustain cities are
being pushed out nurses garbage
collectors firefighters police officers
baristas at your local Starbucks when I
was in Northern California the area
where all those high-tech firms are many
tenants came up to me and told me that
their rents had doubled overnight
sending them into a kind of economic
tailspin I met people working at
animation studios and in medical firms
living in tents on the sidewalk
and everywhere I go every city I go to I
hear the same thing whether it’s Toronto
or Vancouver Sydney or Melbourne London
or Paris Buenos Aires or Mexico City if
we want to restore human rights to
people we need a seismic shift a shift
where housing is valued as home not
equity and where we invest in people not
capital surprisingly the sector at the
very center of financialization has
taken a step toward this shift the CEO
of black rock arrival to Blackstone
Larry Fink recently wrote an open letter
to the CEOs of major corporations and in
it he said shareholder profit is not an
end game corporations must do social
good and must contribute in a positive
way to society I think think made some
good points but governments have a
really important role to play – they
have to engage in this shift a couple of
years ago national level governments did
convene and they committed to ensuring
access to adequate affordable housing
for all by 2030 now it remains to be
seen whether this is going to be a
political commitment that’s upheld or a
but speaking of political commitments
and promises let’s go back to me sitting
in Barcelona in this regal room
wondering whether mayor kalau was going
to show up or not I was having
culty weighing these things you know the
launch of the shift
the mayor’s political allies in jail
what was going to be the priority well
mayor kalau knew her priorities and she
showed up and she gave a rousing
passionate and lookin eloquent speech
about the importance of the right to
housing for people and for cities and
then she unveiled the Barcelona
manifesto which asks cities around the
world to form a network committed to
housing as a human right and rejecting
housing as a commodity and it’s out this
city level where I am seeing some of the
most impressive challenges to
financialization the City of Vancouver
now has a vacant home tax as does Paris
the City of London has policy whereby
any new buildings going up have to have
a portion of affordable housing Toronto
is wrestling and trying to regulate air
B&B a mayor in a small city in Chile
stopped a luxury development because it
was displacing local residents now you
may think this is all too little too
late
but I think that these are incredibly
important to stem the consequences the
disastrous consequences of
financialization you know 1.6 billion
people are living in grossly inadequate
housing this is unsustainable
I have seen people including in affluent
countries US Canada Europe living in
informal settlements in tents in
encampments underneath highways and
bridges and along railway tracks in the
harshest of kin
missions with no sanitation no water no
toilets no shower no electricity they
are hanging by the thinnest thread I
have met mothers who have had to
relinquish their children to the state
because they can’t afford adequate
housing I have seen children playing on
heaps of garbage as if they are backyard
trampolines I have met people with
disabilities living in darkened rooms at
the back of a house or in homeless
shelters or institutions because they
and their families have no social
supports I have seen condos in the sky
sell for ninety five million dollars I
have walked around ghost towns where
investor capital has replaced people and
homes I have seen all of that and I have
seen more and I don’t want to see it
anymore what I want to see is for us to
think twice to think twice before we
assume homelessness is caused by
individual failure rather than
government and societal failure to think
twice before we booked an Airbnb on our
next vacation in a city that doesn’t
regulate them to think twice before we
decide to buy investment property and to
think twice before we accept that
governments leave housing to the
unregulated private sector what I’d like
to see is for all of us
individuals government’s corporations to
make the shift so that our actions small
or large
demonstrate our understanding that
housing isn’t a commodity it’s a human
right thank you [Applause]
Please follow and like us: