The idea that everyone ought to be entitled to a minimum basic income as a fundamental right certainly sounds way left field, yet it has piqued the interests of everyone from politicians and CEOs to economists and anti-capitalists, and it’s appeared in all corners of the media, from the Financial Times to Jacobin. Ian Maleny gives us the lowdown. We’re living in a world where damn near everything has a … Read More
Nama’s Cultural Dividend.
Not content with inflating rent prices across Dublin by selling off apartment complex after apartment complex to our new absentee landlords – Real Estate Investment Trusts – NAMA is now in frightening the bejaysus out of Cork’s artistic community. The people involved in the Camden Palace arts centre are urgently seeking public support and are fearful for the survival of their building. NAMA has recently become the new landlord of their … Read More
Trickling Up From The Basement.
You’re probably blue in the face hearing about the housing crisis, the increase in rent, the holy grail of owning the roof over your head. There are solutions to the problems though. Michael Taft details a few. This housing crisis is having a devastating impact on the households affected and the wider economy. In 2013, there were 90,000 households on the social housing waiting list – the majority waiting for … Read More
A Battle Fought Before.
In recent months there has been a plethora of housing action campaigns established, all wishing to raise awareness around the issue of working class housing (or the lack of it) in Ireland today. Donal Fallon takes us back to the crowbar brigades and squatting tactics of the 1960s’ Dublin Housing Action Campaign. The 1960s witnessed very real agitation on the issue of housing, with the establishment of the Dublin Housing … Read More
They Haven’t Gone Away You Know.
Just as it seemed things had gone quiet on the We’re Not Leaving front, they’re back in the meeja tag teaming with Peter McVerry and spinning common sense about rent controls in our unfair city. They’re launching a policy document based on the German rent control model and exhibition of photos submitted to them by young folks hunting out accomodation. It’s all taking place down at the Migrants Rights Centre … Read More
Dublin’s Totally Daft Prices.
The Union of Students In Ireland made a recent plea to homeowners to take in their members as boarders. All due to the accommodation crisis across the city. They even set up a dedicated website to advertise this new cohort of digs. Maybe in indication of take up of the scheme, the site appears to be knocked off line at the moment. USI is an organisation that looks to have turned a … Read More
Juking The Stats 2
Above: A photograph of some urban dereliction by Paul Reynolds. Minister Jan O’Sullivan’ Housing Assistance Payment Bill will remove people receiving rent assistance from the housing waiting list. SF TD Dessie Ellis outlined the implications of removing tens of thousands (many of whom have been on it for over a decade) from the housing list. ‘This means they will find it almost impossible to get a council house, to buy … Read More
What We Learned Today.
Newly minted TD Ruth Coppinger got under the skin of Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan big time today. Coppinger had the audacity to pull O’Sullivan up on how changes to rent allowance provision leave people vulnerable to their community welfare officer while topping up private landlords. Here’s a quick transcript: Coppinger: Your colleague Joan Burton announced today that they’d increase rent payments on a case by case basis so people would still … Read More
#goggleBox: Bonus Street
Times are good on Bonus Street although drug taking and paranoia are high. Most of these people don’t have a job and now they’re having to learn how to get by on even more money than before. Benefits Street, that hugely controversial show on Channel4 in the UK, purports to be a fly-on-the-wall look at a Birmingham street populated by the feckless underclass. However, working families that were followed for … Read More
#rabbleReels: 80 Blocks From Tiffanys
Tonight’s fare is a firm favorite in rabble land. Capturing as it does the bombed out story of the Bronx in the mid-1970s and the gangs that ruled the roost. You’ve oft heard how New York in the ’70s was a rough looking place, nowhere more so than the South Bronx. Gary Weis’ 80 Blocks From Tiffanys is based on a long piece of prose from Esquire magazine about the two gangs … Read More