These little stories are from an article about people who are making a difference, and I thought little pieces of it might make good late night posts. A little bit of inspiration, perhaps, at the start of an open thread.
But talk about whatever you want!
In a year that made many of us want to give up, these unsung activists found a way to help others.
h/t hazmat
🌼
The Anti-Gentrifier
Debra Ack came to activism late in life, as a 62-year-old former administrative assistant who got involved in the newly formed East New York Community Land Trust. Three years later, as the special projects coordinator she has been instrumental in drawing political attention to a long-neglected neighborhood straddling patches of Brooklyn and Queens that is prone to flooding, mold infestations, overflowing septic systems and illegal trash dumping.
Equally significant has been her work educating her neighbors in East New York about community land trusts, which are relatively new to the city but have a long history in California. They battle rising housing costs and keep real estate out of the hands of predatory developers. These trusts buy land, then typically issue 99-year ground leases to homeowners who consent to sell the houses or buildings on the land back to the trust at a restricted price to ensure affordability over the long term.
“We want people to know how they can bring ownership back to their communities,” Ms. Ack said. The East New York Community Land Trust is expected to close on its first property in January — a 21-unit apartment building that has fallen into disrepair. With the help of money raised through donations and low-interest loans, Ms. Ack said, the trust will buy both the land and the building and then turn the building over to the tenants living there, who will eventually own their units as co-ops.
From Six New Yorkers Who Made the City a Better, Cooler, Fairer Place in 2023. Written by Ginia Bellafante, who writes the Big City column, a weekly commentary on the politics, culture and life of New York City.
In a year that made many of us want to give up, these unsung activists found a way to help others.
h/t hazmat
Open thread!
War for Ukraine Day 688: Air Defense Over Kyiv & the Preservation of Ukrainian Art History
NotMax
Alexa, buy all the tiny violins. (WaPo link.)
Chetan Murthy
This is an excellent thing, what this woman is doing. But I was struck with the thought, that these community land trusts are a substitute for government: that *government* should be buying, maintaining, restoring, these dwellings. Sigh. Instead, homeowners will do the work over time. They’ll spend money that they could have paid in taxes so that government could do that work. And so it comes down to whether (1) government will be more inefficient and wasteful than homeowners (wastefraudandabuse!), and (2) government can be more skilled/experienced in dealing with contractors and such, to efficiently deploy the money.
Sigh.
NotMax
Impelled to point out it’s no connection to Harry Belafonte.
Sandia Blanca
Ginia Bellafante and Gina Belafonte are two different people; note the different spellings of both their first and last names. The daughter of Harry is Gina Belafonte; she is not the author of the article.
AlaskaReader
Bayer
Kraft
Heinz
MyPillow *
Disney
UniversalPictures
Allstate
Esurance
USAA
Gieco
Progressive
CapitalOne
Petsmart
Chewy
DuluthTradingCo.
Nutrisystem
Liberty Mutual Insurance
Nugenix
Sandals Resorts
Sleep Number
Intuit
NewDay USA
Norton
DealDash
All Fox sponsors, all willing to fund a network of liars that set up Americans to die.
Are you giving those sponsors your money so they can turn it over and fund Fox News?
Are you paying the people who root for your own demise?
If one purchase products from those companies, one supports Fox News.
One has little business decrying what Fox News does while paying to have it done.
rikyrah
He was 98.
RIP
ryan w (@SourceRyan) tweeted at 8:52 PM on Fri, Jan 12, 2024:
From #Days of our Lives Publicity:
It is with a heavy heart that we share the passing of our beloved Bill Hayes.
One of the longest running characters on Days of our Lives, Bill originated the role of “Doug Williams” in 1970 and portrayed him continuously throughout his life.… https://t.co/rmUtcmZeaU
(https://twitter.com/SourceRyan/status/1746002211333669246?s=02)
rikyrah
Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) tweeted at 9:47 PM on Fri, Jan 12, 2024:
Great news that I missed today:
Deranged MAGA lunatic lawyer Lin Wood has officially been disbarred in Colorado.
This needs to happen to every lawyer who played a part in plotting sedition, election fraud and an insurrectionist coup.
(https://twitter.com/TheRickyDavila/status/1746016063807270968?s=02)
HumboldtBlue
It’s always a Friday night party somewhere.
NotMax
@rikyrah
When putsch comes to shoved.
//
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: In a sense it doesn’t really matter. Simply getting these off market pricing is the key. NYC didn’t have the best track record regarding public housing – not sure if it’s improved in the last couple decades.
There’s a really strong case for nonprofits to operate non-market rate housing. The initial investment gets repaid through rent after which the rent is dropped to just operating and depreciation, and that repaid investment can go take another property off the market. Cities can assist in this process in any number of ways from providing the investment when they have available money as a 0% loan, easing the process for acquiring these properties, even giving a property tax benefit if the housing serves low income populations.
But Katie Porter’s house is on one of these trusts owned by the university. The university doesn’t make money on the operation, but they make affordable housing available for faculty. Our first house was from that trust.
TBone
@rikyrah: I concur and thank you for that good news.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Midnight gathering.
:)
TBone
The Dread Pirate Heather Cox Richardson interviews President Biden in today’s Letter. What he speaks about has to do with the lovely subject of this post.
eclare
@rikyrah:
Abso-fucking-lutely. Disbar them all.
TBone
Yukon Cornelius strikes again!
https://youtu.be/cNpXf30ivpM
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
@Martin:
In Vancouver, we have a “perfect example”.
Little Mountain had 370 social housing units, close to downtown.
The City moved everybody out, as the structures were 40 years old and poorly maintained, (due to the City). then did a sale/development deal with a developer to put in 600 units split between social housing and for profit, 50/50.
20 years later, 25 housing units have been built.
The bare land is now worth hundreds of millions, but empty.
Co-op’s here are all private/non profit and provide most of the social housing, but in many cases, the waiting lists are decades long.
NotMax
@TBone
Oh my stars and garters. Straddles a Venn diagram of giggling and upchucking.
TBone
TDPR today
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tGRXnB_GQcM
TBone
@NotMax: yours in service
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Oh, hm, I take your point. So there’s another thing I didn’t think about: governments can be captured by special interests (developers): it’s a single point of failure. Whereas with these community land trusts, if you have a bunch, they each have to be attacked, and each has a built-in set of defenders (the current residents).
HumboldtBlue
Oscar Peterson and Dick Cavett.
Chetan Murthy
@TBone: “what on Flat Earth is goin’ on?” AAAAAhhahahahahahaha!
TBone
@Chetan Murthy: he’s so fuckin great at what he does.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vUaXKf61yU8
ArchTeryx
A short story of trying to make someone’s world a little better.
I commissioned a young artist to draw a short cartoon series featuring a good friend’s characters, as a late Christmas gift. However, I’d used the wrong color scheme for one of the friend’s characters. So I asked the artist to do a recolor. I mistakenly thought it’d be easy.
She came back with an offer to do it for $37. And I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. That was ridiculously cheap for a mistake I made and I’d originally asked her to do it for free. So I counteroffered with $40 an hour for the recolor. She was stunned. The recolor took 2 hours, and I duly paid her $80. For that, I was called a “dream client.”
Freelance artists have it terrible right now, what with AI stealing and devaluing their work all over the place. Corporate greed crushing the little guy in yet another way. I told her I was not a dream client. That it was my way to try to support the little guys (or gals) and her in particular. She deserved far more than I could pay her, but I at least tried to make it fair. If I’m one of the few that did that…
At least I did Lishka a good turn. The kid’s all right, a brilliant cartoonist, and deserved everything I could give and more.
TBone
@ArchTeryx: that’s the way!
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
Yup, in Vancouver we have a 50+ year history of “Social” governments at City Hall, alternating every 4 to 8 years with “Developers”.
Every time the “developers” are in charge, the City get’s rick rolled by the actual Developers. Hesus, you are supporsed to be the “business” people and you can’t write a contract worth shit?
It could be worse. We could be Edmonton. The City’s Mayor, has declared a “homeless emergency”, (that’s unhoused people, you dickhead),
after the Edmonton Police in the past 2 weeks just “cleared” 8 unhoused people encampments, leaving 1200 people on the street with no personal belongings or shelter and the City only has 78 empty beds in shelters, in the middle of an Arctic front sweeping in from the north.
Morons.
sab
@Jay: Yikes! 1200 homeless people facing winter in Alberta? That will take care of your homeless problem.
I live in Ohio. My great-grandmother was Canadian. She came from Ontario to Chicago to learn nursing, and she married a young doctor completely outside of acceptable matches (Irish!).
The thing I learned from Mom’s interactions wirh her Canadian cousins is that the great Northern Wonderland is pretty much mythical : horrible people and decent people in a mix, same as we have down here.
Jay
@sab:
sort of. Thing is. starting in the late 70’s, our dickheads hired your dickheads as advisors, still do. Then there is all that cross border media filtering in.
Joe Clark, our last real Conservative Prime Minister expanded Unemployment Insurance to cover part time workers, in the middle of a Recession, amongst many other things. He was a Red Tory.
Now, our “Conservatives” are about 8 weeks behind what the latest MAGA nutjob you guys have in the news is doing.
Hi, Pierre, you fucking nepo baby douche bag scumbucket,….. waves.
Most of us are really nice, nut jobs are pretty much few, similar to most of the US, (other than New York), with just as many guns per capita, just not “black guns” or hand guns. We use ours for hunting,……………………….and not for hunting people.
mrmoshpotato
Balmy 27 outside. Awaiting the cold snap today. Who’s ready to have a potato with Svengoolie tonight?
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Did someone say potato?
;)
Jay
@sab:
and freezing to death in Edmonton won’t solve their unhoused people problem. The Arctic Front will probably kill more elderly boomers than unhoused people. You have to be resiliant and innovative to survive, even as a person with addictions, as an unhoused person.
Sadly, many of the unhoused people in Edmonton, and many other places have part time or full time jobs, that just cant afford a place to rent.
When my wife and I moved to Vancouver, because there was no work, where we were, for years, we spent 8 months couch surfing, living rough, or living in our car, with 2 cats. One winter, which for Vancouver, was a bad winter. She got a job first, working the line at Purdy’s Chocolates. I spent my time doing job applications on free wifi and as a medical volenteer with DERA.
Before we got our car, we were “camped” in the bush off Burnaby Mountain. She had a minimum wage job, I didn’t yet. An Arctic front and snow had moved in, so of course, Burnaby had cleared out a bunch of the unhoused. We had people come in, attracted by the fire, and the worst off, we laid up in our tent, with the spare blankets and spare sleeping bags we had. Didn’t know any of them at all, but the tent could sleep 8, if you didn’t mind.
I will leave it at that, a rough time.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Gonna drop into the mid-50s before dawn here, probably play footsie with the high 40s Saturday night. Intermittent heavy rain since last Monday night.
Making the electric company happy by running the space heater to chase the damp chill. as best it can in an uninsulated and drafty cottage.
lowtechcyclist
What struck me was “overflowing septic systems.” Really?! NYC doesn’t provide sewer to all its residents?? WTF??
My exurban county is finally realizing that it’s going to have to start building sewer systems, because septic systems are failing in too many places. But at least the idea initially made sense, with 1/3 acre (or bigger) lots, you had room for a decent-size drain field, and maybe even room for a second drain field when the first one failed.
But I bet the lots in Brooklyn and Queens are a good bit smaller, and I bet the water table’s even more of an issue there than it is here. Relying on septic systems in the middle of a densely populated area is fucking insane, and the city should have put in sewer everywhere ages ago.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: I vaguely remember the title of that movie.
Jay
@NotMax:
You live in the tropical resort of Hawaii, correct?
Do you drink canned beer? Have access to epoxy?
Check out passive solar heating.
I used aluminum down spouts for mine.
Basically, a collector, painted flat black, cold air goes in the bottom, warm/hot dry air comes out the top.
Because of where we were, (sub arctic) the housing box had to be insulated, the “channels” were linear, double pane glass in front, and a small solar panel was connected to an old computer fan to move the air,
But in -40, it kept the house at about +50.
Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
septic systems vary. In Ontario, they now run them on top of the Northern Shield rock.
Turns out, that if your “septic field” is bedded in 2 feet of peat, it’s 900 times more effective than sand, gravel or dirt.
But in an urban area, yeah, no septic fields, period.
TBone
@Jay: holy shit. I’ve only winter camped on purpose. Once. I’m glad you’re here.
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
There still exist a few outlying or neglected areas without what the most optimistic would describe as paved streets.
We are increasingly removed in time, however, from festering neighborhoods such as Pigtown.
AlaskaReader
@Jay: 900 times more effective?
More info here
NotMax
@Jay
No, I don’t drink canned beer.
in any case, I rent so any modifications can perform are minimal.
As ever was thus, shall muddle through.
evodevo
@Chetan Murthy: This. We had a situation in our tiny community 30 years ago, where a local landowner wanted to put in what would become a regional landfill next to our property. The town voted to annex several properties between the town limits and his property in order to annex it and rezone industrial (this is in the middle of a totally rural area). I took it upon myself to take it to court, with the help of an environmentally-active lawyer friend. Because of their sloppy annexation process, we won. Then the town tried to annex the same property two more times, via different strategies. The intervening landowners were hostile to the idea, and we finally organized a KY “agricultural district” including their properties (a LOT of work involving maps, documentation, etc. etc.) and registered it. Stopped the annexation/rezoning process right in its tracks, pretty much permanently. The property owner never did succeed in his scheme, and the bank eventually took it over and sold it on to a guy who uses it for deer hunting. You can’t depend on local govt. to have anyone’s interest in mind, except their own…
Jay
@TBone:
Winter camped from about 8 years old.
WhatsMyNym
@Chetan Murthy: Most local governments just suck at running public housing. They just don’t know have that expertise or motivation to get it right. They’re better off helping to fund non-profits.
TBone
@NotMax: fascinating. “One time, he went into a Flatbush barbershop and ate the barber’s live canaries…”
raven
These revisions are so important because they make it very clear what the people of St. Helena want,” said Councilman York Glover, of St. Helena Island. “It’s not about keeping development out, it’s about what these things represent. They don’t want to become another Hilton Head Island and lose their Gullah Geechee identity.”
The revisions to the CPO make it clear that there shall be no gated communities or golf courses built on St. Helena Island.
TBone
@Jay: glad you had that prior experience. Toughens ya. I remember my one experience fondly because tequila was involved after we hiked to the top of a small mountain in the driving snow and set up tent. I’m way too old for either camping (in any season) or tequila now.
Anne Laurie
Speaking of the weather… in Iowa… new post up top!
Princess
This is becoming a big story in Chicago — lots of unusable city owned units in the midst of a housing shortage. Ripe for a public.private or non-profit partnership.
twbrandt
@HumboldtBlue: I was watching that very interview the other day.
Miss Bianca
Land trusts are great ideas. I’m trying to get the Powers That Be to consider setting one up here in one of our towns.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Yes, I wrote all 5 of these posts at the same time. As soon as that was pointed out in the first post, I edited the other 4 to remove that reference.
Little did I know that I had also made that same reference at the BOTTOM of each post when I explained more about the article I got the tidbits from.
Needless to say, I have now gone back to the remaining 3 posts and removed the other reference.