Cea Weaver

Hi! So as one of the advocates, I have argued and argue *against* homeownership as a wealth-building all the time and have worked to build a coalition that explicitly brings together renters, public housing advocates, and the homelesshttps://twitter.com/ceaweaver/status/1191779890665852928?s=21 …

Homeownership is not in my vision for the future and I think it’s fundamentally incompatible with any real vision for economic justice. I also think we are in a political moment where more and more people are grappling with that.

But as an organizer (one who has worked on upzoning in wealthy white suburbs!) I believe in meeting people where they are at. And I think we all can agree homeownership doesn’t look the same for everyone.

I don’t think working on opposing rezonings is personally my theory of change but it’s a material reality that ppl may want to organize around and it also is an entry point to other types of work! And they can be really bad/give power to real estate, so stopping them isn’t bad!

On this we will likely disagree (which is fine! organizing happens around shared self-interest, not totally identical interests!). Just b/c developers benefit doesn't mean that tenants don't also benefit. And my community-based aff. hsg. clients gotta get through zoning too.

(and, addendum, when we're talking about power and self-interest, it's pretty important to disaggregate "real estate" into developers, property owners &, yes, homeowners. they overlap but they've got different interests, different motivations, different ways of exerting power).

Agree w that last point. But it’s pretty wild to assert that homeowners and renters have incompatibly divergent interests and that renters and developers actually have a shared material path forward.

Developers and landlords’ business model literally exploiting the basic need to have a place to rest your head. The #HomesGuarantee demands 12M new units of social housing - that’s will require upzoning suburbs. Still don’t think developers won’t fight it!