By Benjamin Jesse Pacho

The De-financialization of Housing: A human rights-based approach from London to Oakland

By Benjamin Jesse Pacho

Covid-19 has exacerbated the housing crisis and

revealed it for what it truly is: a human rights calamity,

decades in the making. Never before has access to

an adequate and affordable home been such a stark

matter of life or death

—Leilani Farha

Introduction

The disruption of the global pandemic to urban housing markets has opened new frontiers for the reimagination of institutions via processes of de-financialization. Such efforts are rooted in social movement praxis, which posits a theory of change seeking to elevate the treatment of the home as an essential public good rather than a market commodity (Rudiger, 2016). An extreme example of the latter in recent memory is the 2008 Great Recession, when the housing question was most contested over the role of market forces and state intervention. As such, financialization scholarship gained considerable traction in the aughts amid the rampant use of predatory practices by mortgage lenders and the securitization of mortgage debt into tradable assets. If the past is prologue, large financial firms and institutional investors may look to capitalize on similar profiles of volatility and destabilization in global housing markets. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, in a bid to head off potential market speculation, cautioned policymakers against allowing financial actors to “use the pandemic and the

misfortunes of many to dominate housing markets without regard for human rights standards” (Farha, 2020). This paper analyses the ways in which evoking human rights through social movement praxis may set about challenging the dominance of free-market economics to determine access to housing. Currently, significant gaps exist in the housing financialization literature on the possibilities of human rights to transform institutions and structures, let alone challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism (Aalbers, 2013). The antecedents of neoliberalism can be traced to 1970s market reforms that focused on the privatization of state assets, deep social spending cuts, and deregulation of capital markets. These reforms have been internalized by the state to become sacrosanct, with the exception of the 2008 Great Recession, which revealed the impacts of housing financialization and the shortcomings of neoliberal policies. Following the first wave of Covid-19 lockdowns, academics put out calls for new scholarships on the definancialization of housing. This may suggest a disjuncture between earlier research on financialization and a period of post-financialization marked by the pandemic. As such, the nascent research agenda includes the study of “changing modes of urban governances and ‘anti-political’ social movements which can contest housing financialization locally” (Wijburg, 2020). However, given the international scope of human rights standards, an open question looms over how such frameworks could be “internalized” domestically, as a pre-condition for de-financializing housing at the local, regional, or national level. One principal way this could be achieved is by what human rights scholars refer to as the “transnational legal process.” From abstraction to enforcement, human rights can be woven structurally by “transnational norm entrepreneurs, governmental norm sponsors, transnational issue networks, interpretive communities, and law-declaring fora, bureaucratic compliance procedures, and issue linkages among issue areas” (Addison & Koh, 2017). To that end, this paper considers two case studies of urban social movements in London and Oakland that had established a transnational issue network to effectively de-financialize housing locally via a human rights approach. The research intentions herein hope to contribute to the timely set of questions around the promise of “progressive urban politics to contest financialization of urban space and housing”—as well as the extent that “de-financializing housing initiatives [could] become ‘world forming’” (Wijburg, 2020).

Where internalizing the human right to adequate housing comes up short, “many local initiatives may be challenged by neoliberal hegemony” (Jessop, 2007; Ibid). The theory of hegemony is further developed to discuss the interaction of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces that “fight for control” in the marketplace of ideas (Kaufman, 2020). In this case, the hegemony of neoliberalism is represented by the former, in which the financialization of housing operates, whereas human rights discourse is situated antagonistically in the latter position. Framing housing as a human right offers one important way to conceptualize housing not as a commodity or asset, but as “the first of the social services,” as quoted by Sir Winston Churchill. The former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom also said, in the lead-up to forming the United Nations, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” In a world irrevocably transformed, global crises present an opportunity to envision new possibilities for institutions, as well as jettison what no longer serves social, economic, or political interests. To set about charting a new vision of housing—with universal access at the center—this paper suggests that the human rights framework can be a means of undoing the neoliberal underpinnings of housing financialization. For example, since the start of the pandemic, social movements have taken up the mantle of housing as a human right to disabuse shelter from its economic frame in lieu of its social value. It is important to note that human rights historically have served to unite the global community around a common understanding of our collective humanity. From the devastation of WWII to the global pandemic, human rights standards are once again being asserted into public consciousness with renewed vigor, especially as the US and UK governments evoke the platitude of “Build Back Better.” But what will ‘Building Back Better’ look like for the right to housing? Will it be more in the vein of “Build Back Better as Before”? Or perhaps, “Build Back Better like Never Before”? Will policymakers borrow from the same 2008-crisis playbook laden with neoliberal solutions? This paper offers an alternative vision for institutions premised in social movements, which catalyze a “collective emancipatory project” toward realizing the right to adequate housing (Rudiger, 2016).

Literature Review

The Underpinnings of Financialization

The discontents of modern-day housing financialization can be traced back to the late 1970s neoliberal period. At this juncture, member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) adopted sweeping market reforms to usher in what the Washington Consensus heralded as the next phase of global wealth and prosperity. Raquel Rolnik, the former UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing from 2008 to 2014, considered multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as key actors in widely disseminating free-market hegemony. In 1993, the World Bank published what would then be a watershed report entitled Housing: Enabling Markets to Work, in which it strategically positioned housing as a function of financial markets, to be integrated into globalized circuits of finance. As such, the World Bank attempted to set clear directives and legitimize “the belief that markets could better regulate the allocation of housing, combined with the development of experimental and ‘creative financial products’” (Rolnik, 2019). On this re-brand of housing, national governments embarked on a neoliberal project of unmooring the state from traditional pillars of the economy. One need look no further than the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively, that had famously staked their political careers on transforming the state. This was effectively achieved by the pursuit of GDP growth and profits “through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production” (Krippner, 2005; Christophers, 2019). Additional market reforms mirrored across OECD countries had established financial channels by which housing would effectively become a new asset class primed for international trade. As such, the liberalization of trade barriers and capital controls assisted in setting up the scaffolding of financial markets. To ease the flow of investments across national borders, guidance was put forward by the Bretton Woods institutions to encourage the harmonization of domestic policy with international rules on trade. The neoliberal rationale undergirding the effort was premised on the notion that closer economic relations between states were to act as a necessary buffer against future transnational conflict and wars. However, this novel search for profits abroad via global finance capital effectively ushered in a new urban warfare on housing (Ibid). But more importantly, it signaled a fundamental shift in “the centre of gravity of the global economy from the ‘real economy’ of the production of goods and the delivery of

services towards the financial economy” (Gupta, 2019). Like a levee breaking, new actors and institutions—such as banks and non-banking—fanned out to explore new frontiers of investment capital and in turn, promulgated innovative processes of financialization. Consequently, this neoliberal project of state-led financialization resulted in a “long systematic process of destruction of housing as a social good, and its transformation into a commodity and a financial asset” (Rolnik, 2019). To address how processes of financialization specifically transgress the right to adequate housing—as codified in international human rights law—this paper has narrowed its focus to the following definition of financialization. To articulate a taxonomy, Manuel Aalbers operationalized the popular term as “the increasing dominance of financial actors, markets, practices, measurements, and narratives, at various scales, resulting in a structural transformation of economies, firms (including financial institutions), states, and households” (Aalbers, 2019). The next section discusses how these modalities of finance are applied in practice to housing, and how they concomitantly impact the right to housing.

Financialization in practice The outgrowth of neoliberal-era reforms witnessed the rise and increasing dominance of financial actors, such as mortgage companies, pension funds, hedge funds, and private equity firms. To realize the promise of unfettered market capitalism, such actors were emboldened to roll out newfangled products in conjunction with the rollback of government regulation. For example, “deregulation and liberalization of mortgage finance enabled households to borrow against the increasing rise in the value of their homes to fund consumption (Crouch, 2009; Watson, 2010), which enabled the boom [in housing demand] of the 1990s and 2000s” (Ryan-Collins, 2019). Historically, the post-war consensus on Keynesian policies that saw increased government spending after the Second World War “singled out the housing sector as a prime beneficiary of governmentinduced economic growth” (Aalbers, 2017). However, under neoliberalism, private banking and non-banking institutions became the main purveyors of housing finance for aspiring owner-occupiers. This transition led households, instead of the government, to take on mortgage debt “to stimulate the economy”—also referred to as “Privatized Keynesianism” (Ibid). In this case, the state saw its role recede—as did

classic Keynesianism’s consensus on providing robust social programs—leaving in its place the market to provide a privatized welfare system. In turn, ‘asset-based welfare’ in the form of homeownership was there to fill the gap left by welfare retrenchment, which evinced the collapse of social and economic policy into market-based practices (Doling & Ronald, 2010; Watson, 2009). Asset-based welfare in lieu of social welfare is facilitated by “state withdrawal from the provision of economic support for the under-employed and unemployed and pensioners, with (liquid) property wealth taking its place as a new, but rather uneven, safety net” (Ryan-Collins, 2019). As such, citizens who once received state support would now look to homeownership as the primary means for securing individual-based welfare and wealth. Together, market finance and the demand for homeownership brought about the economic growth set out under the neoliberal state by effectively transforming housing into an asset. At its nadir, finance-led economic growth resulted in the widespread practice of predatory mortgage lending in the early 2000s, which witnessed the massive repossession of single-family homes in 2008 by institutional investors. Moreover, these same actors had developed instruments to securitize the risk stemming from high loan-to-value mortgages. Tranches of mortgage loans were bundled and traded as securities, which had the effect of lessening the exposure of risk posed to institutional investors who sought to remove toxic “assets” off their books. In turn, this diluted prospects for accountability, as some foreclosed homeowners were unable to track down the financial actor who held the title to their home. Some scholars argue these financial products/securities worked as intended, not by increasing access to homeownership, but by their intended outcome to “take ownership (‘repossession’) and withdraw equity. Indeed, ‘the magic of finance is its ability to take by giving’” (Martin, 2002; Aalbers, 2017). Yet the magic of finance is also its ability to socialize systemic risk while privatizing profits. This was evidenced by the publicly funded bailouts of large corporate banks and the taxpayers who fronted the costs of their distressed housing portfolios and toxic assets. Amidst these bailouts, in the US, “more than 13 million households lost their homes in the period between 2006 and 2010,” leading to “9 million evictions, and affecting about 30 million people” (Leijten & Bel, 2020). In the late aughts, hard lessons were learned by

policymakers and housing advocates alike, but few substantive curbs on financial actors followed the 2008 crisis. If anything, they have continued to profit from ongoing monetary and fiscal policies that seek to stimulate finance-led economic growth via housing commodification. Since 2008, financial institutions have purchased distressed real estate assets at deep discounts as a result of asset purchasing programs managed by central banks around the world (Beswick et al., 2016; Blakeley, 2020). Additionally, governments set up similar schemes with private equity firms to incentivize them to purchase billions of dollars worth of publicly held high-risk mortgages at steep discounts. This has only served to “increase rather than decrease the role and power of corporate finance in national housing systems” (Farha, 2017). For example, Blackstone Group grew to become the world’s largest real estate company after buying thousands of distressed homes in which it rented to homeowners who were previously foreclosed on during the 2008 financial crisis; after selling its stake in such assets, Blackstone turned a profit of $1.7 billion in 2022 (Oguh, 2022). Political economists note that housing financialization not only traverses residential mortgage debt and securitization, “but also includes the financialization of social and private rental housing and of construction firms and social housing companies” (Aalbers, 2020). The next section discusses the encroachment of investment finance into private rental housing.

Frontiers of Financialization Interest in the UK’s Private Rental Sector (PRS) has gained momentum among institutional investors during the pandemic. This is at a time when rising home prices have placed owner-occupier tenancies out of reach for many in the country. Zooming out, a re-alignment across tenures appears to be taking shape, “reflected in the continuing growth of the absolute number and proportion of households renting and the continued decline of homeownership, leading some UK commentators to argue that we are witnessing a transition to a ‘post-homeownership’ society (Ronald & Kadi, 2017; Byrne, 2020; Wijburg, 2020). Taking such comments seriously, could these trends portend the emergence of a private rental democracy, one that has been borne out of the excesses of a property-owning democracy? How might the finance-led economic growth model adjust in the wake of Covid-19? Given the shrinking demand among would-be home buyers, the strategy of investors appears to be converging

around alternative housing arrangements and key demographics. Like the 2008 housing market crash, the logics of finance capital appear to be adapting to the current crisis by hedging risk, as well as accelerating the previous trend of using different types of housing as collateral (as a more resilient asset for stable returns). Scholars of housing financialization note that “the exhaustion of the mortgage market (due to the financial crisis as well as declining homeownership) is leading financial actors to pursue new asset classes” (Fields, 2018; Byrne, 2020; Ibid). Since the pandemic, purpose-built rental housing—or Build to Rent (BtR)—“investment has accelerated, as property investors bet that purpose-built flats will provide more reliable returns than shops, offices, or an unpredictable equity market” (Hammond, 2022).

Aalbers (2017) puts a fine point on what he calls “High Quality Collateral (HQC)” , as types of investments that generate stable returns for the shareholders of private equity firms, hedge funds, and asset managers. According to recent reporting by the Financial Times, “investors ploughed £4.1bn into the UK’s fast-growing ‘build-to-rent' sector last year” (Ibid). In a larger context, “the total national BtR pipeline has grown by 478% since 2013, with some £2.7 billion traded in 2017, including volume acquisitions of properties for conversion to multi-unit rental (Savills, 2018; Nethercote, 2019). To the extent BtR bears the attributes of HQC, the rate of investment is likely to gain momentum during the pandemic as private equity appears poised to double down on a PRSled investment strategy. Industry insiders, such as the global commercial real estate conglomerate CBRE, describe how BtR became the new darling of finance capital: “There’s been a changing of the guard in terms of what’s regarded as a secure asset class. Beds and sheds [warehouses] were certainly the themes of last year for investors – some have changed direction and are putting investment primarily into those asset classes” (Hammond, 2022). This paper seeks to contribute to the nascent academic literature on BtR within the context of PRS representing an important front in housing financialization in the UK housing market. Moreover, critical analysis of the burgeoning sector is scant, which may help explain why academic searches for it primarily returned studies from financial services firms and property management companies. This raises questions as to the capacity of regulators and academics alike to hold accountable the management and operational practices of Global Corporate Landlords (GCLs). Specifically, future

research focusing on GCLs will need to identify the ways in which “the combination of light-touch regulation and low transparency can make private equity firms far less accountable to both investors and people on the ground, such as tenants” (J. Beswick; G. Alexandri; M. Byrne, 2016; Wiburg, 2020). Whilst it is still early days in the pandemic, further inroads of financial actors in the PRS may lead to an unprecedented level of precarity, especially among those who are less able to navigate market fluctuations. Such disruptions, as seen in 2008 and 2020, are critical for understanding housing financialization and the ways in which finance capital mobilizes in response to crises. For example, housing researchers elucidated on what they viewed as a post-crisis playbook for investors after 2008. This can be seen in “the vulture-like moves by private equity firms and other institutional investors to accumulate wealth from the dispossession experienced by millions of people through foreclosures (repossessions) of distressed residential real estate and mortgages” (J. Beswick; G. Alexandri; M. Byrne, 2016; Ibid). In similar ways to 2008, private equity seems poised to reap the benefits from their investments in housing. This may be evident by the expansive BtR pipelines delivered through institutional financing—to the extent demand will only grow for the sector due to wider declines in homeownership and demographic stagnation in PRS. Such societal and economic trends in the housing market have “particularly effected younger households, who are today half as likely to be homeowners by the age of 30 as those born in the post-war ‘baby boomer’ generation” (Corlett & Judge, 2017; Nethercote, 2019). For those caught between a lack of social housing options and the elusive property ladder, BtR products are evidently an emerging answer to the housing question for “Generation Rent,” as it is being called in the UK. As such, investor-backed-BtR products are being marketed to “younger couples and single sharers, and the standard building typology reflects that” (Scanlon, 2017). Yet where do we situate the BtR sector and growing PRS in the wider context of neoliberalism and housing financialization? Based on the pace and scope of investment in the sector, we may see a similar push as in the 1970s for the housing sector to be a key driver of finance-led economic growth. Except for this time, expansion of the economy may depend on profits bolstered by private rent collection rather than excessive private mortgage borrowing—from which a revamped Privatized Keynesianism 2.0. may emerge. This phase could

potentially see the dominance of Global Corporate Landlords (GCLs) via their capacity to deliver wider shareholder margins. While at the same time, renters would see diminished protections, “who have in turn faced the loss of rent subsidies, unwarranted eviction notices, and exorbitant rent increases and additional charges” (Call, Powell, and Heck, 2014; Beswick, Alexandri, Byrne, Vives-Miró and Fields, 2016). While the BtR sector is still quite new—making up only a small proportion of the private rental market—the US does provide an illustrative case study on GCLs, as it is more entrenched in the PRS there. The study of institutional investors in regional housing markets has been ongoing since 2008, especially in areas that saw high rates of foreclosed homes, like in the sunbelt and Southern California. One study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta “found that corporate landlords, especially large institutional investors, were far likelier than other owners to evict their tenants” (Ferrer, 2022). Additionally, studies out of Georgia State University support similar conclusions. Immergluck et al. delve into how “such landlords are also more likely to use threats of eviction—and serial court filings that deepen tenants’ financial woes—as a routine business practice” (Immergluck et al., 2019). This could result from the power imbalance between GCLs and tenants, where the former possess extensive legal teams that know how to wield influence and lobby in support of GCLcentric policies. Other findings have suggested certain ways GCLs attempt to increase shareholder returns are via deferred maintenance and excessive fee-charging—quality of life issues that tenants must confront. As such, BtR is an area that necessitates further research, especially focusing on tenant challenges to GCL practices. However, growing awareness among these renters is leading tenant rights organizations to leverage human rights discourse to effectively challenge GCL policy on the ground.

Financialization and Housing as a Human Right Over the last decade, the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Adequate Housing have sought to raise global awareness on the impacts of financialization on urban policies and housing. Raquel Rolnik—who held the post from 2008 to 2014—produced thematic country reports to elucidate the dire state of housing insecurity from the global south to “hedge cities” like London. At the close of her tenure, Rolnik reflected on what she saw as a core theme emerging from her in-depth reporting: “No longer was housing conceived of as a common

good that a society agrees to share, by providing for those with less resources. Instead, it became a mechanism of rent extraction, financial gain and wealth accumulation” (Rolnik, 2019). Where Rolnik is an architect and urban planner by trade, her successor—Leilani Farha—brought her experience as a human rights lawyer to the Rapporteurship. Building on the solid evidence and fact-finding missions of her predecessor, Farha took a more aggressive approach as rapporteur to call out specific financial actors. For example, Farha attempted (in a way) to subpoena Blackstone —a private equity firm she charged as a bad actor—who had profited from the dispossession of foreclosed homeowners in 2008 (Birchall, 2019). Perhaps Farha’s greatest achievement is the tactic employed to “name and shame” financial firms— as well as provide governments with policy guidance to implement the human right to housing. Beyond writing reports, Farha has produced guidelines, films, podcasts, and grassroots organizing pamphlets. All told, such an array of content serves to provide multiscalar approaches for how interested parties may go about internalizing the human right to adequate housing—be it in political, social, or legalistic spheres, and whether from the bottom-up or top-down (Farha, 2020).

As such, the contributions from both Rolnik and Farha are timely, given the effects of the pandemic on urban housing markets. This paper seeks to borrow from their expertise, with Rolnik’s in-depth understanding of land use, finance and housing policy, as well as Farha’s legal experience with enforcement of international human rights law. Combined, we begin to see a pathway toward the de-financialization of housing via a human rights framework. Still a nascent idea, this agenda was initially proposed by housing scholar Gertjan Wijburg, who at the height of the first Covid-19 lockdown in April 2020, asked the following probing questions: “How can the financialization of urban space and housing be contested? How can progressive urban politics challenge neoliberal urbanism from within and outside? And what can cities from different stature and geographical backgrounds learn from each other? (Wijburg, 2020). I contend that international human rights can be a productive force in emancipating housing policy from state-led neoliberal financialization. Additionally, this paper also aims to articulate the ways in which this could be achieved, principally via a social movement praxis that “contests financializing pressures on urban housing markets” (Fields, 2017; Wijburg, 2020). While Wijburg makes passing reference to these two processes as

potential means of de-financialization, this paper attempts to explore them further; and in so doing, narrow the gaps in the human rights and political economy literature, where few academic bridges between the two exist.

Research and Methodology

This paper enlists a comparative analysis of financialization to answer timely questions as to how social movements may set about to de-financialize housing locally, to the extent human rights discourse features prominently. As such, the following research questions provided the focus for this paper: • How will global corporate landlords—who enter new relationships with developers, local government, housing associations, and housing operators— balance the needs of shareholders and private renting tenants? • As schools shuddered, demand at food pantries skyrocketed, and women dropped out of the “productive economy” to bolster the family unit on the heels of shelter-in-place orders in 2020. How important is it to understand the social implications of housing provision as an economic imperative? • What are some challenges and opportunities of establishing the right to housing locally as part of a human rights framework?

Research Design Given its interdisciplinary approach to human rights and international political economy, this paper leverages the rich tradition of qualitative inquiry. Historically, both works of literature have been problematized due to the lack of agency attributed to their subjects, where the collapse of subjectivity occurs at the point of their conceptualization as rational selfinterested actors in pursuit of maximal utility. As such, a qualitative—rather than quantitative—approach seems warranted due to the complexity and descriptive qualities of urban social movements (Cloke et al., 2004). In using qualitative methods, several inputs are key for gathering data and conducting analysis. They include 1) comparative case study analysis; 2) discourse analysis; 3) in-depth interviews. Throughout the paper, all three inputs are used to interrogate the veracity of empirically gathered data, as it relates to the forces of financialization, social movements, and human rights practices. This could also be understood as a form of

triangulation by confirming the results and findings of the data (Bryman, 2004). Additionally, this project seeks to fill existing gaps not only in the relevant literature but also in what may be emerging frontiers of research by undertaking a comparative lens to housing (de-)financialization. The true measure of this research, thus, rests on its explanatory power to draw inferences and generalizable patterns across two countries from its application of consistent, qualitative methodologies. In taking an unconventional approach, the mixed methodologies seek to achieve a level of agility and adaptability in response to the rapidly changing circumstances of the global pandemic. Like investment capital, events are quite fluid to the extent that processes of housing financialization and social movements could look very different from what has been presented here. With that caveat, this research attempts to shine a light on what is a fast-moving target: the emergence of a transnational emancipatory project to de-financialize housing—spurred on by its elevation in the public imagination amid the pandemic. Case study selection and interviews The US and UK feature prominently in both housing financialization and human rights literature. For the “special relationship” between both countries over time has proven useful as a lens for analyzing patterns of social, economic, and political development. Specifically, the leaders of both countries had brought about transformative changes in the state’s relationship with market capitalism during the late 1970s. Still today, Conservative axioms and slogans possess deep resonance among the polity: like vestigial cremains, they outlived the heroes of neoliberalism, such as Thatcher and Reagan. For example, refrains like “Government isn’t the solution, Government is the problem;” or “I want a capitalowning democracy,” continue to dampen counter-hegemonic forces. As such, these countries were selected due to how embedded neoliberalism is institutionally, economically, politically, and psychologically. Also, it is my belief that examining social movement praxis in furtherance of human rights could provide ways of isolating variable conditions across countries, which may or may not correlate with radical change. Quasi-structured interviews are used to bolster the existing research method. A total of 11 interviews were conducted. The participants were carefully selected to round out the research and provide interdisciplinary insights on the case studies and areas of interest/expertise. The sample of respondents is composed of international human rights lawyers, social justice activists, community and civic

engagement scholars, political economists, urban planners, and human rights researchers. Each interview was held virtually over Zoom for approximately one hour. These were largely unstructured interviews where participants were asked open-ended questions. Additionally, the informal setting was chosen to allow interlocutors “to share their experiences and understandings” (King & Horrocks, 2010).

Housing movement case studies: Focus E15 and Moms4Housing

This paper draws on two case studies to elucidate the potential of urban social movements to challenge state-led financialization and the hegemony of neoliberalism. Moms4Housing—based in Oakland, California—is a campaign that mobilized in 2019 in response to the vacant single-family homes owned by a private equity firm who had deployed speculative land practices. The second case study has its roots in the London borough of Newham, where the Focus E15 campaign began in earnest in 2013 following the wave of finance capital that flowed into the borough amid the 2012 London Olympics inaEastaLondon

Moms4Housing In January 2020, the Moms4Housing group gained national attention in the US after organizing grassroots efforts in opposition to the outsized role of institutional investors in Oakland, California. In the years preceding the pandemic, homes owned by real-estate firm Wedgewood had been kept vacant in order to accumulate exchange value on the market. As such, large swaths of Oakland’s housing stock remained unoccupied at a time of acute need and when initial stay-athome orders went into effect. However, the pandemic exposed how institutional investors and their growing presence in the San Francisco Bay Area were exacerbating the existing housing crisis. For example, Hahn reports that “each year Wedgewood buys hundreds of Bay Area foreclosed homes, renovates them, and sells them for profit. It’s one of a number of speculative real estate companies operating in the area, and their practices at large are accelerating gentrification and driving up rent and home prices astronomically” (Hahn, 2020). As such, the combination of these finance-led interventions and the dire lack of accessible housing options proved to be the clarion call for local social justice organizations such as the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). With the help of ACCE, a

group of mothers-turned-community organizers set out to problematize the linkages between the egregious practices of Wedgewood and the lived reality of those facing chronic housing insecurity in the local area. As housing scholars have shown, like a gold rush for private equity firms, institutional investors began buying up large swaths of single-family homes to rent out after the 2008 financial crisis. As a result, “the number of single-family rentals jumped 67 percent between 2005 and 2015 [in the US], from 10.5 million homes to 17.5 million.” The rental market for single-family homes in Oakland and Berkeley has been a boon for real estate investors like Wedgewood, which holds a sizable share of the rental stock. In the East Bay alone, “more than a third of rental units are now single-family homes—a category exempt from rent control under California law.” As such, Moms4Housing sought to politicize the ways in which real estate-driven speculation continues to disproportionately impact housing policy and homelessness—where “seventy percent of homeless residents are black [in Oakland].” Targeted messaging was also used to challenge assumptions of a housing supply shortage after audits conducted by ACCE revealed that “there were more vacant properties than people living in tents and cars in Oakland” (Kim 2020). In November 2019, the core founders of Moms4Housing executed a direct action to occupy one of Wedgewood’s vacant homes in Oakland. Headlines on local newspapers led with: “They declared that housing is a ‘human right’—and that they were ‘using that right’” (Ibid). The assertion of ‘Housing as a Human Right’ was a bold statement, even revolutionary; in particular, it had the force of unsettling and questioning what housing and homes had been used for. But more so, the mere utterance of the phrase was an affront to the hegemony of neoliberalism and state-led housing financialization, which Moms4Housing had claimed was at the crux of the housing crisis. “We want speculators out of our community,” said Carroll Fife, the lead organizer of the occupation and director of the Oakland chapter of ACCE. “They’re coming in, they’re profiting off harm that’s done in our community and we want them out” (Cowan 2020). Furthermore, the handful of core members were specific in framing their occupation of the Oakland home at 2928 Magnolia Street as an act of civil disobedience, evoking the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s. For historical context, Fife emphasizes “the actions that Moms 4 Housing took were bold and courageous like the lunch counters in the South, like the marches in Selma, like the lone protestor in

Tiananmen.” Moreover, Moms4Housing showed the occupation of the Wedgewood home not as the ultimate end goal, but rather as the means to shift the normative social relationship with housing in the wider context of a basic human right to shelter. For example, the moms’ evocation of housing as a human right served to be a clarion call, for it “added fuel to an already simmering fire among activists who were demanding a different vision for housing in this country” (Solomon 2020). While the Moms4Housing action galvanized significant social support in the public sphere, further internalization of the human right to housing was seen across political, legislative, and legal spaces. As a major political win, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf intervened to secure the occupied home on behalf of the single mothers. Schaaf achieved this by facilitating negotiations between Wedgewood and the Oakland Community Land Trust (CLT). The latter’s express purpose as a non-profit, “like other land trusts and cooperatives around the country, aims to take properties off the speculative market and make them permanently affordable” (Kim 2020). As such, the CLT has agreed to purchase “Moms House” and either rent or sell it to the previous occupiers. Local political leadership has also vowed to pass public policy in support of giving tenants and the broader community the option to purchase property before institutional investors—also referred to as the right of first refusal or the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. From Oakland to the state capital, Governor Gavin Newsom soon after signed a new law prohibiting the bulk-buying of residential properties, instead requiring them “to be sold individually, which, in theory, gives families and individuals a better shot at buying a home” (Solomon 2020). Although the pandemic has somewhat slowed momentum for institutional change, the horizon appears promising with the Housing is a Human Right Act, which would amend California’s constitution should it be adopted by the legislature and approved by voters. “We need to be looking at housing differently than we are now. Because it’s not working right now, and it’s a fundamental need for every single human being” said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, the bill’s sponsor (Ibid). Immense change has followed since the two-month occupation of Moms House. As housing continues to remain a central focus in the pandemic, future researchers will look to analyze the efficacy of political and legal changes as they take effect. Yet this Oakland-based social movement helps to articulate what a human rights-led housing approach could look like. But more importantly, it contributes to a social praxis

rooted in the de-financialization of housing through specific issue linkages (social reproduction) and human rights discourse.

Focus E15 The Focus E15 social movement has emerged as one of the foremost housing advocacy groups based in the UK. Much like Moms 4 Housing, a group of single moms-turnedactivists organized a grassroots campaign to disrupt the long arm of housing financialization administered by the state. In 2013, the local authority in the London Borough of Newham issued eviction notices to 29 mothers temporarily housed at the Focus E15 hostel. This accommodation site was outfitted with a ‘mother and baby unit’ and facilitated a safe space for women with past histories of domestic violence and chronic housing insecurity. Unfortunately, the hostel and its critical services were unable to sustain the £40,000 in spending cuts imposed by the local council, which in the wider societal context largely stemmed from what political economist Jamie Peck refers to as austerity urbanism. Peck situates this period in “the post-2008 round of public service cuts and welfare retrenchment” in the UK, which resulted in the devolution of state budgetary responsibilities and smaller government (Peck 2012; Gillespie et at. 2018). Furthermore, the housing insecurity faced by the Focus E15 mothers was exacerbated by the severe lack of social homes, of which “the numbers on London’s local authority waiting lists went up by over 80% from 1997 to 2006 to 331,000, or 10% of all households” (Watt 2009a; Watt & Minton 2016). As previously discussed, the 1970s neoliberal era saw a political consensus form around government welfare retrenchment and the free-market orientation of public sector goods. Where the UK witnessed a post-World War II housing boom under Keynesian government, neoliberal resentment would characterize such provision of council homes as public sector inefficiency—and in turn, advise government’s immediate exit from the housing business altogether. This came to fruition via Margaret Thatcher’s conservative-led government in 1979. For example, “the UK’s housing sector began to be dramatically transformed as privatization, deregulation, and speculation became central pillars of government policy” (Wilde 2017). As such, Thatcher’s signature Right-to-Buy (RTB) scheme in 1980 was considered the hallmark of her approach to ushering in a “property-owning democracy.” This effectively enabled the mass transfer of social housing stock to owner-

occupier and private rental sectors (through buy-to-let landlords). In a bid to consolidate political power, council tenants—who were strong supporters of the Labour party— benefited from the Conservatives’ RTB policy by being able to purchase their council flat below market rates. Yet the revenues from initial RTB sales were not put towards rebuilding or replenishing the social housing stock. UK government statistics note that London alone lost nearly 85,000 council homes due to RTB from 1999 to 2010 (DCLG 2015; Ibid). In more recent years, efforts across political parties to deliver regeneration and modernization projects of derelict council estates were also seen as “an important weapon in combating the housing crisis via its capacity to provide new homes through densification” (Adonis & Davie 2015; Watt & Minto 2016). However, UK housing researchers point to the adverse impacts that such regeneration schemes can have on the wider social housing stock, as captured in the 2015 London Assembly Housing Committee report. The contents cite the outcome of regeneration schemes across 50 estates, which “witnessed a net loss of around 8,300 social rental homes,” while the number of market-rate homes doubled through densification (Watt & Minto, 2016). To understand the Focus E15 movement is, in part, to connect their struggles with the ways in which “London’s housing has been subject to prolonged neo-liberal reforms under the twin lodestars of ‘privatisation’ by conservative and Coalition governments and ‘modernisation’ by New Labour” (Hodkinson & Robbins 2013; Hodkinson, Watt, & Mooney 2013; Ibid). In this context, the Focus E15 moms had few options to stave off their eviction. They either had to accept being rehoused outside of London—somewhere hundreds of miles away in Hastings, Manchester, or Birmingham—or turn to private renting. Both were seen as untenable, given the lack of wages to cover market rents and their community-based support networks rooted in Newham. Nevertheless, the band of young mothers petitioned to stay in the Borough and, in a plea of desperation, even sought the support of Robin Wales—the Mayor of Newham—who showed a profound disregard for their housing plight. After Wales said “if you can’t afford to live in Newham, you can’t afford to live in Newham,’” the group became politicized; and subsequently, they began articulating a campaign of resistance and transformative change. They closed ranks and built solidarity with other activist groups, as well as tightening their messaging around the poignant slogan: “Social housing, not cleansing” (Gillespie et al. 2018). Core members of Focus

E15 strategically positioned the campaign in an adversarial relationship with the local authority, who they found complicit in “the transformation of the city’s real estate market into a hub for footloose global capital in search of risk-free investments and high returns” (Heywood 2012; Dorling 2014; Watt & Minton 2016). As such, Focus E15 organized a series of direct actions to call attention to the local financialization of housing in Newham. On the heels of the 2012 London Olympics, the group chose to focus on the intersection of speculative land values and vacant council estates, which after 2012 could have resulted in further gentrification and displacement of the local community via regeneration. The group’s occupation of the Carpenters Estate in East London generated significant political momentum and social support for Focus E15. In attracting local media attention, the moms displayed a disciplined message to ensure the occupation was problematizing the vulnerability of council estates to finance capital via processes of “accumulation by dispossession” and “displacement” (Harvey 2003; Beswick et. al 2016; Gillespie et al. 2018). To that end, the Carpenters’ occupation focused “attention on the fact that people are being forced out of London due to a lack of affordable housing while huge numbers of perfectly good social housing units sit empty” (Sandra and Fitzpatrick, 2020). After succumbing to social pressure, the Borough relented and offered the 29 Focus E15 moms re-housing options to stay in Newham. In their defense of social housing, other campaign wins include the repopulation of 40 homes on the Carpenters estate, as well as establishing a safe harbor for other housing advocacy groups fighting for the right to housing and the city. Amid the current pandemic, the Focus E15 group and the Oakland-based Moms4Housing sought to establish a transnational link via a rights-based approach to housing. Connecting virtually, the campaign organizers shared what strategies and resources they had found useful in social movement praxis to de-financialize housing locally.

Findings, Analysis and Discussion

This section considers the main results following qualitative interviews, comparative case studies, and discourse analysis. Two key themes emerged, and each one will be taken in turn. Hegemony From qualitative interviews, a consensus emerged among human rights practitioners and community activists alike that in order to successfully de-financialize essential

public goods, there needs to be an equal or greater force to challenge more dominant hegemonic forces. In this case, Dr. Kaufman, director of the Vasconcellos Institute for Democracy in Action at De Anza College and author of Challenging Power: Democracy and Accountability in a Fractured World, emphasized the “need to flip the script” on common perceptions of who holds power. Kaufman referenced the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci who sought to destabilize the cultural dominance of fascists in the 1930s. For Gramsci, the assumptions of existing power dynamics were to be problematized to the extent that consent of the governed is needed by systems of domination to remain in power (Kaufman 2016). In this vein, Gramsci’s work can be extrapolated to financialization based on any individual (housed or unhoused) who has consented to a second party (property owner, landlord, lender etc.) by tendering payment of rent, mortgage, or non-payment. The terms may vary to the extent that rent increases may fluctuate or interest rates change, but nevertheless, we have come to understand that the power is typically vested in the land or property owner, rather than a tenant. However, human rights can serve as a counterhegemonic force by questioning the very means by which systems of oppression derive their legitimacy. As gleaned from the case studies, both Moms4Housing and Focus E15 effectively undermined notions of property ownership by occupying homes of functional use, which had been kept vacant to gain exchange value on the market. Furthermore, both social movements succeeded in wielding social power against market logic by disrupting “the way that idea systems come to legitimize, or support, the interests of ruling groups in society” (Ibid). By asserting a human right to housing, the moms were able to de-legitimize the property claims of nondescript corporate entities. Additionally, the dynamics of hegemony appear to be a function of how claims and rights are constructed and communicated, whether with political or economic salience, etc. Rudiger notes a hegemonic operation can be understood as creating “a shared identity and a universalized frame or goal through an alignment of many different but equivalent elements confronting an antagonistic force...It is a practice of political construction” (Rudiger 2016).

Internalization of Human Rights Through extensive comparative case study analysis, findings reveal the possible ways in which international human rights can be “internalized” at the regional, state, and

local level via vertical processes. As mentioned previously, this could be achieved by what Harold Koh describes as a transnational process via “transnational norm entrepreneurs, governmental norm sponsors, transnational norm sponsors, transnational issue networks...and linkages among issue areas” (Addison and Koh 2017). In April 2020, the Focus E15 advocacy group based in the London Borough of Newham, in coordination with Moms4Housing in Oakland, California, held an international virtual solidarity event titled ‘Reclam Homes from the US to the UK. The event came at a critical time, on the heels of lockdowns and sweeping job losses. In a bid to build transnational solidarity, organizers of both social movements shared critical best practices for advancing the human right to housing amid the pandemic. Previous tactics of occupation had brought about significant social, political, and institutional changes; however, uncertainty loomed as to how to proceed with similar direct actions. As it turned out, to continue highlighting the social value of housing, both social movements doubled down on using occupation-as-message amid the pandemic. Joe Hoover, an associate professor at Queen Mary University of London, discusses how such actions help to facilitate the politicization process. First, it raises the issue of housing in a dramatic and public way, forcing the public and government officials to confront the reality of the housing crisis. Second, it politicizes what is often seen as a private matter, turning the personal catastrophe of homelessness, eviction, and foreclosure into public discussions about housing policy, government responsibility, and the injustice created by treating housing as a commodity. (Hoover 2016) The joint Focus E15 and Moms4Housing solidarity event proved several key points: 1) creating transnational connections via issue linkages can be an important way to internalize international human rights at the local level; 2) issue linkages can involve sharing tactics/strategies for mobilizing/organizing, as well as politicizing private matters–such as the crisis of social reproduction–that are indicative of wider systemic problems; 3) case study analysis has shown how social internalization of human rights norms can be more effective than political or legal internalization. For example, “when everyone in a community follows certain social norms out of felt internal normativity, order can be maintained without rigid systems of external legal enforcement, because self-

enforcement is both more effective and more efficient than third-party controls” (Addison & Koh 2017).

Conclusion

The social internalization of human rights shows promise as a potential means to counter the hegemony of state-led housing financialization locally. Where certain groups may be more vulnerable to market volatility and economic crises, campaign organizers can establish linkages across differences by creating a shared identity under a universalized goal. For example, Hoover notes that “realizing a radical human rights claim is deeply pollical and requires profound and sustained resistance through organizing and mobilization.” To that end, social internalization of human rights has also been revealed to be more effective over legal or political pathways, as it signals a normative shift in one’s own understanding of a fundamental right (and wrong), leading to ‘self-enforcement.’ Additionally, such framing of housing as a public good, in the case of Moms4Housing and Focus E15, had acted as a counter-hegemonic force against market logics of finance based in exchange value. Direct action in the form of building occupation emancipated notions of private property to show that such rights are “not absolute.” These radical social movements offer but one way to definancialize housing in a local context. In closing, I put forward the prospect of what a human rights-led housing policy can be, and in particular, its promise to unsettle the neoliberal hegemony that continues to unfairly mediate housing access in favor of large financial firms.

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Untitled Photo Series by Priscilla Kong