when families started defaulting on their payments, that is when the whole system started to collapse and now we have a new financial product which is more or less exactly the same as a mortgage-backed security but rather than securitizing the underlying mortgage on your home they are essentially using the rentals to pay back the bonds. there's a lot of debate right now happening about this process so i wanted to scale it down to since i wanted to stay in my talk about finance -- in a way that we are still seeing homes as market commodities. we are furthering financial speculation and financial securities in the housing market

and last and certainly not least we are seeing that these types of wall street driven market-based solutions are supposedly the only way we are going to get out of this mess. ns that got us into this mess in the first place? he paused, and he said, well, yeah, but trust me. [laughter] so today in 2014, what's our responsibility? what's our role? what's our role of active members of the community, as residents, as journalist, social justice activist, and i come back to what my mom told me years ago with the book project, and he said, people who feel powerless gravitate to powerful stories because their own story is so disempowering. right now, she said, we all feel powerless. i think our challenge for everyone in the room so to make

a story more powerful than the current narrative, more sensible than houses are first and mother most market commodities and only secondly the places that we live. i think our job, in other words, is to open up a mental state in which you can start envisioning and articulating how we create the society anew. book we're talking about words and definitions, like what always happens at book festivals, there's two definitions of home. a home is a market product and a pathway to equality. i want to propose this, and make it clear this is not my definition. this is a definition that i heard from hundreds of residents of homeowners, of tenants, people who are homeless. this is the definition i heard from activist groups across the country, from journalists, from

writers, this is a definition essentially reverberating from almost everybody i spoke to. what they were saying is why don't we define a home as a form of necessity for survival, and as such, buying a home is a basic human right. we don't talk about home as human rights in the country. we talk about them abroad, but i appreciate you started this conversation with the declaration of human rights because in that document, homes are a human right. housing is a human right. everybody has a right to shelter. my demands here today is that housing be recognized as a human right in this country. i got to tell you, what i say that on the radio or television, and i say it a lot, i'm often told this is an unreasonable demand. make reasonable demands. right? what i think is unreasonable is

that in the richest nation in the world, with a government that has figured out how to collect and arian vive all of my e-mails, phone logs, and all my communications, that learned to wage war with remote control sticks, that learned how to build the largest prison system in the history of human civilization, well, it seems unreasonable to me we can't structure a society in which everyone has a place to live, especially in a country in which we already have multiple times the number of empty, vacant homes than the number of times of homeless people. it's like housing has to be a human right, and what's clear to me is that the powers these won't or can't figure out a way to ensure this right, then we all have the right to liberate homes and land ourselves. it's this type of collective

liberation that families are already doing across the country, the family that i profiled in the book and hundreds more that i was not able to put in, so i think now, probably our turn to join them. thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much. wasn't that beautiful? her book is so beautiful. just want to open up the discussion so that you can make comments or ask questions of laura about what she just talked about, about her book. i think, michael, you had a question. yeah, go to the microphone so

people can hear you. michael's got a good question for you. >> hi, i'm michael, a graduate student, and one of the things that i am looking into is infant mortality in charlottesville, virginia, and in the white population in charlottesville is 4.9, about five babies before a thousand die before they're first birthday. in the african-american population here in charlottesville, virginia, it's 20.2. when i was looking into the causes and conditions it goes beyond a waive of housing that you talk about. it seems to go back to the cause of the conditions that led to the caprini green. what we have here in charlottes vim in 1960, prior to 1960, we

had the vinegar hill neighborhood, which were standing on the former vinegar hill neighborhood, and the city needed i-644 and highway 250, and the african-american neighborhood kind of stood in the way, so the city somehow had the vine gar hill neighborhood designated as blighted so it could be torn down, and we found that in the 1960s, once that -- once the neighborhood was torn down, the only businesses that would hire african-american # were other african-american businesses, so once the neighborhood was torn down, a whole generation of leaders were lost, and african-americans couldn't get housing loans to

build new businesses and when they could, they were charged 25% interest. it would seem like we're even further behind. we're still back in that first wave. any ideas suggestions for us here in charlottesville? >> sure, i mean, policy is an incrediblely controversial thing. i hesitate to make any prescriptions. the story you told doesn't surprise me. doesn't it seem communities to me that african-american communities stand in the way of something the city was looking to build in the time of urban renewal. that's not something just charlottesville experienced, but every sing the major american

city experienced that during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, cities wanted to build something, and they always happened to have to build it on ton of african-american neighborhoods, particularly african-american middle class neighborhoods where there was a lot of stores and businesses and home, so, you know, i think that it's clear that what we're talking about, you know, and this is something that we really emphasize to everywhere i went is there's no way to see this crisis we're going through right now as independent of the crisis that we've gone through before. in particular, if you look at housing justice questions and displacement questions in african-american communities. you know, that was the thing that struck me the most. i talk to families in white communities, they'd be, like, this is a cataclysmic event, you know, in the foreclosure crisis. how could this happen to me? when i talk to african-american families, they were, like, yep, this happened in urban renewal, before that in the 30s, before

that in the 1890. this has happened to us since we got to this country, when we were brought to the country, we didn't ask to be here. i think it's clear we need to understand that questions of housing justice and questions of displacement, questions of the health you start withings the crisis is rarely framed through a health lens, but it really should be because, you know, health impacts -- the health impacks communities where foreclosure rates are high a very noticeable. emergency room vis, diabetes, high blood pressure, attempted suicide, deaths all increases in communities for displacement and foreclosure is high. i think what we need to do is start to really be willing to look at the crisis we're going through now in this larger trajectory of crisis around land ownership and who gets to make decisions about a city and

people. there's a classic example of a policy push through by government probably likely incentivized -- actually definitely invent vised by private development in which the community living there had no say in what happened. that's the way of thinking about our cities and thinking about our housing and communities that has to stop, not just because it's unfair and unjustings but because it's incredibly, physically dangerous, and it's also, you know, and i think that, you know, i talking about this at the end of the book, we can't look at housing as something that's divorced from other crisis we're going through right now. to me, it's quite clear that the housing crisis is -- that the mentality that led to the housing crisis is the same mentality that is leading to the climate crisis right now and the ecological crisis we're going through, and right now, we're space facing a massive cry us in

which whole countries and many u.s. sphis are going to be underwater in the next few hundred years. a lot of people are going to have to move unless wells -- some move regardless, but we have to take action right now. i think we need to think about the ways in which we allow profit to be the deciding factor of what happens in our communities, and that's, obviously, detrimental when, for example, a developer or city builds a conduit through your building or neighborhood. it's detrimental when you would like to continue, like myself, living in new york city and parts of new york city will be underwater if we burn fuels at the rate we are burning them right now. i'd say i don't have any -- i don't have any -- i don't have any advice for charlottesville. what i suggest is asking people in charlottesville together what people, you know, in that

community, but across the town want to do. there's an incredible amount of untapped wisdom in communities that we really never listen to. >> thank you. thank you. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. >> i wanted to thank you for requester presentation, and i wanted to make a statement and ask a question. i remember growing up, my grandfather's name was solomon, and he always said, you need to understand who is standing behind the curtain. you don't want to do business with the devil. sometimes, i think, in our nation now, we may be doing business with the devil, that, aka, the bank. if we look at our predatory system of lending, whether it's in housing or whether it's in education, where do we move from that? the reason i'm hearing the story

about my grandfather is that loans were not available for him, so they purchased the land, they got the neighbors and the friends to build their homes, so they never had mortgages, and as a result of that, we still have the land in our family, and we're talking about the late 1800s. >> that's awesome. >> we need to look at another pair dime, especially for the future, and i tell my daughters the same thing. think about not taking out the bank loan and look at a different paradigm because this gives you the impression of that. >> thank you so much for sharing that story. i think you're grandfather is an incredibly wise man. that's my initial impression. yeah, we can't be doing business with the devil. i think that, you know, what you also spoke to about the way that you talk about it with your family today is that there's a lot of ways of doing business with the devil.

there's a lot of ways that we're not aware we're doing business with the devil or have an option whether or not to do business with the devil. last year, there was a very good investigation about how the dentist in strip malls, particularly in low income communities, were essentially very many of them were own by private equity firms. i mean, people had to go to the dentist, you know, so there's a very real and obvious strangle hold over a lot of our basic needs and basic functions in the country. it's not impossible for me to sit here and say, yeah, we can't do business with them because every day they use credit cards to pay medical bills and kids

who need medication, shouldn't use that credit card, but at the same time, what i like about what you were saying is, what i like about your grandfather's story is the way that he bought the land, and then he invited the neighbors, and they all built the house together, and as much as, you know, you can say and acknowledge the reality that a lot of times we don't have an option whether or not to engage with the financial system as it is, we're obligated to by the way they have their hands in all our daily needs. at the same time, i love the image of community building a house together, and i think there's so many opportunities that we have that we don't think about where we can join forces in our communities, between our neighbors, friends, within our church, within the school, and we can say how can we take care of some of our problems ourselves? that's something that if we want to start doing it, we should start to look at communities like your grandfather who have been doing that forever. you know? i think, and i'll say, too, that, and, again, i don't want

to thb, you know, misconstrued in simple terms because people need to access, you know, medicine and food and everything, but at the same time, you know, we have to start to scale back some of our understanding and consumption and what we really need, and so, you know, we need health care. we need education. we need programs for our kids. i don't know how many flays screen tvs we need, you know. i don't know how big our houses need to be. we have to decide together. doing business with the devil is allowing the devil to make decisions that will weaken, and that happens a lot today in the u.s. society. that's all i have to say. >> thank you so much. you have a question? >> >> thank you very much. thank you for the presentation, and i have a couple comments.

it's about two blocks down the road at this street at the crossing where half the people in this 60 one-room apartments are homeless women and men, and so this home is pretty much on homelessness too for me. the other question, the other comment i have is i spent 37 years in east east africa, travg to the countries that were in and struggled, and, perhaps, as you talk about this, thinking of the larger pictures, perhaps we care about countries where so many people, thousands and millions are homeless, you know, like syria, central africa, republic, and others. we are a part of the problem with homelessness in so many other countries directly. the congo, for all those years and other countries, and one is, of course, doctorately responsible for the homelessness, i think, in

palestine. >> uh-huh. >> we could change that overnight almost if our government wanted to change it. it's the same day too much, but i wish that a person was here who can -- i understand brandon collins, he's with bill and with bob in the attemptive peace and justice, very much involved in the people here in the home area of living at home where subsidized, and just fighting going on, and i think he would appreciate very much some of the -- >> [inaudible] >> yeah. anyway, i have a good voice. >> there you go. >> yeah, i can speak without a microphone, but he would appreciate brandon collins and

maybe he could gather people who are struggling with the local government all the time and the the national government and state government over the homes where nay are living with, maybe to be our time, would be great, i think, if you could hook up with them and build the public, to help you do that. thank you very much. >> thank you, thanks for coming. >> [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> i did in new york a study course on henry george, and henry george was a politician -- oh, is this working?

oh, okay. [inaudible conversations] >> when i was listening to you speak, it brought to mind eight or nine years ago in new york on henry george who had i just heard a random comment in a talk about him and was somewhat interested in, and he was not well-known, he was an economist, ran for public office, san fransisco, but very simply put, his whole thing was about cop consumption, and he was very much about the difference between the right of home and property rights. >> uh-huh. >> and how land can be manipulated for speculation by withdrawing it and that can bring up prices, and, you know, you go how far back you want to

go. these are topics talk about for, obviously, decades, maybe centuries. you brought up something that i thought was interesting because it seems like that we've had resilience and the resources to let these disputes go back and forth and be very opportunity nighs tick for powers based on the short term, but when you through the environmental issue on top of it, it seems like it frames if in a different way that would not have happened. i mean -- when i finish the course on henry george, that's how nothing happenedded. i mean, basically, there was wisdom there, not all right or wrong, but it didn't change the system. you know, the system is power, money, leverage, opportunity, wealth. in some sense. do you believe that some of these other growing crisises, there's a third point? sometimes when you get into the

polarized situation, it takes a third point of crisis to short of sake things up politically. >> that's a really good question. i think just quickly, you know, in the past, you had the opportunity to let this debate, you know, i would say the people in power had the opportunity to let that debate go back and forth. you know, the people displaced throughout the course of this country's history, certainly, did not have that opportunity, and nor did they have the choice on whorpt the debate would juts go back and forth, but i think that bringing the climate crisis into the equation is definitely a moment in which we have the opportunity to really demand real kind of fundmental changes this terms of the way property is allocated, land relations are constituted in terms of the way we think about private property, in the terms of the way we allow decisions of profit to pretty much reign, and i don't think

that -- i think that it is taking -- i think it is a dangerous thing to do to just say, well, this climate crisis is going to comb, going to hit, things are going to change, and, you know, that's going to, in some ways, shake it up. i don't think that's a good thing, but i hear it a lot, well, it's going to force things to change. we need to be very, very active right now about shaping the way that this climate crisis between it's going to hit, but we have no control how severely it does, how it plays out. if we keep going in the way we're going, we're going to see real serious destruction and displacement, mostly of -- across the world, poor countries, poor communities, women, everybody who lives with this overwhelmingly poor communities mostly of women,

communities of color, and we're going to see a situation in which, you know, right now, if it happened right now, you know, even though it's starting to set in, the u.s. ultimately probably conceive to hold on to a lot of the power that it has, and we see a situation in which the effect of the climate crisis is unequal. the way we are going, the climate crisis affects the devastation it causes. it will be vastly unequal. i think, sometimes, you know, people in the u.s., people with a little bit more privilege go into it being like, well, thank god this shakes everything up, you know, and we could create a situation if we don't organize a really aggressively in the next few decades, starting right now, and, obviously, that work is already happening very much so. we could create a situation in which all the inequalities of the current world are just magnified, and so i think that

it's important to use the moment to really be active in the organizing, in our neighborhoods, in the way we talk about what we want to see in the environment, in terms of government policy, financial policy moving forward because they're already looking for market-based solutions to the climate crisis. they are already looking how we can do, like, carbon offset program. we're already seeing a situation that we just saw in the philippines where, you know, islands nations will be hit very, very hard. we're seeing a situation in which india and pakistan and millions of deaths caused by floods last year, and so, you know, i appreciate the audience is not seeing it as in the future, but today, and i say, together, we have to see it as an opportunity to come out of it to go through it in a moral way rather than in a vastly unequal way. >> okay. we have time for one more.

>> great, yeah. >> yeah. >> well, first of all, i want to say, you are so radical. [laughter] >> i appreciate your head nodding. you kept me going. >> also, in giving credit to the experience of your grfer, mr. solomon, are rethinking of our situations and your mom prescription that when we can put these facts in very dry facts into a story with people, it will travel much further. i think it will reverberate different ways, and then maybe that action will be taken. >> thank you. thank you. i, you know, i want to say -- if that's okay -- i want to mention what we talk about last night. >> oh. >> first of all, thank you, and thank you for being, like, a total active audience member. sometimes, like, when i'm doing a talk, i look around, like, oh,

okay, who is going to nod? okay, cool. if i'm nervous, she's nodding, okay, i got this. i think you're really right in saying that we need to look at experiences like mr. solomon's, like your grandfather, and see them as these epic actions of resistance. you know, we don't -- we can't let other people define for us what real resistance is, and what's really heroic? last night over dinner, we were talking about another book, which is incredible, and i was reading as i was working on this one, and made me totally intimidated but was inspiration, and it's called "the warmth of another sun," and, yeah, you know, what i love -- so it covered this epic migration of african-americans from the south to northern cities to the midwest, out to the west coast. what i love about the book is

that she looks at it that it was never appreciated fully through the lens of social justice, politics, and political protest, and she wrote about this migration using the story or through the stories of three people in this way that made this migration just so heroic, just such an epic, one of the modern american epics, perhaps thee american epics, you know, and she wrote about it as a protest of the feat of millions of african-americans, 6 million african-americans voted with their feet for, you know, a more just society, and so i think that, you know, looking at the experience of mr. solomon, looking at the experience of other members of the communities, we need to go home and collectively decide, you know, what are heroic actions in

the community? how do we duplicate them? how do we rep kate them? what are heroic acts in our own family's lives? you know? my grandmother came here as a teenager on a boat to get out of europe in between the wars, and, i mean, man, that was a time i don't think i was allowed to stay home. i had a babysitter at the age she got on a boat by herself to cross the atlantic. there's stories of resistance in our own families, communities, and we have to define those for ourselves and value them and listen to them and then figure out how today, you know, we can implement them and move this forward. it is a question of redefinition, but it's a question of simp fying actions because we're on a timeline experiencing massive injustice, and today, really, is the day. a lot of the people in the room are active already, but today is the day we have to start on this. >> let us all