GRITtv)” width=”400″ height=”312″ />Author and activist Laura Gottesdiener. (Screen grab via GRITtv)Bulk packages of ketchup and cornflakes are not the only items that can be bought when shopping at Costco. In a recent move to step in where the banks have left a void, stores like Walmart, Costco and Home Depot are providing financial products like mortgages and various loans. It’s too early to tell where these new avenues of lending will lead, but they raise a few concerns for us at GRITtv. In the six years since the housing crash, more than 10 million people, disproportionately people of color, especially African Americans, have been evicted from their homes. In 2009 GRITtv interviewed whistleblower Beth Jacobson, who was a top subprime loan mortgage lender at Wells Fargo in Baltimore, and who revealed some of the underhanded tactics that targeted communities of color.
Homeownership in the United States has been the key to unlocking a road to wealth. The recent rise in home prices is being lauded as an example of a housing recovery, but a recovery for whom exactly? There has been little stabilization for people who have been foreclosed upon, or who are in the process of foreclosure. GRITtv guest Laura Gottesdiener, activist and author of the newly released book A Dream Foreclosed: Black America and the Fight for a Place to Call Home, stopped by the program to set the record straight about what is really happening: “This rise in home prices that we are experiencing isn’t largely being driven by new families buying their first home. It’s largely being driven by hedge funds – huge private equity companies – who are going into neighborhoods and buying up hundreds, sometimes thousands of foreclosed properties in any individual city.”
Property ownership has long been a bulwark against full democracy in the United States. Race, gender and class were important factors in determining access to civic participation. Gottesdiener speaks to GRITtv about the historical practices, like redlining, that have excluded people from pathways to wealth: “The Federal Housing Administration’s policy was taking huge maps of the United States and drawing red-markered lines around any neighborhood in which people of color – anyone who was not white – lived…the government would only extend or back credit in communities that were white.” Gottesdiener also talked about her role with Occupy and other groups like Take Back the Land and Moratorium Now who are not only fighting to keep people in their homes, but are changing the way we think of housing in this country.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $115,000 in one-time donations and to add 1365 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
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With gratitude and resolve,
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