• Green Party calls housing a human right, demands tenant protections, and proposes measures to end homelessness

• Acceptance speeches by nominees Jill Stein and Butch Ware, videos of state and local Green candidates, and more at the 2024 Green Convention

For immediate release
September 25, 2024

Contacts:
Gloria Mattera, Green Party Media Committee Coordinator, 202-804-2758, [email protected]
Scott McLarty, Green Party Media Director, 202-878-2112, [email protected]

The Green Party's national platform declares that all people "have a right to a home and to be secure in their tenancy" and demands economic security and the promise of prosperity for all people in the US, instead of economic power and affluence for the privileged few.

Greens sharply criticized the Supreme Court's City of Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling (2024), calling it a license for states and cities to criminalize homelessness and deprive people without homes of the only place many of them can go for shelter and sleep.

"People shouldn't lose their rights when they lose their homes," said Christina Khalil, Green candidate for the US Senate in New Jersey. "We need to ensure the safety of people experiencing homelessness and protect them against police harassment, including police confiscation and destruction of their private possessions."

"In a year of inflation and widespread economic insecurity, why aren't housing rights and ending homelessness major election issues?" said Khalil.

Green Party leaders and candidates said that the unregulated housing market is predatory capitalism at its worst, with increasing housing insecurity, skyrocketing rents, and a license for cruel landlords to evict families from their homes. Poverty and homelessness among families has meant that many children depend on school lunch for their only meal of the day and that the lack of a stable home erodes the ability of children to learn.

The Green Party platform's section on housing and homelessness provides a detailed set of remedies to solve the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis based on recognition of the rights of tenants and people without homes. 

The platform proposes measures to protect these rights, increase the supply of affordable housing, provide homes for those who can't afford them, guarantee housing security, penalize landlords who violate existing regulations and who engage in speculative exploitation of the housing market, and eradicate homelessness.

"37.9 million Americans live below the poverty line and 100 million more can’t afford their basic needs, including a place to live, thanks to inflation, sharp rises in rents as well as the cost of homes, while private equity firms and other corporations buy up houses and apartment buildings," said Michael Dublin, Green candidate for US Congress in North Carolina, District 2.

Green leaders and candidates have a long history of direct involvement in the movement for housing rights. Pat LaMarche, the Green Party's vice-presidential nominee in 2004, launched a national tour of homeless shelters during her campaign, spending her nights at the shelters. LaMarche is currently organizer of the Homeless Memorial Blanket Project.

Cheri Honkala, the Green Party's 2012 vice-presidential nominee, is co-founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU) and co-founder and National Coordinator of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, also called the Poor People’s Army, whose actions the Green Party has endorsed.

"There is no need to base housing policy on scarcity. There are more abandoned properties than there are homeless people," said Cheri Honkala.

Greens said that, under the influence of real-estate, landlord, and development lobbies, municipal governments dominated by Democrats have sided with Republicans in rolling back rent control and protection from eviction, increasing zoning for business instead of affordable housing, allowing predatory speculation, and placing taxpayer funded sports stadiums in sites that drive out residents.

Housing discrimination against people of color, immigrants, the disabled, single people, LGBTQ people, and families with children continues in many areas with little enforcement of anti-discrimination statutes. Landlords who violate housing code requirements by failing to keep their property in habitable condition are often tolerated or given lenient penalties.

OpenSecrets.org has documented the real estate industry's lobbying efforts and millions of dollars in financial contributions that have influenced the policies of both Democrats and Republicans in public office (https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=F10). The Green Party and Green candidates accept no contributions from corporate donors.

Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
202-804-2758

Photo: The Kensington Welfare Rights Union liberating an abandoned row home for a homeless family. Unknown date.