Newark rallies hit racist gentrification, and homelessness

NEWARK, NJ January 29—With three days of rallies on the steps of City Hall organized by the War Against Poverty Coalition (WAPC), the fight-back against mass homelessness in Newark has picked up!. These rallies demanded an end to homelessness, gentrification and racist unemployment. They came on the brink of an arctic blast of cold air and on the anniversary of the death of Carolyn Perry, a disabled Black worker who froze to death four years ago in a tent city in Newark. Even as we fight to save lives in the middle of this deep freeze, we must remember that capitalism has its fingerprints all over the crime scene surrounding our brothers and sisters who have died as the direct result of racism and poverty.  
The capitalist system we live under dictates that the very things that people need to survive--food, housing, heat, hot water, etc.—must be sold as a commodity, so that some boss makes a profit. This forces unemployed and low-wage employed workers who cannot afford living space to double up in apartments, live in shelters, camp out in tents, or sleep in bus and train stations, even while billionaires live in huge mansions. Only a communist revolution would change that dynamic. Our revolution would ensure that everything produced by the working class, including all decent housing, would be taken over and distributed according to need.
Newark “redevelopment”—no renaissance for workers
As in many industrial centers in the Northeast and Midwest, Newark became a predominantly Black and Latin city in the 1960s as more and more bosses closed or moved their factories and shops down south or to other countries. Residents were left with the social consequences of mass racist unemployment--poverty, drug use, mental health problems, crime, etc. In the 1980s, under the guise of a “renaissance” for city residents, the biggest corporations, led by Prudential Insurance Company, devised a plan to slowly gentrify Newark’s Downtown District. With the help of local and state politicians, who approved massive tax abatements and tax credits to spur “redevelopment,” Prudential’s plans have largely been implemented. Rents in the areas in and around Downtown have soared. This has, of course, resulted in more and more mainly Black and Latin workers being put out on the streets.
Politicians’ failures trigger fightback
“Rising rents, tax abatements; we won’t accept our displacement.” With these words, the WAPC rallies linked the gentrification of Downtown Newark to the increasing homelessness on its main streets and at Penn Station, the local bus and train terminal. City-funded shelters simply can’t accommodate hundreds who are in need. One WAPC brother went to Penn Station during early morning hours and took pictures of scores of homeless workers sleeping on the floor of the station behind bright red barricades put up by transit cops, in stairwells or on passenger benches. WAPC enlarged the pictures and taped them on poster-board. WAPC held up these and other signs as residents passed by City Hall.
 Numerous residents expressed their support for the cause. Several WAPC members were activated through the struggle to make all 3 rallies happen. Several other workers signed up to join the fight against homelessness and racist gentrification.
Within WAPC, there are still many illusions about relying on politicians to change things, and about reform plans promising “affordable housing for all.” Capitalism can never provide housing based upon need for more than a tiny section of the working class. Competition for available housing underlies the profit plans of developers, investors and bankers. PLP members will continue to work in WAPC to bring our ideas to this battle for our class brothers and sisters.