BATTLE FOR HOMES, EXPOSE CAPITALIST CRIMES!

OAKLAND, CA, January 21— Hundreds of workers and students support four Black mothers fighting for housing. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members advocated for Moms 4 Housing and showed that it’s not greed that causes homelessness; it’s capitalism.
For a place to call home
Since November 18, a group of working moms and their children occupied a vacant house owned by absentee real estate boss Wedgewood LLC. During the two months, hundreds came to the house from dawn to late at night to protect the families from a sheriff’s eviction and supported their court case. On January 14, sheriffs carried out a military style eviction and shortly after that, the mothers won a limited victory. The struggle continues.
Capitalism causes homelessness
Capitalism is inherently unequal, racist, sexist and exploitative—and becoming more so. The Moms 4 Housing movement lets us see more clearly that capitalists and their puppet politicians cause homelessness. They make the laws that say it’s legal to hold onto empty homes and illegal for unhoused people to move in. The Moms 4 Housing website correctly says, “We believe it is a crime to keep homes vacant while people suffer on the street from the California housing crisis.” Over 4,000 families in Oakland are homeless, even though there are four housing units standing empty for each homeless person (sfcurbed, 11/29/19). In Oakland, 80 percent of the homeless are Black, while immigrants and other workers also suffer disproportionately from evictions and housing insecurity. This contradiction is foremost in the minds of protestors and Moms 4 Housing.
Oakland was a destination for Black families migrating in the 1940s but the government’s systematic racism plagued the Black workers. “Officials constructed freeways, train tracks and federal buildings that literally destroyed homes and tore neighborhoods apart. Federal ‘redlining’ practices embedded racial inequality and segregation into the city’s development, with banks allowing wealthy white communities to flourish while denying home ownership to black families. A corrupt police agency brutalized and jailed innocent black [workers]”(The Gaurdian, 6/1/18). While all of this is legal under capitalism, finding housing in a vacant property is a crime. A system that robs workers of housing does not deserve to exist.  
Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment
This movement has drawn support from many anti-capitalist fighters. PL’ers distributed CHALLENGE, met workers and students, and initiated discussions on how we can build a communist movement to get rid of capitalism once and for all.
The nonprofit Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) is instrumental in this movement. In the first week of the occupation, ACCE held a march against displacement and realtors like Hines, a privately-owned global real estate company that built MacArthur Commons, which gentrifies Oakland and excludes working-class renters: (a studio is considered “affordable” at $1408/mo. Market rate is $2535/mo.)
This rate is clearly out of reach for homeless and low-wage workers. By participating in ACCE, PL’ers are able to show that reforms are limited and temporary. To ensure housing for all, the whole damn system has to go.
Experiences like these are steps to learning how to fight together for an egalitarian, communist society where the working class collectively produces and distributes for need.  
 Disrupt SB50
On January 10, 60 members and friends of Moms 4 Housing, including PLP, disrupted a press conference by the authors of a bill SB50 to expand zoning for luxury condominiums in Oakland. For the entire press conference, chants  such as “Housing for need, not for greed” and “housing is a human right” filled the room. The press could not hear the bill’s authors, the Mayor, and their developer friends.
The Mothers spoke out against the high rents and developer’s plans for gentrification through SB50. They vowed to stay in the house to set a precedent for the right to housing. The politicians and developers behind SB50 are looking to maximize profits from the housing crisis by promising a small percentage of “affordable housing” in new high-rises. We are looking to beat back their high rents as we build a movement for communism where all housing will be based on need.
Beat back the militarized eviction
On January 14, after Wedgewood won in court, sheriffs in flak suits carried out their eviction with a battering ram, a robot, armored vehicles, tasers, and huge military rifles. Two of the Moms and two supporters were jailed. The movement reacted to this racist, terror attack with courage and militancy.
The huge show of force at the eviction shows that the speculators and their bought-and-paid-for politicians fear a growing solidarity.
Their attempt to stop us through terror did not work. A week later, the Moms were greeted as heroes at the Reclaim Martin Luther King March. It was a good experience in collective action and fightback. We need to continue to build the antiracist, anti-sexist strength of a united working class that can take on the capitalists all over the world.
After a week of worldwide publicity, the Oakland political apparatus and Wedgewood brokered a compromise. Wedgewood will allow the Oakland Land Trust to purchase the property. This compromise will not destroy Wedgewood or take profiteering out of the housing market. This is an immediate win for the Moms 4 Housing movement. Some families will get some relatively affordable housing. Overmore, this movement build confidence in workers’ ability to fight back.
This reform victory is limited: the real estate and banking capitalists will continue to displace families en masse for profit.
Moms 4 Housing challenges the capitalists’ golden rule
The Moms 4 Housing movement takes on a fundamental tenet of capitalism: private property is protected by the law. This is a golden rule of capitalism: the one who has the gold makes the rules. Companies like Wedgewood belong to the class that controls the politicians who make the laws that protect their property. They also control the cops and use them to protect their wealth.
PLP applauds the women who continue to bravely stand up to the bosses and their state terror (cops, courts, prison). The working class needs more leaders like these. Whatever reforms we win will not solve the housing crisis because the capitalists are forced by their own system to constantly increase profits and exploitation.
In a communist society, workers collectively produce housing because the international working class needs shelter. Production will be for need, not for profits! Fight for communism and workers’ power!