Racist bosses further displace homeless workers

NEW YORK CITY— “They got 250,000 vacant apartments in the city, man…Why am I homeless?” That’s what Johnny Grima yelled as NYC police pulled him out of his tent and dragged him toward a police van. “Why are my friends homeless?!” he demanded. The answer is, “because of capitalism.” Grima is a homeless worker who is part of a movement demanding permanent housing for every homeless person in New York City. Housing based on need is a commnist idea, and can only be realized under a society run by workers themselves.
The scene unfolded as dozens of cops, a sanitation truck and one outreach worker arrived at Tompkins Square Park on NYC's Lower East Side, to “sweep away” (read: destroy) the homeless encampment as if they were collecting trash, not dealing with people. The racist profit system that can spend billions on weapons for a proxy war with Russia can’t provide housing for millions of workers. A Democratic Party President, Governor, Mayor, City Council and State Legislature, “can’t afford '' free healthcare or a public college education but has untold billions for prisons and war.  
Eight people were arrested for blocking the police. They included organizers from anti-eviction organizations and groups fighting the violent expuslsion of homeless workers’ encampments that have become Mayor Eric Adams’ calling card to say that New York is “Open for Business.”
From March 18 to May 1, there were more than 700 racist expulsions , often returning to the same sites (New York Times, May 5). At the same time, only 39 people got placed in city shelters, which house more than 60,000 people, 90 percent of them Black and Latin families. City-run shelters are so overcrowded and dangerous, especially with Covid-19 again on the rise, that people who agree to go to shelters often leave within weeks and return to the streets.
When Adams was running for office last summer, he promised to turn vacant hotels into permanent housing with on-site services for displaced workers. He has hired more cops to police the subways, where there are 120 encampments in subway tunnels and platforms but has not converted a single hotel to permanent housing for displaced workers, especially those living on the streets of NYC.
What he did do was direct the Rent Guidelines Board to allow the biggest rent increases in nearly a decade for millions of workers and their families. The panel approved increases of 2 to 4 percent on one-year leases and 4 to 6 percent on two-year leases for rent-stabilized units (New York Times, May 5). This racist attack will severely impact Black and Latin families who have had the hardest time surviving the pandemic and will intensify the violence of displacement.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is building a base for communist revolution among all workers and youth, including homeless workers, who more than most,  grasp the call of the Communist Manifesto, “You have nothing to lose but your chains.