7 December 1978 RAIN OCCUR (Oakland Citizens Committee for Urban Renewal) 1419 Broadway, Rm. 711 Oakland, CA 94612 Renters in the S.F. Bay Area are being organized around post-Proposition 13 renter's equity issues by OCCUR, CHAIN (California Housing Action and Information Network, 6529 Telegraph, Oakland, CA 415/653-4613), and East Bay Housing Alliance (415/642-9952). They're working towards rent reductions in the form of rebates, rent rollbacks, and rent freezes, as the rollback received by homeowners has not been passed on to the tenants as was implied in Prop. 13 legislation. Assembly Bill 2986 calls for landlords to return 80 percent of their Jarvis-Gann tax break to tenants by establishing the Renter Property Tax Relief Act of 1978. Renters' hotlines have been set up to help renters who are experiencing rent increases since prop. 13: Oakland, 839-2442 (OCCUR) Berkeley, 843-6601 (Berkeley Tenants' Dion) San Francisco, 863-9191 (SF Tenants' Union Alameda-Oakland, 642-9952 (East Bay Housing Alliance) S. Alameda County, 537-9066 (Echo Housing) Mountain View, 969-1545 (MV Citizens for Rent Relief) Palo Mto, 326-()784 (PA Citizens for Rent Relief) Menlo Park, 323-5765 Cupertino,408/996-()930 Sonoma, 707/542-6446 (Sonoma Co. Tenants' Assn.) For more information, contact Lawrence Hynson, OCCllR, 839-2440. from Tenants Together National Economic Development Law Project 2150 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley, CA 94704 Follow the flow of money in savings accounts of poverty communities and you become acutely aware of the exploitation practiced by traditional lenders. Savings from low-income neighborhoods are used to finance homes, consumer purchases and businesses in wealthier areas. As a result, residents of poverty communities must rely upon finance companies and loan sharks for credit at rates averaging 30 percent. A Chicago study of 38 low-income neighborhoods shows savings account deposits exceeded $1.8 billion. Of that amount, $900 million was never returned to the <.:ommunities. The additional cost to those communities was $185 million in OCCUR is working on other vital community projects such as the street tree program (their goal is planting 20,000 trees in the city of Oakland in the next 3 years!) with the Oakland Tree Task Force (see Rain, Oct. 1978, p. 6). They've received donations to create a seedling center to provide the trees as well as a place for propagation of vegetable seedlings for community gardeners. (Thanks to Rhoda Epstein, former RAINmaker, now with OCCUR) -LS excess interest (difference between 30 percent and 12 percent interest rates) over a 24-month period. Community Development Credit Unions (CDCU), as neighborhood-controlled financial institutions, could prevent the flow of dollars out of the community. This ClIo.. I: IUIIC Mlauo AIID DIllED TO D&ATH Study of J8 alp cod. en•• In ChSUIO ••f 'ned •• pov.rty co..unttt••: "I bUlion In ••vtn,••ceo"",. froe the•••r••• . .t )2 b.nk. " aU Hon In h~ aort••••• to th... er... by .... b.nk. or More and more we're hearing about successful cooperative housing projects - where tenants have decided to stop playing the tenant/landlord game, stop expending negative energy fighting landlords, and have simply stopped being tenants. How can poor people afford to do this is a good question- and some answers are becoming more frequent and accessible. Sweat equity programs, cooperative housing, via neighborhood credit unions-see Rain, Nov. 1978, p. 14; check out Consumer Co-op Bill finance possibilities with NASCO Rain, Oct. 1978, p. 24. These are viable alternatives to explore now. - LS manual is excellent in explaining why a CDCU is needed and how they are established and operated. Our neighborhood revitalization center found this handbook so valuable in starting a community based credit union that copies were bought for all the directors. -PC c.c-unlty Iv $10 I~ , evelo,..-t 0+ ndlt untCH I. 'In.n~l.l b.lltutlon 2. lIel,hborhood lnuUutlon 3. In.t UutlOft 01 1••Tnl,.. .. Toul c~nlt,. control (1 "".r • 1 VOl.) 5. Told rdnv.u-ent 6. ec-uail, .,.nda A. Con.~r loan. .. Capital tor ~ooper.U"•• and olher bveine•••• C. ..... eort..... from Community Development Credit Union Self Help Manual
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