PUSHBACK Talks

This week, Puerto Rico’s Ariadna Godreau Aubert – founder & executive director of Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico, human rights lawyer, and activist – joins the Filmmaker and the Advocate to discuss the ways Puerto Rico’s status as an unincorporated territory of the U.S. impacts the human right to housing and access to justice.

Five years before Hurricane Maria, laws were put in place to encourage investment and promote Puerto Rico as a tax haven. When disaster struck in 2017 this left a major opening for big business to flood into Puerto Rico to buy up large pieces of land and vacant buildings left behind by those who couldn’t afford to fix them in the wake of the disaster. 

Now, 98% of Puerto Rico has been deemed an “opportunity zone,” ripe for investors to grow their money, even as the island struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria and the earthquake in early 2020. While many have been left with no choice but to move to the continental U.S. to try to salvage their livelihoods, the people are pushing back. The human rights narrative is empowering people to fight back, with a full understanding that they are rights holders, and their island is not for sale.

For more information on Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico, Ariadna herself, and her awesome manifesto, visit their website.

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

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A year later than originally planned, Fredrik is finally in Zagreb to screen Push the film across the country! The Filmmaker and the Advocate seize the opportunity to take the podcast on the road. In conversation with architect and activist Iva Marčetić, Fredrik and Leilani discuss the unique situation in Croatia, where the government is the biggest landlord in the country but owns just 2% of the housing stock. Even without large corporations buying up properties, the use of property as financial capital is impacting housing value and resulting in displacement. Like so many other  cities around the world, in the pre-pandemic period Zagreb was subject to a whopping 30% annual growth of Airbnb properties, causing rents to jump by 11% per year or more and forcing people out of city centres, in to the suburbs.

And what of the pandemic? Housing prices continue to soar. The selling off of public lands to private actors who use it to leverage more capital rather than provide for local economies has become common. And in a place where the poor have historically had high homeownership, there is a strong need for regulatory legislation and protections for tenants to stem the rising tide of financialization. Croatians ARE pushing back. The question is, will their resistance influence the Mayoral election in Zagreb and politics beyond?
Iva Marčetić is a member of Pravona Grad, Right to the city.

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

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In the wake of the Lebanese civil war, post-war reconstruction was built around the idea that the market would fix everything. But as investors flocked into Beirut the cost of housing skyrocketed, pushing long-time residents out of the city they had fought for. Over time, architecture and heritage were lost as neighborhoods slowly emptied of residents and businesses. The Filmmaker and the Advocate sit down to speak with Mona Fawaz, Prof. of Urban Studies & Planning at the American University of Beirut to discuss how Beirut has been hijacked by predatory real estate developers and what options exist to change the tide. 

Now that the value of the Lebanese pound has declined by more than 80% and poverty is soaring, the vulture funds are circling and ready to pounce. Right-wing politicians are prepared to blame the issues on the country’s large refugee population. But a recent lull in development could be the window needed for the people to push back. It’s Financial Power vs. People Power in action, who will win?

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded by Mikey Jones
Edited by Hanna Leander
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

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After more than a decade of austerity measures, recession, and unemployment, Athens has seen a big shift in the makeup of homeownership, a shift that comes at the expense of residents and that benefits big business. In a country where homeownership has historically been high, more and more properties have gone into foreclosure and been sold to nameless buyers as a result of Greece’s financial crisis. Public information on who owns what is not available in Greece, but it’s no secret that big foreign corporations have been buying up  entire apartment blocks to turn them into short-term holiday lets, effectively displacing many long-term residents.

 The Filmmaker and the Advocate sit down with Sotiris Sideris, data journalist and co-founder of Athens Live Lab, to discuss who is buying up all the foreclosed properties in Athens and what is happening to the city as a result. Using data scraping, Sotiris has discovered that Greeks are being pushed out - their homes are being auctioned off to investors who want to cash in on Greece's allure as one of the hottest tourist destinations in the world. One low-income community has been basically emptied out of locals, replaced by those wanting a glimpse of the Acropolis and a night in the Plaka. Sotiris hopes his research on private property auctions will shed light on the growing problem and perhaps provide the first steps needed in turning things around.

Find out more about the investigation (Greek Page)
Checkout Athens Live and Sotiris' amazing work mapping Who Owns The City!
More information on the Overview of the investigation
Find out more - Focus on Athens and auctions

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded by Mikey Jones
Edited by Hanna Leander
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

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It was a radical experiment – impose a rent cap on apartments in Berlin so that tenants wouldn’t be priced out of the city by the big money actors moving in. It was challenged in the courts by Members of Parliament – litigation supported by a lobby of institutional landlords. On 15 April 2021, the highest court in Germany struck down the rent cap, ruling that the Berlin state government had exceeded its jurisdiction. It's a devastating ruling for tenants, many of whom now have to pay back rent they had withheld or pay rents they cannot afford. The question is, if city government doesn’t have the power to protect tenants, who does and who will? What role must the national level government play in light of constitutional and international human rights law obligations? This will certainly be a front and centre issue for the upcoming federal election (September 2021). 

As anger swells in Berlin in reaction to the court ruling on the rent cap, people take to the streets to demand their right to  housing, the Filmmaker and the Advocate are joined by Florian Schmidt, featured in PUSH-The Film and city councillor of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg a neighbourhood under a lot of pressure, and Christoph Trautvetter, an independent researcher with the Tax Justice Network of Germany and the lead for the Who Owns the City project. Truatvetter has been working with a research team to map exactly which private equity firms and institutional investors own the 2 million apartments in Berlin —  a murky world that is not easy to penetrate.  Who Owns the City recently released a report revealing that the usual suspect, private equity behemoth Blackstone, owns 3,000 apartments in the city, and that’s the tip of the iceberg.

In a lively and informative conversation, the foursome discusses an even more radical policy now being pursued by tenants and some politicians in Berlin: The Deutsche Wohnen &  Co. referendum, which calls for the expropriation of market rent units owned by asset management firms in possession of more than 3,000 units. These units will be expropriated at land values of 10 years ago, and rents set accordingly, causing a major disruption to the market! There is little doubt that Berlin is the epicentre of the push back against the financialization of housing.

For more on Who Owns the City go here! 

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/pushbacktalks)

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It’s a family affair this week as the Filmmaker and the Advocate are joined by The Shift team and PUSHBACK Talk supporters to try out the popular new app Clubhouse. The episode exposes what it takes for a small (but mighty) team of six to pursue The Shift’s goal: to build a global movement to secure the right to housing. The discussion turns to a brainstorming of future themes and guests for the podcast. How do issues like zoning affect the right to housing, and what can we learn from other countries? What industries influence the right to housing and who should we have on to discuss those intersections? And what of climate change and the right to housing? Two of our Patreon supporters joined the conversation. We are building a family. 
Join our conversation as we decide where Pushback Talks should go from here!

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded by Mikey Jones
Edited by Hanna Leander
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/pushbacktalks)

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The Filmmaker and the Advocate take listeners of this episode of PUSHBACK Talks into the real world – one where $$ money $$ is the principle value and corruption and kleptocracy the means of acquisition. Few are better placed to expose the workings of corruption than Sarah Chayes – former NPR reporter, and senior adviser to government officials in the US Department of Defence, and author of three books including her most recent, On Corruption in America and What is at Stake. 

 Drawing on her experiences in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Honduras, Lebanon and beyond, Chayes reveals that contrary to media reporting, corruption is not about individuals or single acts. Rather, it operates through sophisticated networks that link together people from very different sectors of society, spanning governments and the private sector. These networks are flexible and exist through time, over decades, losing members along the way as protests and civil unrest require, and then gaining more members after each sacrifice. Network members bend and repurpose the institutions and agencies of government to make them serve the objectives of the network, rather than the public interest. The pivotal role of real estate in all of this is not lost on Chayes who notes a universal feature of these networks of corruption is the use of real estate as a vehicle.  

So what’s at stake when kleptocracy and corruption are left unchallenged? Nothing less than democracy.

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/pushbacktalks)

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Executive Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, joins the Filmmaker and the Advocate in a frank discussion of the current housing crisis in the EU that is often overlooked and overshadowed. Mr. Timmermans reflects on the mistakes that were made along the way to cause the crisis, recognizing that the Social Democrats' commitment to Thatcher-Reagan neoliberalism, the market-based economy, and deregulation did not achieve just outcomes and in fact had gone very wrong where housing is concerned. But with housing or residential real estate being a persistently lucrative investment (including during crises), used to bolster GDPs, and given the primacy of private property, the housing crisis is one that is extremely difficult to undo. Change is afoot in Europe with the Parliament having adopted a report reaffirming the right to housing, and several States and cities adopting progressive legislation to protect tenants and affordable housing. But is there more that the Commission could do to advance the right to housing?  Mr. Timmermans suggests that real change will only occur once the urgency of the situation is better understood by more people – and to make that happen he suggests that millions need to see PUSH-the film. We agree! 

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

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PUSH-The Film exposed the global pattern: cities have become the domain of the wealthy or at least a deposit box for their wealth – and everyday people are being pushed out. Nowhere is this more true than in South Africa, named by Time Magazine as one of the world’s most unequal places on earth. In this episode the Filmmaker and the Advocate are joined by Mandisa Shandu, lawyer and activist with Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), a Cape Town-based non-profit activist organisation focused on land justice.  

Mandisa discusses the ongoing legacy of apartheid and the Group Areas Act that currently grips Cape Town. Poor and black populations have been forced to live on the worst lands, on the periphery of the city. In response, NU has been promoting the use of public lands within the city to undo this spatial apartheid. Mandisa describes the bold Constitutional litigation they launched against the city and provincial government to keep them from selling off public lands to private actors. The Tafelberg decision was a huge victory, and offers inspiration to the world - demonstrating the potential power of the Constitutional right to housing. 

More recently NU has had their eye on golf courses in Cape Town which  - located in the heart of the city - use huge tracts of land, pay little land taxes, and are only enjoyed by the most affluent, mainly whites, and tourists. As it happens, neither Leilani nor Fredrik like golf so they are quick to decide how the right to play golf in a city measures up against human rights. Those who love the sport, and those who love to hate, it will be entertained! 

Ndifuna Ukwazi is a very cool organization, made up of lots of young advocates. Check out their work by following them on twitter and facebook @NdifunaUkwazi and impress your friends by learning more about the Tafelberg decisions here.

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded by Mikey Jones
Edited by Hanna Leander
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

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The Filmmaker and the Advocate bring you an exclusive conversation with Denmark’s Housing Minister – Kaare Dybvad Bek – one of the few politicians in the world to have had the courage to take on Blackstone and other institutional investors. The Minister recounts the new housing reality in Copenhagen where private equity, pension funds and asset management firms have started to dominate, imposing on tenants huge rent increases (often double) and unnecessary renovations driving tenants out of their homes and neighbourhoods. Believing that ordinary people – nurses, teachers, bus drivers – should be able to live in the cities where they work, and racing against time to keep remaining affordable units out of the clutches of investors, the Minister took matters into his own hands.  A Parliamentary Committee to analyze the situation was initiated, and despite considerable pressure successfully put forward ground-breaking legislation aimed at keeping big finance out of Copenhagen’s housing market. Known as ‘Lex Blackstone’, the legislation puts a 5-year ban on renovations and rent increases for new owners, and strengthens tenants rights. The legislation has had its intended results: fewer institutional investors and a significant decrease in property prices. Denmark’s legislation offers inspiration and stands as a model for advocates and politicians across the globe.
The podcast also brings back memories from the World Premiere of PUSH at the amazing CPH DOX film festival in Copenhagen.  The film won the Politikken Audience Award and the issues in the film created a strong debate in Danish media.

Produced by WG Film 
Recorded & Edited by Mikey Jones
Music by Florencia Di Concilio
Social Media & Support Team - Maja Moberg, Valerie Estrina, Hanna Leander

Support the show