Tracy Rosenthal

@tracyrosenthal_

To clear universities of student protesters, administrators and police borrowed from a ready-made political playbook: sweeping the homeless.

As Grants Pass, Oregon—and the nation—await a Supreme Court ruling on just how far cities can police the homeless, a volunteer mayor and her unhoused constituents try to weather the backlash.

If McDonald’s is a real estate company that sells hamburgers, the U.C. system is a real estate company that sells degrees. Grad students are striking not least so they can afford to live where they work.

A leaked tape recording council members’ racist slurs demonstrates the deep alliance between real estate interests and the state.

Just 7 percent of the people in Los Angeles’s Echo Park encampment found permanent housing after it was cleared. Almost half are missing. Seven are dead. That’s not a failure of homelessness policy; it’s an example of the system working exactly as intended.

These public-private partnerships skate by on their complexity and branding, but they undermine a future where housing is a right.