From housing biography to political biography – The fight for housing justice in times of crisis

Keywords: housing crisis; activism; social movements; biography; trust
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

While advocates and urbanites regard the housing crisis as a major challenge, federal and city officials seldom act with the urgency demanded of them by their constituency, of which a growing number is either unhoused or precariously housed. Housing insecurity and political turbulences incite distrust in people’s homes, communities, and in their relationship with authorities. I want to argue that joining housing rights movements, which more and more people feel aspired to in times of crisis, is a way to rebuild that trust which has been lost. I aim to show that the network of trust built in activist spaces functions as living infrastructure to give people stability where homes and communities are threatened. My use of testimonies collected in Washington, D.C. between 2019 and 2022 reworks how knowledge on the housing crisis is constituted and highlights how people’s experiences on the housing market translate into their activism. How do housing biographies influence political biographies? How can distrust work as a catalyst for a call to activism? The goal of this paper is to stress the political potential and agency of people who tell their stories as they fight to (re)claim lost and threatened places and battle to protect their homes and neighborhoods. Following Verónica Gago, who sees the crisis as a locus to think and act differently, I want to highlight the innovative power of housing rights movements that have grown out of the US housing crisis.