Newark, N.J.: ‘Housing is a right!’

The People’s Organization for Progress, along with other community and political organizations, held a rally and march on May 22 to demand an end to evictions and foreclosures throughout New Jersey. The protest was held in the majority African-American city of Newark, which has the largest population in the state and one of the highest poverty rates in the U.S.

Speakers advocated the takeover of abandoned apartment buildings by the growing number of homeless people who are either jobless or have no livable income. Related issues such as police brutality — which is rampant in the oppressed communities — were also raised.

The protesters marched to a branch of Bank of America in downtown Newark to demand a bailout of the people and to assert housing as a basic human right. Since September 2008, the U.S. government has forked over trillions of dollars in taxpayer money to bail out some of the world’s largest banks like BofA, Citi and other Wall Street institutions at the expense of the workers and the poor.