The SWAT team of the Boca Raton Police Department, clad in riot gear, forcibly dispersed more than 2,500 persons who gathered in hopes of receiving a Housing Choice Voucher at the local housing authority on March 12.
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Housing Choice Vouchers are made available to households whose income is at or below 30 percent or 50 percent of the Area Median Income, according to the program rules of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Residents started to gather as early as the night before applications were to be made available. By morning, there were more than 500 people camped out in front of the housing authority, mostly women with small children in strollers and several older residents in wheelchairs.
Before noon, officials told hundreds still in line that they only had enough applications left for those with disabilities, or only 100 of the original 600. As the crowd rightfully became angry, police moved in and told them to “leave or face arrest.”
Two people were arrested and nine needed medical attention for conditions that included seizures, fainting and diabetic shock.
One of the arrested was Angelica Rivera, a 28-year-old African American medical worker with five children ranging in age from 3 months to 11 years. When police told the crowd to leave, she stood face-to-face with SWAT team members in full riot gear. When they told her to go home, she told them “If I go home, then in a couple of months I won’t have a home for my family.”
She was charged with disorderly conduct, disobeying a lawful order and resisting without violence. If convicted of any of these charges, she will not be eligible for a Section 8 voucher due to the criminal background check that is required as part of the application.
Police spokeswoman Sandra Booneberg was quoted in the Palm Beach Post as saying: “We think we handled it with restraint. We had good communication with the people … and we avoided any negative issues.”
Those who were seeking housing, however, were left with the bitter reminder that the police serve and protect only the wealthy, not the poor or those in need of assistance.
Rivera noted: “They were all coming in with plastic shields as if we were criminals, as if we did something wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong, needing help is not a crime.”
“We’re all working people and we’re all bitter right now,” said Deborah Davis, 37. “To be turned away like this hurts.” (Palm Beach Post, March 13)
Racist ‘shortage’ amidst abundance
Of the 600 applications, the authority can accept only 200—and that is just to get on the waiting list for housing. Boca Raton had not offered vouchers since 2005. Other cities have not offered them for several years.
West Palm Beach, Fla., where many in the crowd came from, closed its voucher waiting list in 2002. At that time, they had gathered more than 5,500 applications in two weeks. Six years later, housing officials are calling applicants whose numbers are in the 2,800s.
The slow process of assisting low-income families in attaining better living conditions is not due to a lack of housing in South Florida. The number of vacant housing units in Palm Beach County increased by more than 10,000 between 2006 and 2007, or from about 79,000 to 89,000 empty units. This amounts to about 14 percent of all housing units in the county.
In the South Florida tri-county region of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County, there are more than 2.4 million empty units, or about 11 percent of all housing units.
With such an abundance of housing, why does it take six years to assist only a small percentage of people in comparison to available units? Because it is not a question of production; it is a question of distribution.
Landlords are not obligated to accept the federal voucher and the paperwork that comes with it. The program itself has “maximum payment standards,” set between 90 and 110 percent of the Fair Market Rent set by HUD for urban and rural areas across the country. More importantly, the housing market is part of a highly speculative industry where those who own the housing will sell or rent only to obtain maximum profits, not to meet the needs of the community.
Michael Prysner, the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s candidate for Florida’s 22nd Congressional District (which includes Boca Raton), noted that the housing crisis is not only absurd, but also criminal:
“A quick glance at the picture on the front page of the Palm Beach Post the day after this incident shows the racist nature of this crisis: a large crowd of mostly African American men and women seeking assistance turned away by a few heavily armed police officers.
“This is just one example of a national crisis where assistance by federal, state, and local governments goes only to the banks and lenders who started the problem. Because this is clearly a political problem, it shows us, workers, that we need to struggle and fight against those who profit from our suffering.”
Nationwide, PSL candidates have adopted the slogan “People Over Profits.” The scope and breadth of housing struggles that have set in motion tens of thousands of people provide ample evidence that this slogan represents an idea whose time has come.
