PUSHBACK Talks
Landlords without faces, apartments without tenants. In 2019, filmmaker Fredrik Gertten released Push, an award-winning documentary that explores the unaffordable, unlivable city, and the growing global housing crisis. Following the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha, the film sought to understand why cities around the world are becoming increasingly expensive.
In June of 2020, Fredrik and Leilani teamed up again to continue the conversation they began with the film, and PUSHBACK Talks was born. Since then, PUSHBACK Talks has grown into an exploration of the social, political, and economic forces that shape our world, and of the actions people are taking to push back against inequality, corruption, authoritarian systems, poverty, war, and the shift towards far-right conservatism.
Join the Filmmaker (Gertten) and the Advocate (Farha) as they dissect these topics, uncover the connections between them, and search for solutions. How can we, as individuals, movements, and communities, fight back – push back – to build societies where every human being has the right to live equally, freely, and with dignity?
Listen to PUSHBACK Talks and join the conversation for a better, fairer world.
For more about PUSH and to view it: www.pushthefilm.com
For more about Leilani Farha and her organization, The Shift: www.make-the-shift.org
For more about Fredrik Gertten and his other films: www.wgfilm.com
If you are interested in watching his newest documentary: www.breakingsocialfilm.com
PUSHBACK Talks
The Vultures' Feast: Billionaires Devouring Mobile Homes
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Did you know that approximately 22 million Americans live in mobile homes?
Mobile homes have long been one of the most affordable types of dwelling but, because the homes are usually situated on rented land, mobile homeowners suffer from a unique type of housing precarity. Mobile homeowners are often low-income, with less access to infrastructure because trailer parks are situated outside of urban areas.
Cue the vultures: While private equity and other real estate investors have long been in the mobile home market, there has been a dramatic uptick in the use of predatory practices designed to extract profit. As more financial actors move into this space, these already-at-risk people are being priced out of one of the few types of affordable housing left in the country.
Fredrik and Leilani sit down with Paul Bradley, President of Residence Owned Communities to discuss the ways mobile homeownership has changed in the last few decades and why, and how his organization has helped over 17,000 owners of manufactured homes in 17 states come together to buy their parks and escape the vultures.
- More information about the film A Decent Home can be found here.
- Learn more about Residence Owned Communities here.
- Listeners who are interested can join the I’M HOME (Innovations in Manufactured Homes) Network at the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy. It’s a network of U.S. organizations and people interested in innovating in the mobile home sector. Info and sign-up are here.