Push: A Documentary on the Housing Crisis

Push from WG Film on Vimeo.

When housing prices collapsed in the USA a decade ago corporations saw an opportunity to buy a basic human need and profit off of it. Multiple investment firms bought up cheap property (in some cases they used taxpayer money to do so) that they then turned around and rented to the very people who lost their homes. This led to accelerating inequality and many other societal problems.

The documentary Push (trailer above) explores the history of the housing crisis we’re in and how cities around the world are reacting to it. It’s worth watching if only to understand the situation around us. Hopefully as we bail out poorly performing companies during this decade’s economic claptrap we’ll support companies that make the life easier for people instead of the opposite.

You can ask Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on housing questions right now about anything housing related.

Housing prices are skyrocketing in cities around the world. Incomes are not. PUSH sheds light on a new kind of faceless landlord, our increasingly unliveable cities and an escalating crisis that has an effect on us all. This is not gentrification, it’s a different kind of monster.

The film follows Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, as she’s traveling the globe, trying to understand who’s being pushed out of the city and why. “I believe there’s a huge difference between housing as a commodity and gold as a commodity. Gold is not a human right, housing is,” says Leilani.

Watch it here.

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