By: B. Greer

The terms “abundance” and “supply” are unavoidable in the housing affordability debate. 

The Healey administration’s plan to address the housing crisis, “Achieve a State of Housing Abundance” confidently states that a “lack of supply is the root cause of our housing cost crisis.” The state is correct that Massachusetts needs more homes, as does most everywhere, but treating the supply shortage as the root cause mistakes an outcome for an explanation. 

The problem is not simply that the market has failed to produce enough housing, but that housing is produced, financed, owned, and governed through institutions that benefit from the very scarcity that the Healey administration cited as the sole culprit.

The housing crisis grew out of an inherent contradiction in how housing operates. For tenants and workers, it is shelter: the place people live, raise families, and recover from work. For developers, contractors, and labor, it is a commodity: something built, bought, and sold through the market. For owners, lenders, investors, and towns, it is an asset: a source of rent, wealth, credit, and tax revenue.

Clearly, these roles do not fit together neatly. Shelter requires affordability and stability. Commodity production requires profit. Asset ownership depends on rising rents, rising land values, and protected resale prices. 

The same system that asks housing to become affordable also demands that it stay expensive. High prices generate rent, support land values, secure loans, and protect local tax bases. The crisis we see today is the logical outcome of a system expected to provide affordable shelter, produce profit, preserve wealth, secure debt, reward investment, and sustain municipal finance.

Supply-Side Limitations

Private development responds first to profit, not need. 

My work as a designer focused on multifamily housing has taught me that projects only move forward when expected rents or sale prices can cover land, construction costs, financing, and profit. Private development can add homes and ease pressure, but when rents fall, prices weaken, or returns shrink, capital pulls back. 

The market does not keep building just because working people need homes.

The abundance movement wants to recreate the rate of residential construction we saw in the postwar era. However, the postwar boom cannot be separated from the massive federal subsidies that supported its construction. We do not have the modern suburb without the GI Bill, Federal Housing Administration-backed insurance, and the creation of the interstate highway system. Since the postwar boom, and subsequent pullback of government support, housing construction has sporadically materialized as a declining series of booms and busts shaped by recessions, credit conditions, land prices, and construction costs.

The role of states and cities rise and fall within that larger cycle, while their relative position depends on material conditions like land, labor costs, infrastructure, and regional growth pressure. 

Massachusetts can reform zoning and strengthen public policy, but it cannot replicate the building rate of a state like Florida without the available land and market conditions that make that scale of private construction possible. Massachusetts has set a goal of 220,000 new homes by 2035, but so far it has not built the public institutions needed to build, preserve, and keep that housing affordable. Unsurprisingly, we aren’t on track. 

What Needs to Be Done?

All three sides of the housing contradiction must urgently be confronted. 

Massachusetts, and the Healey administration, must protect housing as shelter, build and repair housing beyond the limits of private profit, and weaken the power of landlords, banks, investors, and wealthy towns to benefit from scarcity. More homes are necessary, but new housing becomes an affordability strategy only when public power determines where it is built, who controls it, and whether it stays affordable.

The blueprint forward is simple. Housing must be defended as shelter. In both gentrifying Boston-area neighborhoods and Gateway Cities across the state, the goal must be reinvestment without displacement. That means rent control, eviction protections, and prioritizing affordable housing.

Second, housing production must become a public responsibility. When expected returns fall, the market slows, even if people still need housing. Massachusetts needs public financing, infrastructure investment, and a state social housing authority capable of building and preserving homes directly.

Legislation should be passed mandating that municipalities allow  apartments, remove parking minimums, and allow smaller residential lots that can accommodate smaller homes. Exclusive suburbs like Milton and Wellesley should also have to use public land for social housing and meet enforceable regional housing obligations. Communities that hoard access to jobs, transit, schools, and high-value land should not be enabled to push all housing construction  into working-class neighborhoods.

These are not separate crises. Displacement in high-rent neighborhoods, abandonment in older industrial cities, and exclusion in wealthy suburbs are different expressions of the same housing contradiction.

The housing crisis cannot truly be solved without federal action, but Massachusetts cannot wait for Washington to move first. If scarcity is protected through law, finance, and land ownership, then those are the forces we have to confront here.

This will not be easy, but there is no other option. Massachusetts must empower tenants, build social housing, and challenge the system that organizes housing around scarcity. Despite the recent loss in the Massachusetts Supreme Court, the need to push for rent control has not ended.

Boston DSA Housing Working Group Co-chair Tim Scalona addressed the problem clearly:

As rents explode and few affordable housing opportunities exist without a years-long waitlist, tenants risk an eviction notice after each health emergency or job loss.

The task now is to fight for an equitable future, building by building, city by city, and law by law.

B. Greer is the Housing Justice Campaign Lead for Boston DSA and a senior designer focused on multifamily housing. He is currently working on the social housing proposal in Cambridge alongside CHJC.

The post OPINION: Healey’s Abundance Agenda Relies on Institutions Keeping Us in Scarcity appeared first on Working Mass.

Today is the centenary of Fidel Castro, and the Democratic Socialists of America recognize the historic significance of both this day and the man. Fidel was an organizer, a fighter, and endures as a stalwart symbol of anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination for the Global South. DSA has a long history of solidarity with the Cuban people, their revolution, and their self-determination. We choose this historic day to recommit ourselves to acting in solidarity with the Cuban people and to starkly opposing Marco Rubio’s genocidal war against the Cuban people and US imperialism writ large.

 

The Trump Administration, under the leadership of Marco Rubio, is waging an indiscriminate war against the Cuban people and killing women, children, and babies by illegally blockading critical resources from the Caribbean nation. By intentionally imposing conditions calculated to kill a civilian population, Marco Rubio is leading a genocide. 

 

DSA unequivocally demands 

• an end to the genocidal blockade

• an end to all threats of military violence against Cuba

• an end to all imperialist aggression against Cuba

• the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba

• reparations payments to be made to Cuba for the trillions of dollars in damages the blockade has cost the Cuban people 

• the prosecution of Marco Rubio for crimes against humanity

 

Finally, the Democratic Socialists of America demands that our country respect the sovereignty and inalienable right to self-determination of sovereign nations. We believe in building a world of peace, cooperation, and mutual respect and understanding. 

 

Build that world with us.

 

 

The post DSA Commemorates 100 Years of Fidel and Denounces Rubio’s Genocide Against the Cuban People appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

River Valley Democratic Socialists of America Endorses Michael Lachenmeyer in the 12th Hampden District River Valley Democratic Socialists of America (RVDSA) is proud to announce our endorsement of Michael Lachenmeyer, an active chapter member running for the 12th Hampden District. Lachenmeyer is running against Angelo Puppolo, an establishment Democrat who hasn’t faced a primary challenger […]

Seattle DSA stands in solidarity with the more than 140 immigrants currently organizing a hunger strike at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. It’s being reported that these brave community members have not eaten in more than 24 hours in protest of the continued inhumane conditions that they and their fellow detainees are being subjected to. 

The GEO Group owned facility has had more than 10 hunger strikes organized by detainees just since the beginning of 2026, a clear sign that the conditions in the already horrific facility are deteriorating as Trump’s regime continues to pursue a blatantly racist immigration policy which has led to death and disorder all over our country. 

Like so many current events, this specific crisis sits at the crossroads of our society’s systemic xenophobia and crony capitalism. Our tax dollars are being paid to the GEO Group, a corporation which donated millions of dollars to Trump and his endorsed candidates, so that their private corporation would be given multi-million dollar contracts to confine, abuse, force work, and starve tens of thousands of our neighbors and family members that have been arrested by ICE.

Seattle DSA demands an end to all forms of immigration detention. We specifically demand the closure of the Northwest Detention Center and the immediate release of everyone who is being held and tortured for profit inside. We encourage you to call your representatives and demand they take action to get these facilities closed and our neighbors returned to our communities. 

This isn’t just a film review

On a Wednesday afternoon, I walked into the Music Box Theater, ready to watch Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in 70mm. Nolan’s film is carried by an ensemble cast, beautiful cinematography, and of course, the use of IMAX cameras, a first for a blockbuster film. Yet after leaving the showing, Nolan’s interpretation of Homer’s iconic work wasn’t the first thing that came to my mind. Instead, I concluded that the film was a response to the United States’ war and invasion of Iraq.

Warning: the following contains spoilers ahead for Nolan’s The Odyssey

Baghdad is Troy, Troy is Baghdad

Nolan’s film opens on Odysseus’s flashback, like Homer’s epic, to the Trojan War. This opening scene depicts Greek soldiers hiding in the Trojan Horse, a ‘gift’ to the Trojans and their gods. Sinon, played by Elliot Page, sacrifices himself before the Trojans to ensure that the horse makes it through Troy’s walls. At night, after being dragged in, the Greek soldiers descend from the wooden horse and unleash chaos throughout the city of Troy.

This is the first direct comparison to the invasion of Iraq, specifically to the fall of Baghdad. The looting and arson besieging Troy is a direct link to how the United States and its allies (most notably the United Kingdom) besieged Baghdad in April of 2003. The Greek soldiers created chaos while panicked Trojan civilians tried to escape, with statues of the gods themselves beheaded or broken during the siege. One might recall how U.S. soldiers helped Iraqi civilians destroy statues of Saddam Hussein. It is clear Nolan is connecting the Greeks’ savagery to the United States and its actions in Iraq.

As with the fall of Troy, with the capture of Baghdad, all of Iraq fell under U.S. occupation. The Bush administration’s Trojan horse was the promise that they would bring about democracy for the Iraqi people after Saddam Hussein’s rule. However, after two decades (which is how long it takes for Odysseus to get home), the U.S. occupation decimated the Iraqi population and left puppet leaders throughout the region, not to mention human rights violations committed by the U.S. and its allies (see Abu Ghraib).

The final part of the film, similar to the original epic, reflects on the hero’s journey – specifically Odysseus’s regret for his actions against Troy and the fate of the men under his command. It mirrors that of veterans of the Iraq War who regret their actions in Iraq, how they were just ‘following orders’ (Agemmon and Odysseus play the roles of the Bush administration and the U.S. military). They bear the scars of war both for themselves and the people they have killed or hurt along the way. In the end, just like the fall of Baghdad, the fall of Troy reflects on how decades of bloodshed and the mad decline of human civilization have unfolded amid promises of so-called democracy.

“…To burn the walls of Troy was to burn the world entirely, including his home…”

— Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, talking to Penelope (The Odyssey, 2026)

Trump’s “Golden Age” of America

While this film is more or less a direct analog to the Iraq War, Nolan takes a slight jab at the current Trump regime near the end. Odysseus mentions the ending of the Bronze Age to his wife Penelope. Trump, in his second term, has boasted that he is bringing a “Golden Age” to America. But as we know, it has been the opposite, with blowback from Iraq and Afghanistan, the continuation of the genocide in Palestine, his Gestapo (ICE) running around and rounding up our immigrant neighbors, and a failing economy. Just like the Bronze Age, Trump’s “Golden Age” and the American Empire will fall.

The post Iraq: America’s Trojan War appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

How can socialists develop a more efficient and united organizational mode?

As Mayor Mamdani seeks to build solidarity with the Palestinian people and dismantle Israeli apartheid, he should look to the example set by another activist-turned-mayor.

A statement of the Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, July 2026. En español a continuación.

What is happening in Ecuador is a coup conducted without tanks. Its weapons are electoral councils, tribunals, and prosecutors, and its result is the one every coup seeks: a government that no longer has to face its opponents on equal terms. In a single week of July, the government of President Daniel Noboa closed three of the channels through which Ecuadorians contest power, each time by a lawful-looking decision of an ostensibly neutral body.

On July 15, the National Electoral Council refused to release the forms citizens need to gather signatures for a recall of the president, a right written into the constitution, ending the effort before anyone could sign.^[1] Days earlier the Constitutional Court had refused even to hear the appeal of the Citizen Revolution, the largest opposition force, against its own suspension, citing a rule that blocks review during an election period, which is the only period when the suspension bites.^[2] Then the electoral tribunal suspended AMIGO, the movement under which Citizen Revolution candidates had arranged to run, one day before the deadline to register alliances.^[3] Throughout, Noboa litigated against the recall aimed at him before the very council deciding whether it could proceed.^[4]

This is not a seizure of power in the night. It is the steady conversion of the referees, the electoral council, the courts, the prosecutor, into instruments of the incumbent. Each step survives inspection on its own. Together they let a president choose his opponents.

It did not begin with paperwork. During last autumn’s national strike against austerity, security forces killed three protesters and charged demonstrators as terrorists.^[5] And it is not only Ecuador’s affair. Ecuadorians voted in November 2025 to reject foreign military bases; the United States deployed personnel to Manta anyway, and by July the chief of U.S. Southern Command was in Quito reviewing Noboa’s security plan in person.^[6] Our own government has set aside a vote of the Ecuadorian people, which places a particular duty on socialists in the U.S.

To the citizens’ platform Revoca EC and the attorney Washington Andrade; to Leonidas Iza, acting as president of Ecuarunari; to the peasant, labor, and teachers’ organizations, FENOCIN, the FUT, the Frente Popular, and the UNE, who filed the second recall petition against austerity and the agreement with the International Monetary Fund; and to every rank-and-file member of the Citizen Revolution whose party the electoral tribunal has barred from the ballot: we see you, and we stand with you.

We do not write to instruct anyone in Ecuador how to conduct their struggle. We write to affirm a principle that stands above any single party’s fortunes: the recall belongs to the people, not to a party, and the right to appear on a ballot cannot depend on the incumbent’s convenience. The government suspended its largest opposition without ever proving the charge, because it timed the suspension to the one period when the courts are barred from reviewing it. A case that cannot survive review is not a case. It is a tactic.

DSA members: raise Ecuador where you are. Bring this statement to your chapter, and demand that your own representatives end the U.S. military and police cooperation that underwrites this repression. The local elections of November 29 will test whether Ecuador’s doors are narrowed or shut. Doors closed by law can be reopened by law, but only while some remain open, and solidarity is one of the things that keeps them open.

The recall is not a party’s weapon. It is the people’s. From Quito to Chicago, our struggle is one.

Sobre Ecuador: Cuando los árbitros se unen a un equipo

Declaración del Comité Internacional de los Socialistas Democráticos de Estados Unidos, julio de 2026. En español a continuación.

Lo que está sucediendo en Ecuador es un golpe de Estado llevado a cabo sin tanques. Sus armas son los consejos electorales, los tribunales y los fiscales, y su resultado es el que todo golpe busca: un gobierno que ya no tenga que enfrentarse a sus oponentes en igualdad de condiciones. En una sola semana de julio, el gobierno del presidente Daniel Noboa cerró tres de los canales a través de los cuales los ecuatorianos disputan el poder, cada vez mediante una decisión de apariencia legal de un organismo aparentemente neutral.

El 15 de julio, el Consejo Nacional Electoral se negó a entregar los formularios que los ciudadanos necesitan para recolectar firmas para una revocatoria del presidente, un derecho consagrado en la Constitución, poniendo fin a la iniciativa antes de que nadie pudiera firmar.^[7] Días antes, la Corte Constitucional se había negado incluso a admitir a trámite el recurso de la Revolución Ciudadana (RC 5), la mayor fuerza de oposición, contra su propia suspensión, alegando una norma que impide la revisión durante el período electoral, que es el único período en el que la suspensión surte efecto.^[8] Luego, el tribunal electoral suspendió a AMIGO, el movimiento bajo el cual los candidatos de la RC  se habían organizado para postularse, un día antes de la fecha límite para registrar alianzas.^[9] Durante todo este proceso, Noboa litigó contra la destitución dirigida en su contra ante el mismo consejo que decidía si esta podía seguir adelante.^[10]

Esto no es un golpe de Estado en la noche. Es la conversión paulatina de los árbitros —el consejo electoral, los tribunales, la fiscalía— en instrumentos del presidente en ejercicio. Cada paso resiste el escrutinio por sí solo. Juntos, permiten que un presidente elija a sus oponentes.

No comenzó con trámites burocráticos. Durante el paro nacional de septiembre y octubre de 2025 ante el Decreto Ejecutivo 126 del gobierno de Daniel Noboa, que elevó el precio del diésel,  la austeridad, las fuerzas de seguridad mataron a tres manifestantes y acusaron a los manifestantes de ser terroristas.^[11] Y no es solo un asunto de Ecuador. Los ecuatorianos votaron en noviembre de 2025 para rechazar las bases militares extranjeras; Estados Unidos desplegó personal en Manta de todos modos, y para julio el jefe del Comando Sur de EE. UU. estaba en Quito revisando el plan de seguridad de Noboa en persona.^[12] Nuestro propio gobierno ha hecho caso omiso de un voto del pueblo ecuatoriano, lo que impone un deber especial a los socialistas en EE. UU.

A la plataforma ciudadana Revoca EC y al abogado Washington Andrade; a Leonidas Iza, en calidad de presidente de Ecuarunari; a las organizaciones campesinas, sindicales y de docentes —FENOCIN, la FUT, el Frente Popular y la UNE—, que presentaron la segunda petición de revocatoria contra la austeridad y el acuerdo con el Fondo Monetario Internacional; y a cada miembro de base de la Revolución Ciudadana, cuyo partido ha sido excluido de la boleta electoral por el tribunal electoral: los vemos y estamos con ustedes.

No escribimos para instruir a nadie en Ecuador sobre cómo llevar a cabo su lucha. Escribimos para afirmar un principio que está por encima de las vicisitudes de cualquier partido en particular: la revocatoria le pertenece al pueblo, no a un partido, y el derecho a aparecer en una boleta electoral no puede depender de la conveniencia del titular del cargo. El gobierno suspendió a su mayor oposición sin jamás probar la acusación, porque programó la suspensión para el único período en el que los tribunales no pueden revisarla. Un caso que no puede resistir una revisión no es un caso. Es una táctica.

Miembros de la DSA: hablen sobre Ecuador dondequiera que estén. Lleven esta declaración a su sección local y exijan que sus propios representantes pongan fin a la cooperación militar y policial de EE. UU. que respalda esta represión. Las elecciones locales del 29 de noviembre pondrán a prueba si las puertas de Ecuador están más estrechas o cerradas. Las puertas cerradas por ley pueden volver a abrirse por ley, pero solo mientras algunas permanezcan abiertas, y la solidaridad es una de las cosas que las mantiene abiertas.

La revocatoria no es un arma de un partido. Es del pueblo. Desde Quito hasta Chicago, nuestra lucha es una sola.

---

^[1]El Universo, July 15, 2026.
^[2]Primicias, July 15, 2026.
^[3]La República, July 17, 2026.
^[4]Qué Noticias, July 8, 2026.
^[5]El Universo, October 23, 2025.
^[6]International IDEA, November 2025; La Jornada, July 18, 2026.
^[7]El Universo, 15 de julio de 2026.
^[8]Primicias, 15 de julio de 2026.
^[9]La República, 17 de julio de 2026.
^[10]Qué Noticias, 8 de julio de 2026.
^[11]El Universo, 23 de octubre de 2025.
^[12]IDEA Internacional, noviembre de 2025; La Jornada, 18 de julio de 2026.

The post On Ecuador: When the Referees Join a Team appeared first on DSA International Committee.

A discarded city lies on the outskirts of the American Capitol..

On July 21, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Caine appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee to ask for $87.6 billion in emergency supplemental funding for the war in Iran. This amount would add to the current funding of $839 billion found in the most recent budget and the $150 billion added last year in the Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill,” for a total budget of over $1 trillion.

Senators had reasonable questions and received clownish answers. Shouldn’t all of this be approved by Congress? (No.) What happened to the money we already gave you? (Those are for different, unrelated bombs.) How can Iran be killing soldiers when you said previously that we destroyed their missiles? (Iran has more, hidden missiles because “That’s what terror regimes would do.”) Why are we bombing Iran to stop their nuclear program if we already destroyed it? (“Iranians foolishly continued to attempt to pursue nuclear capabilities.”)

“We hear a different rationale for this war every few days,” said Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), vice chair of the committee. Pointing to the shifting objectives during this now five-month war, she said: 

“It was about preempting imminent threats which we now know did not exist. It was about regime change, then liberating the Iranian people. It was about destroying Iran’s nuclear program and its navy, and at one point it was about taking out its ballistic missiles […] Trump has even suggested the war is about taking Iran’s oil to ‘Make a fortune.’ And now the United States’ primary strategic objective seems to be to actually just reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which, of course, was fully open, toll-free, before this war began.”

Murray is also the only senator to note that the request includes unrelated items such as “Almost $1 billion for SOUTHCOM, nearly $1 billion to keep deploying the National Guard here in DC, and more than $1 billion for the southern border.”

These items being included make perfect sense under the current model of governance. Under a regime where funds appropriated by Congress can be withheld at-will by the executive, it doesn’t really matter what the mechanisms of funding are as long as it keeps flowing in the right directions. And subjugating brown people costs a lot of your money. Summed up a different way by Hegseth, “Every dollar appropriated to the Department of War will be focused on building the lethality of our joint forces and reinforcing peace through strength.”

Only one senator displayed the level of emotion I’d expect for a conversation about murder. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) spent her time haranguing the assembled warmongers and asking why we couldn’t be here mongering something else. “[New Yorkers] are seeing their healthcare bills rise because [of] massive cuts to medicaid. They’ve seen their grocery and gas bills rise, and this unpopular and unauthorized war abroad is a higher priority to this administration than their ability to feed their families and provide healthcare to their loved ones who are sick.”

Any amount of pushback given by this committee to the administration is tempered by the effusive praise multiple senators offered for the war and for alleged rapist Pete Hegseth.

“Secretary Hegseth,” Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) said, “Thank you for being here and the amazing job that you’re doing. I have the utmost respect for you, your team, and what you’re accomplishing.”

Democratic socialists have little praise to offer anyone in this hearing. National DSA has passed resolutions calling for an end to all foreign wars, the closing of overseas bases, and ending sanctions on Iran. It is long past time for Americans to reject two parties equally supportive of overseas murder, even if one party (the Democrats) technically approves and funds that murder using proper procedure.

Will the Senate go on to support this package? One senator has no idea: Senator John Kennedy (R-LA). Because the emergency funding request also includes provisions for farm aid, sitting next to Hegseth throughout the hearing was Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.

Kennedy mumbled his way through a series of stern but meaningless questions for Caine and Hegseth (occasionally pausing to stare intensely into open air), before turning to Rollins and engaging in a line of questioning involving “Other countries who grow oysters and shrimp in a ditch and shoot them full of antibiotics,” with the exact same seriousness as his questions about war.

Kennedy has no relation to the more famous Massachusetts Kennedys, but Senator Kennedy is the inheritor of a vast fortune built on slavery and sharecropping in Catahoula and Concordia parishes in his home state of Louisiana.  With this being the caliber of person in our legislature’s upper house, there is little reason for faith in a just outcome. Maybe we should just abolish the whole senate.

The post Craven Warmongers Beg the Senate for More of Your Money appeared first on Midwest Socialist.