Hanoi, Vietnam – In the Vietnamese capital’s Thanh Xuan district, where labyrinthine alleys bustle with residential life and the energy of nearby universities, memories of last year’s deadly apartment fire linger.
Late on the night of September 12, 2023, a blaze ripped through an apartment building on Khuong Ha Street in Khuong Dinh ward, killing 56 people, including four children.
Police determined the fire started from a short circuit in the electrical wiring of a scooter parked on the first floor, before quickly spreading to the building’s upper floors – added by the building’s owner to create tiny subdivided apartments that could house triple as many tenants.
For years, micro-apartments, known as “chung cu mini”, have sprouted throughout Vietnam’s metropolises, cramming low-income families and college students into substandard, fire-prone housing.
“These apartments are like mushrooms, they are everywhere,” Lan Vo, a former resident of a micro-apartment in Thanh Xuan, told Al Jazeera, requesting to be referred to by a pseudonym to avoid harassment.
A fire at an apartment block on Khuong Ha Street last year killed 56 people, including four children [Coby Hobbs/Al Jazeera]
In an interview with state media last year, Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, attributed the boom in micro-apartments since the 2010s to a shortage of homes for low-income people.
September’s disaster and other fires at micro-apartment blocks have forced Vietnam’s authorities to confront the dangers of lax building and fire regulations and the inadequacies of the country’s social housing infrastructure.
But even as the nation mourns those killed and government inspections sweep through the country, municipalities are finding themselves hamstrung when it comes to outlawing the structures due to the rare affordability they offer low-income urban dwellers.
Blocks of micro-apartments are usually designed in the style of a long, narrow tube. Built on small plots in the narrow alleys of heavily populated districts, the residencies are often located within close proximity of universities and house students and low-income families.
The Ho Chi Minh City Construction Department estimated that the financial capital had more than 60,000 micro-apartment buildings, made up of about 600,000 apartments, as of mid-2022.
Chau, the real estate association chairman, said in his interview with state media that the apartments house approximately 1.8 million people and about 40 percent of the workforce in Ho Chi Minh City alone.
The city’s police department has reported that some 42,200 micro-apartments are currently on the market for rent.
While there is no official data for Hanoi, at least 2000 micro-apartment buildings are connected to the city’s power grid, according to the national utility, Vietnam Electricity.
There are dozens of micro-apartments jammed into narrow alleyways in Hanoi’s Khuong Dinh ward [Coby Hobss/Al Jazeera]
On a recent visit to Khuong Dinh ward, the site of September’s fire, Al Jazeera observed dozens of the apartments jammed into narrow alleyways.
Other clusters of apartments can be found in districts situated near universities, such as Hoang Mai, Cau Giay, Bac Tu Liem, and Nam Tu Liem.
“[Tenants] are mostly young workers and many students living together,” said Vo, the former micro-apartment resident.
“Due to high rent, students often live together in groups of three to five people to share rent and utilities.”
The selling price for a micro-apartment can be as little as 600 million Vietnamese dongs ($24,615), making the accommodation the cheapest form of property available in most Vietnamese cities.
Even so, in Vietnam, where the minimum wage salary barely reaches $200 a month, tenants – especially college students – can still find themselves struggling to make rent.
While Vo was relatively content with her dwellings, she witnessed others who endured far worse conditions than she did.
“The building I lived in had around eight to 10 rooms, but the building next to mine had up to 30 rooms,” Vo said.
“Greedy landlords try to stuff as many people as they can to gain more rent, it looks like a can of sardines if you think about it,” she added.
For residents, the desire to cram as many tenants as possible into the buildings threatens not only their comfort, but their safety as well.
The narrow and congested alleys that host the buildings in many cases limit accessibility for fire engines. Some apartments lack emergency exits and other fire prevention facilities.
In the case of September’s fire at Khuong Ha Street, fire engines and first responders reportedly had difficulty reaching the apartment due to the narrowness of the ward’s alleys.
Vo said tenants in her ward were occasionally gathered for “fire safety practice”, but the drills – mostly consisting of fire-prevention tips, such as not leaving stoves on – were overshadowed by the lack of emergency escape ladders on the buildings.
Thuy Hai, a student at Hanoi University who lives in a micro-apartment, said there are no monthly fire drills in her ward in Thanh Xuan.
“Instead, they [the landlord] just left a fire extinguisher at my front door,” she told Al Jazeera. “They didn’t even teach me how to use it.”
“Tiger cages”, metal bars around windows and balconies, designed to prevent burglaries and falls, have also been highlighted as a safety hazard.
So-called ‘tiger cages’ have been highlighted as one of many safety hazards for residents of Vietnam’s micro-apartments [Coby Hobbs/Al Jazeera]
In September alone, Hanoi experienced five fires of varying magnitude, according to a report by state media.
Colonel Duong Duc Hai, the deputy director of the Hanoi Police Department, told the local outlet that electrical short circuits were the root cause of 96 percent of these fires.
Tenants’ scooters are generally stored on the bottom floor of apartment buildings, posing potential safety hazards, including blocked exits and electrical malfunctions.
A witness to the fire in Thanh Xuan in September told Al Jazeera that the building’s owner, Nghiem Quang Minh, had hired an elderly security guard to manage tenants’ scooters on the bottom floor, but he was often overwhelmed by the number of vehicles.
The witness said the security guard was paid according to the number of scooters he was able to park, incentivising him to take in as many as possible.
Property owners have also been found to have built extra floors and rooms, breaking contract agreements and regulations.
Minh, who is now being prosecuted for alleged fire code violations, built at least eight other micro-apartment buildings in several districts of Hanoi, according to law enforcement officials.
None of these apartments met the fire safety standards and all were found to have unauthorised building extensions, state media reported.
Vietnam recently amended the law to cover micro-apartments [Coby Hobbs/Al Jazeera]
Vietnamese law for years did not define micro-apartments or include them under a specific legal framework. That changed in November when the National Assembly amended the law to grant them legal status.
When the amendments come into effect on January 1, 2025, property developers will still be permitted to construct micro-apartments on residential land on which they hold land use rights.
The amendments stipulate conditions for “individual” developers building and owning the buildings.
Under the regulations, individual investors will face bigger hurdles to develop micro-apartments compared with established real estate businesses, including being required to have a minimum amount of investment capital.
Before the legal changes, lawmakers debated if stricter regulations on micro-apartments would be unenforceable or if they should even be legal.
Trinh Xuan An, a delegate of the National Assembly, told local media that the government “should not support the construction of mini apartment buildings but, instead, ought to back the development of social housing projects for low-income earners”.
Other lawmakers emphasised that all new regulations would allow renters to safely access a popular form of accommodation.
A recurring factor in the debate is affordability.
In Hanoi, a fast-growing population has turned the city into one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world.
For many budget-conscious renters, the lack of suburban housing options makes micro-apartments the natural choice.
Despite their risks, the cramped units have proven popular with students and low-income, blue-collar workers.
Ex-tenant Vo said the apartments were still a better option than social housing for people like her and that stricter regulation would be a better option than a ban.
“Tenants should also be able to send direct complaints about serious problems and not have to wait decades for the government to respond, especially when it comes down to their own safety,” she said.
Cape Town, South Africa – In the backyard of a small house in Cape Town’s Mitchells Plain stands a one-room corrugated iron structure.
Inside, Cheryl-Ann Smith, her husband and three grandsons have made a home. They are among thousands of so-called “backyard dwellers” in this impoverished area locals call Lost City.
Here, residents often sublet part of their small plots to others who are even less well-off than they are, creating invisible households without access to basic services like electricity and sanitation.
In the Smiths’ single-room dwelling, there is barely enough space for their two beds, a makeshift cupboard with a two-plate stove, and a round bucket for doing dishes. The one tap they use is situated at the front of the property, and they have to use buckets as a toilet.
Smith, 54, has lived in this limbo for most of her life, waiting for a house from the government for the last 30 years – since before the ruling African National Congress (ANC) won the first democratic elections after apartheid.
“I applied in June 1993 for a council house and imagine it’s 2024 and I am still waiting!” the part-time domestic worker told Al Jazeera.
When the ANC came to power in 1994, providing houses for all was a key government policy. The country went a step further in its 1996 constitution, stating that all levels of government should address the “legacy of spatial apartheid” and that mechanisms in the law would allow for the release of land for affordable housing.
On paper, there is a commitment to provide housing for all. However, in reality, the pace of delivery has not kept up with the growing demand, resulting in an enormous backlog.
The decades of unfulfilled promises have also left voters disgruntled with both the ANC national government and the leading opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party that runs Cape Town and the Western Cape province.
As the country heads to a crucial general election in May – which analysts say will be the toughest one yet for the ANC – some polls suggest the DA’s majority in the Cape is also slipping, in a sign of an electorate ready to hold their leaders to account.
Though millions have been helped with social housing, waiting lists are long and informal settlements have sprung up in areas like Mitchells Plain on the outskirts of Cape Town [Gianluigi Guercia/AFP]
‘A nightmare’
From 1994 to February 2022, the state housed about five million people in need, according to data from the Department of Human Settlements. However, nationally some 2.3 million households and individuals are still waiting for a home.
In the Western Cape, official waiting lists say more than 600,000 people are in line for a council house, with over 350,000 of those in Cape Town alone.
And housing activists say those on the official lists are only a fraction of the people in need.
In Mitchells Plain, where Smith lives, the local residents’ association said there are more than 15,000 people from the area waiting for homes, but no political will from the authorities to help house everyone who needs it.
“The housing waiting lists are a nightmare and there seems to be no coherence when someone like Cheryl-Ann and others have been on the list for 20 to 30 years,” said Michael Jacobs, the deputy head of the Mitchells Plain United Residents Association.
As a civic organisation, Jacobs said they have tried to engage with the city, provincial and national government to release parcels of land to build houses, but no one is listening.
“The list is a joke; people will die and their children will be adults and they will never ever have a house at the rate we are moving.”
Spatial apartheid
The DA has governed the Western Cape for more than 16 years, while the other eight of the country’s nine provinces are run by the ANC.
DA leaders have consistently painted their territory as an oasis in a country plagued by inefficiency, with party leader John Steenhuisen telling voters in Cape Town this month: “While the eight ANC-led provinces crumble, there is one place left in this country where the hope that we all shared for a better future shines ever more brightly. That place of hope is this DA-led Western Cape province. The Western Cape of Good Hope.”
The segregationist legacy of apartheid is still visible in the spatial dynamics of Cape Town and other cities [File: Johnny Miller/Reuters]
But for the majority of poor, non-white residents, this rhetoric does not reflect their lived reality.
Cape Town is a geographically segregated city, with the scars of apartheid often hidden away from the pristine beaches and multimillion-dollar properties that make it a global tourist hub.
Mitchells Plain – which sits on a flat, sandy stretch of land some 30km (19 miles) away from the city centre known as the Cape Flats – was set up in the 1970s as a place for the apartheid government to house people of colour following racist forced removals.
It was designed to be separate and segregated from then-whites-only areas, but also from economic opportunities and services. And that unjust spatial legacy remains.
Today, Mitchells Plain is home to close to half a million low-to-middle-income people living in about eight neighbourhoods of varying socioeconomic status.
The area also recorded one the highest numbers of attempted murders nationally during the first quarter of the year, according to crime statistics – and repeatedly makes it into the country’s top 30 areas with the highest crime rates.
Smith and her family have not been spared. Living in Lost City, one of the poorest areas in Mitchells Plain, she has lost three children, two to gang violence, she said, wondering aloud if they would still be alive if she had a real home to keep them safe.
“Lost City is so far from everything,” Smith said. “People say the name is from the fact that we are lost here; no one listens to us or helps us as the backyard dwellers waiting for a house.”
‘Out of touch’ politicians
With the elections less than two months away, housing is not at the top of the agenda for the leading political parties in the province.
The ANC only has two lines in its manifesto related to the issue, where it states it will continue building subsidised housing for vulnerable groups and invest in people partly by ensuring everyone has decent housing and basic services.
In its manifesto, the DA makes no mention of housing at all. But an earlier housing policy from the party says it believes in “adequate shelter” and supports the section of the constitution that requires this right to be “progressively realised”.
Housing is a big election issue for voters. In a photo taken before the 2014 polls, an ANC supporter in Cape Town holds a sign criticising the opposition DA’s housing policies [File: Mike Hutchings/Reuters]
Nick Budlender, an urban policy researcher at the housing activist group Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), sees political parties’ lack of focus on housing as “both interesting and disheartening”.
“Land and housing were key issues in previous elections and, for many, political parties have drifted away and the struggle for housing has less capital. It slipped down the list for politicians,” he said.
Last month, Cape Town’s Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, a member of the DA, unveiled what the city calls its “pro-poor budget” for 2024-2025, telling a council meeting that the mission going forward was to invest in infrastructure “on an unprecedented scale”.
“With boldness of vision and firmness of belief, we know that Cape Town can show that it is possible to roll back poverty, that we can overcome the long shadows of our past,” he said.
However, Budlender said: “We have a housing and segregation crisis that is extreme here – but we don’t see enough government action to match this crisis,” adding that the leadership was “failing to use public land to serve the public”.
“This is an example of inequality and segregation in our city,” he said.
Jacobs from the Mitchells Plain United Residents Association said he would also like to see “a rapid release of land from the national government”, which the city could then use to build homes for people who need it.
But “the city is not geared up for the delivery of houses”, he admitted, adding that Mayor Hill-Lewis was “out of touch” with the realities on the ground.
‘They forget about us’
In Lost City, Smith sat with her family outside their single-room dwelling, still hoping that change would come.
Her husband, Russel, 61, lost his right leg years ago and is unable to work. He gets a small disability pension that helps them pay rent to the owner of the plot they stay on, but Smith does domestic work twice a week to earn a bit more money.
A big chunk of what she makes goes into public transport to visit the city council to follow up on her housing application – and sometimes that isn’t enough.
“I usually have to borrow taxi fare to go to the city’s housing office to find out if there is any news on getting a council house, I am so tired and frustrated,” she said, telling Al Jazeera that different officials usually send her from one office to the next.
“In January, they told me I have to wait longer because of some issues, and the houses were not going to be built, so I have to wait another three to four years. This is so depressing.”
Hundreds of thousands of people live in backyard housing, activists say [File: Mike Hutchings/Reuters]
Budlender from the NU, whose non-profit group of lawyers and community organisers works to tackle spatial injustice in the city, said: “Sadly, we see cases like Cheryl-Ann and her family all the time.”
“This idea is that the housing waiting list is a rational list, meaning those who are on the earliest will get [homes] first – but that is not how it functions at all and it’s a lot more random.”
For Smith that has meant going to the housing office almost every day to follow up on her application. But so far, it has yielded no results.
Budlender said though millions have benefitted from the state’s housing policy since 1994, for many more, there is no help at all.
“We know of hundreds of thousands of people that live in backyard housing and that number continues to grow,” he said, adding that it is a section of the population the government seems to want to ignore.
“So far there has been no real policy response to backyard housing,” he said. “It’s like they put their heads in the sand.”
As the elections approach, the politicians campaign around rolling back poverty. But to the Smiths and their neighbours, talk means little when the reality of poverty is all they have.
“They only come here when they need us to vote for them and then they forget about us,” Smith said, putting little faith in their party promises.
“I dream of the day I have a house where there is a running tap that I can simply open and wash my grandchild in a bath instead of a bucket,” she said, “and have a toilet I can flush.”
Amnesty International has called on Indian authorities to immediately halt the “unlawful” demolitions of Muslim properties, as it released two new reports describing the targeting of homes, businesses and places of worship across several states belonging to the minority community.
Calling the demolitions a form of extra-judicial punishment, the rights group demanded adequate compensation to all those affected by the demolitions that have rendered hundreds of people, most of them Muslims, homeless and their livelihoods destroyed.
The London-based rights group also called on the JCB construction-equipment company, whose bulldozers have been widely used in the “punitive” demolitions, to “publicly condemn the use of its machinery to commit human rights violations”.
Here are the main points of the reports.
What do the reports say about bulldozer politics in India?
The two reports, titled ‘Bulldozer Injustice in India’ and ‘JCB’s Role and Responsibility in Bulldozer Injustice in India’, document demolitions of at least 128 properties between April and June 2022. Amnesty International says the demolitions carried out by bulldozers have rendered at least 617 people either homeless or destroyed their livelihoods.
It says authorities in five states – Assam, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi – carried out demolitions as a “punishment” following episodes of religious violence or protest by Muslims against discriminatory government policies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been accused of running anti-Muslim rhetoric, rules in four out of the five states.
“The unlawful demolition of Muslim properties by the Indian authorities, peddled as ‘bulldozer justice’ by political leaders and media, is cruel and appalling … They are destroying families – and must stop immediately,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, in a statement on Wednesday.
“The authorities have repeatedly undermined the rule of law, destroying homes, businesses or places of worship, through targeted campaigns of hate, harassment, violence and the weaponisation of JCB bulldozers. These human rights abuses must be urgently addressed.”
Last month, Muslim homes and properties were demolished by bulldozers in the financial hub of Mumbai after communal violence flared in the wake of the inauguration of the Ram temple by Modi in Ayodhya city in northern Uttar Pradesh. The temple was built on the place where the 16th-century Babri mosque stood until 1992, when Hindu mobs demolished it.
Last year, more than 300 Muslim properties were demolished after communal violence on the outskirts of the Indian capital, New Delhi. In 2021, a 100-year-old mosque was demolished in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district, while in 2023, a 16th-century mosque was razed in Prayagraj city, also in Uttar Pradesh, under a road widening project.
Analysts say bulldozers have come to symbolise the oppression of Muslims in India, particularly after Yogi Adityanath – the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, known for his anti-Muslim bigotry – started the policy of destroying properties of those accused of crimes to dispense instant justice. But legal experts say due process is the biggest casualty of this new phenomenon popular among the Hindu far right.
Since Modi took over as prime minister in 2014, attacks against Muslims and their livelihood have increased, with dozens of Muslims lynched over cow smuggling allegations.
What has the BJP government said?
BJP leaders widely celebrate the demolitions – so much so that bulldozers have featured in election campaigning of the ruling party candidates. They claim that the demolition exercises are against encroachment and target buildings owned by criminals or gangsters.
Authorities have denied that the Muslim community was being targeted.
BJP spokesperson Raman Malik told Al Jazeera in the wake of demolitions in August that bulldozing is only done to remove illegal encroachments. But rights groups pointed out that overwhelmingly, Muslim properties were the target.
Is the bulldozing legal?
Civil society members, activists, and opposition politicians believe that destroying buildings is a deliberate form of targeted violence against minority communities such as Muslims.
Brinda Karat from the Communist Party of India opposed the demolitions in Delhi, saying the bulldozers are used to deliberately target Muslims under the guise of removing encroachments.
Amnesty in its report said that the demolitions were carried out without following due process. Occupants of buildings were not warned prior to demolitions or given enough time to leave their properties and salvage their belongings. Amnesty interviewed 75 demolition survivors. Among them, only six received any form of prior notice from the authorities.
“The issue also arises whether the buildings belonging to a particular community are being brought down under the guise of [a] law and order problem and an exercise of ethnic cleansing is being conducted by the state,” the Punjab and Haryana High Court had said in the wake of demolition in Nuh on the outskirts of New Delhi.
The court also established that due legal processes were not carried out before the demolition drive. Prior notices were also not issued to the people who lost their property.
The Amnesty report said that India is a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), under which it is obliged to respect and fulfil the right to adequate living, “which includes the right to adequate housing, the right to work, and the right to social security”.
Is the bulldozer company, JCB, responsible?
Bulldozers manufactured by the United Kingdom-based Joseph Cyril Bamford Excavators (JCB) are commonly used to carry out these demolitions, Amnesty found.
The report added that JCB bulldozers are such a conspicuous part of demolitions in India that “JCB” and “bulldozer” are used interchangeably. The punitive bulldozing using JCB’s machinery is lauded among BJP leaders. BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao called JCB “Jihadi Control Board” in April 2022 in a now-deleted X post.
“Under international standards, JCB is responsible for addressing what third-party buyers do with its equipment. The company must stop looking away as JCB machines are used to target and punish the Muslim community… JCB cannot continue to evade responsibility while its machines are repeatedly used to inflict human rights abuses,” said Amnesty’s Callamard. “The company must publicly condemn the use of its machinery to commit human rights violations.”
Amnesty cited the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which state businesses are responsible for respecting human rights and should avoid contributing to human rights violations. The report said that JCB is responsible for determining whether its machinery was used for punitive demolitions and adding clauses to its sales contracts that mitigate human rights violations.
In response to Amnesty’s message to JCB, a legal firm acting on behalf of the company presented several arguments to distance JCB from the human rights violations in India.
The firm said that there is no direct link between JCB and the alleged human rights violations, adding that most of its machinery is sold by JCB India through independent third-party dealers.
The legal firm also said that JCB can not control the use of its products once sold to customers and that JCB does not have any leverage over those who use its products or its dealership network.
This is not the first time Amnesty has called out JCB’s complicity in human rights violations. In November 2021, another Amnesty report showed dozens of specific incidents during which Israeli authorities used JCB machinery to demolish residential and farm buildings belonging to Palestinians. JCB denied selling any machinery to the Israeli government or the contractors carrying out demolitions in Palestine.
Singapore – On a sunny Saturday afternoon in the far north of Singapore, a weekend ritual is in full swing.
Racegoers at the Singapore Turf Club are crowded around banks of screens, studying the odds for the afternoon’s upcoming horse races.
Many are clutching newspapers, scrutinising the form guide in the hope of picking out a winner. The crowd is largely made up of older Singaporean men, affectionately known as “uncles”.
Soon, they will need to find something else to fill their weekends. The curtain is about to come down on more than 180 years of horse racing history in Singapore, with the final race scheduled for October.
The Southeast Asian nation’s sole horse racing track has fallen victim to the tiny island’s need for land, with its entire 120 hectares (297 acres) to be handed back to the government in 2027 for redevelopment into public and private housing.
British Queen Elizabeth II (centre), who loved horse racing, visited the Turf Club on several occasions [File: Nash/AP]
When the announcement was made last June, Singapore Turf Club’s chairman, Niam Chiang Meng, said he was “saddened by the decision” but “understands the land needs of Singapore”.
More than six months later, Singapore’s horse racing community remains shocked, confused and frustrated.
“We had no indication [prior to June] or any information that this place is closing”, said Jason Ong, the president of the Association of Racehorse Trainers Singapore.
“To close down the whole industry in one and a half years, I think that’s something that every participant in horse racing feels is very sudden and hard to come to terms with,” Ong added.
Horses have been raced in the city-state since 1843, with the inaugural Singapore cup race held in front of more than 300 spectators.
As the popularity of the sport grew, racing moved to a 98-hectare site (242 acres) in the centrally located Bukit Timah area in 1933. Queen Elizabeth II was a notable visitor to the course in 1972, with 26,000 fans flocking to see her and other members of the British Royal Family.
Then, on the eve of the Millennium, the turf club was moved so the site could be returned to the government for housing and other uses.
At a recent meeting, there were plenty of seats available for spectators [Adam Hancock/Al Jazeera]
The 500 million Singapore dollar ($295m) Kranji Racecourse was opened in 1999 and included a five-storey grandstand with a capacity for 30,000 fans.
This new venue was supposed to signal more opportunities for the growth of horse racing in Singapore, even allowing for atmospheric night races under floodlights.
But today, it is a very different feeling at a racecourse that is soon to be demolished.
The grandstands are far from full, with most people huddled together in the shade of the concourses watching the races on monitors.
‘It’s a hobby’
Food and drink options are limited, with one food court sitting empty. Just a few shops remain, selling cheap cans of Tiger beer and plastic containers of noodle and rice dishes.
But the enthusiasm for racing and gambling remains strong among the loyal patrons.
“It’s a hobby, my hobby. I’ve been betting for more than 30 years”, said racegoer Frankie Koay.
“I’m very sad – it shouldn’t have had to be closed. Once it goes down we have to concentrate on other racing, like Hong Kong and Malaysia,” Frankie added.
Racegoers queue up to place their bets at the Singapore Turf Club [Adam Hancock/Al Jazeera]
In the lull between races, action from other tracks in South Korea and Australia is broadcast on TV screens. Occasional roars can be heard from different crowds, presumably cheering a winner in the 3:40 at Seoul.
While far from full, there is a real sense of community at the course, with the largely working-class crowd enjoying the chance to pocket some winnings.
“I’ve come here for around 30 years”, said Mr Tay, who preferred not to share his full name.
When asked why he keeps coming back, he says: “Just nothing to do. No place to go. I just come for fun”.
With horse racing soon to bow out in Singapore, one sport retains a stronghold on the tiny island.
As of 2023, there were 16 golf courses on the island, according to local media, although one public course closed at the end of the year.
On top of this, the 712 sq km (275 sq mile) city-state retains several country and social clubs.
The government says golf courses are being targeted too, with the centrally-located Marina Bay course to close later this year when its lease comes to an end.
When announcing the closure of the Kranji Racecourse, Singapore Turf Club blamed dwindling attendance over the past decade. And on this Saturday afternoon, it was not difficult to find a seat to watch the action.
“Closing down is OK for me because there’s no new generation to do horse betting,” said racing fan Roger Chuay.
Some members of Singapore’s racing community are placing the blame for the ageing fan base firmly at the door of the Turf Club’s management.
Fans check out the horses in the paddock. Trainers are concerned about the future of some 500 horses [Adam Hancock/Al Jazeera]
“Horse racing here has gone backwards a bit. But it was only going backwards because of the way they manage it and they never kept up with the times,” said one leading trainer who wished to remain anonymous.
“If you put the right people in to run racing and get it right, it could be a massive asset to Singapore and to tourism and to jobs,” the trainer added.
500 horses to consider
Eyebrows have also been raised at how long it took to begin the redevelopment of the Turf Club’s previous site in Bukit Timah.
Since it closed in 1999, the racecourse has been host to several businesses, including restaurants and children’s play facilities.
It was only at the end of 2023 that it was finally cleared for work to begin on a new housing neighbourhood.
“The old turf club is only just now closed up and they are going to start doing something to it. That’s 24 years”, said the trainer.
“This place [Kranji Racecourse], nothing will happen to it for 10-15 years. It will just rot.”
For those still involved in horse racing in Singapore, there is now the considerable challenge of winding down their operations and finding new homes for hundreds of horses in a relatively short period of time.
“The important part now is thinking about what the exit strategy is,” said Ong.
“It’s the welfare of the horses as well, even if you want to export the horses out, will there be anyone taking them in? If you say we can send 500 horses to Malaysia, I don’t think Malaysia will be able to take in so many horses,” explained Ong.
In a statement, the Singapore government said: “Racehorse trainers and owners will receive support for horse maintenance and exportation.”
The Turf Club tends to attract older working-class men. Many are upset at the course’s impending closure [Adam Hancock/Al Jazeera]
The Singapore Turf Club declined an interview request from Al Jazeera. In a statement released last year, they said they “will work with the government to ensure a well-managed exit for local horse racing.”
Racing at Kranji will draw to a close with the running of the 100th Grand Singapore Gold Cup.
It will be a day that will bring immense sadness for the Singaporeans for whom racing is the highlight of their weekends.
“A lot of people have no place to go for amusement. We are not going to go drinking or out to night life, this place [the races] is for old men to go”, said Paul as he studied horses in the parade ring.
“If they want to build commercial buildings or houses, I think a golf club is better. One golf club cleared away means you can build a lot.”
Sonia Israel and her two daughters are among the more than 100 tenants of a housing complex in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood who have been on a rent strike since May, withholding payment in an effort to pressure landlords to stop the process of increasing rents massively.
The landlords – Starlight Investments and the Public Sector Pension and Investment Board (PSP) – are seeking what is known as above guideline rent increases (AGI) of cumulatively almost 10 percent – rent hikes that Israel and other tenants say are designed to push them out of their apartments.
That would free the owners to rent out the apartments at more than three times what some of them pay as rentals have shot up manifold in recent years in Toronto’s heated real estate market.
Israel says she loves the view of the Don Valley from her apartment, her home for more than 30 years, especially in the fall, when the leaves change colour. “It’s so sad because I love to live where I am. But with this hiking and whatever is going on with the rent, you know, it put a damper on your living, or your spirit, wondering what’s gonna happen, whether they’re gonna drop the rent increase or keep going with it,” she told Al Jazeera.
A rent increase, should it go through, could mean homelessness for some of the residents. “But they’re doing it because they want the money,” Israel said. “What, they want people to live on the road?”
A petite woman in her 70s, Israel moved to Toronto from Kingston, Jamaica in 1974, leaving behind her three-year-old daughter Tricia-Ann as she joined her husband in search of a better income. A second daughter Nakia was born several years later in 1986, and the family was reunited in 1991 when Tricia-Ann arrived in Toronto, and they all moved into the current two-bedroom apartment on the 10th floor of a concrete tower block at 71 Thorncliffe Park Drive.
The tenants of Thorncliffe Park Drive have focused their demands around three main issues: The landlord is slow to act on a litany of maintenance problems, from leaking pipes, mould and caved-in toilet ceilings to chronic vermin in the form of bedbugs, mice and other pests; there is endless construction and disruptive water shutoffs that affect the 300 apartment units in each of the three towers multiple times a month; and – considered the most critical issue – there have been back-to-back above guideline rent increases (AGIs) from 2022 and 2023 that would see some tenants paying upwards of nearly 10 percent more over two years as opposed to the 1.2 percent in 2022 and 2.5 percent increase in 2023 that were permitted by the government’s guidelines.
Tenants say that since they began organising, maintenance issues have improved somewhat, and they are now mainly focusing on the rent hikes.
Some two-thirds of the approximately 900 households at the Thorncliffe Park complex have taken part in organising efforts since February 2022, whether signing letters, attending rallies, holding meetings in the buildings’ lobbies or visiting the company offices or events frequented by executives of the buildings’ owners – Starlight Investments, one of Canada’s largest landlords, with over 54,000 units under management in the country, and PSP, a crown corporation that invests retirement savings for employees of the federal government.
These issues, if not resolved favourably for the tenants, will push them out of their homes, making way for newer, higher-paying tenants.
Shabby but rich in ‘culture, family’
Sonia Israel and her daughter Tricia-Ann are on rent strike to stop their landlord from implementing massive rent increases that they cannot afford [Neal Rockwell/Al Jazeera]
The Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood is located just south of Eglinton Avenue, wedged within a bend in the Don River. Once a horse racing track in the 1950s and ’60s, it was redeveloped into a dense agglomeration of concrete high-rise apartment towers.
In recent decades, it has become a community of migrants from all over the world, but especially South Asia and the Middle East. The three towers that compose the housing complex at 71, 75 and 79 Thorncliffe Park Drive have a population that is 95 percent visible minority.
The buildings themselves show their age, with cracked concrete, rusting rebar and scattered construction debris – as well as bits of rubbish trapped between balconies and the vast but ineffectual nets that have been hung in an attempt to control the pigeons.
“It may look shabby,” said Tricia-Ann, but it is “rich in terms of culture, family, togetherness and community”.
Men sell produce from cardboard boxes along the street, children play in groups across the grounds, and residents have reclaimed part of the lawn behind one of the towers to plant a sprawling community garden.
“Random people will be going up in the [lift], and they just bless you with a zucchini, with callaloo, with peppers, with beans, whatever it is,” Tricia-Ann said.
Under Ontario law, owners can apply for rent increases above the yearly guideline set out by the province by citing expenses for various capital improvements to their buildings, or for municipal tax increases if these expenses are deemed to be “extraordinary”.
The striking tenants believe that the AGIs are a means for their landlord to pass maintenance costs on to them, as well as raise rent more quickly as a way to force them to move out.
If approved, tenants would be required to pay the rent increases retroactively, dating back to May 2022.
Israel and her two daughters (Israel’s husband passed away a few years ago) say that by going on the rent strike, they are risking eviction. But if they do nothing, PSP/Starlight will keep pushing up the rent and the result will be the same.
“We won’t be able to pay it, and when you’re not able to pay your rent, the result is that you’re on the street,” Tricia-Ann told Al Jazeera.
Things have been difficult for Israel’s family over the past two decades. Sonia Israel lost her job at the Laura Secord Chocolate plant in Scarborough when it closed in 2008, and despite being in her mid-70s, she cannot afford to retire.
“My mom is … at least 10 years past retirement age, but you’re having to pay an exorbitant rent, and you don’t have any big savings, don’t have much of a pension. So you gotta go out there and try and make it happen,” said Tricia-Ann.
Since the closure of the chocolate plant, Israel has been working part-time at the Sistering women’s shelter – a place she had initially gone to for events and services, but which then hired her.
Her first duty was to clean the washrooms. She remembers saying to herself, “You know what, Sonia, don’t think you’re better than that washroom.” After that, she was given work sorting clothing and eventually helping with cooking.
Israel says she earns about $800 in Canadian dollars ($590 US) per month, but that is inconsistent as the shelter’s budget has tightened and everyone has had hours cut back.
Nakia works as a cashier at a Salvation Army, and does maintenance work at a care facility. Tricia-Ann worked at Toys R Us until the work hours were restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has since retrained as a personal support worker for long-term care facilities but has not found any work.
Apart from the rent increases, Israel said there are still maintenance issues. In July, a leaking pipe caused the ceiling to collapse right outside her door. There continues to be a giant hole in the ceiling, which is now home to mice and bugs that find their way into Israel’s apartment, she said.
When the leak first occurred, the landlords’ workers brought a bucket to catch the water, which they left there for three months. Only after much complaining about the increasingly dirty bucket did they recently remove it. “When I say dirty, not even the [rubbish] bin is dirty like that bucket that they leave right in front of my door,” Israel said.
The pandemic was especially difficult for money with all three family members out of work at times, but “the rent still had to be paid”, said Tricia-Ann.
One of the reasons they got through was because of the generosity of a Muslim organisation that many of their neighbours were part of and that cooked meals for tenants and delivered groceries several times a week.
Israel says that they currently pay $1,257.79 Canadian ($930 US) per month for their two-bedroom apartment. After food and rent are paid for, there is “not that much left over. But we survive”, she added.
The proposed rent increases, however, will be too much for them to afford. If they were to be forced out, Starlight/PSP could rent their apartment for more than three times as much. The average cost of a two-bedroom apartment in Toronto is now more than $3,300 ($2,440 US).
When asked about what will happen to them if they have to leave, Israel answers indirectly: “All things are possible with God.”
Tricia-Ann is a little more pointed and added: “Where are you gonna go? We might end up in our shelter,” referring to her mother’s place of work.
The relentless uncertainty of possible eviction wears on her, said Tricia-Ann. “I also know the reality that we are facing that … things could get even more difficult. So obviously, you are living day to day. You know, almost like, not really a state of panic, but … you’re concerned. You’re worried because nobody wants to live on the streets.”
Organising with other tenants has given them hope.
Financialised landlords
The Thorncliffe buildings’ owners Starlight and PSP are what are known as financialised landlords, a relatively new class of landlords that can include private equity funds, asset managers, real estate investment trusts, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other large institutional investors.
They are different from traditional landlords both in scale and business model. They operate on national and international scales, often managing billions of dollars in real estate assets. Their profits are not based simply on collecting rents, but actively managing all aspects of a property in order to increase its value as much as possible.
With promises of high returns for investors in short periods of time, these landlords act aggressively to raise rents, including practices promoting high turnover of tenants, changing a neighbourhood’s demographic makeup, Leilani Farha, a former United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, told Al Jazeera, describing the business model.
Farha calls this process “demographic engineering”, which these companies term as “repositioning”.
As Starlight describes in an investor document, “[u]nlike many smaller investors and operators in Canada, Starlight has the scale, operational expertise and capital to acquire and actively reposition its properties”.
Starlight is not the only financialised landlord in Canada. A few others include Hazelview Investments, InterRent REIT, CAPREIT, Centurion Property Management and Minto Apartment REIT.
These landlords are moving towards dominating apartment rentals in Canada. They have gone from owning zero units in 1996 to owning between 20 and 30 percent of rental apartments across the country today.
Nemoy Lewis, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University who studies housing financialisation and its impacts on race and inequality, said that since 1995, 65 percent of all multifamily apartment building purchases in Toronto have been by financialised landlords.
PSP is Starlight’s “longest-standing partner”, dating back to 2007. An access to information request from 2020 shows that at the time PSP had a portfolio of 136 properties with Starlight, 119 of which were located in Canada.
A comparison of that access to information request with Starlight’s Canadian portfolio as listed on its website for the same year showed that PSP owned 40 percent of Starlight’s Canadian buildings, almost exclusively in the region between Toronto and Hamilton, and Vancouver-Victoria, which are the most valuable areas for real estate in Canada.
Al Jazeera sent in fresh access to information requests for the current year, to get a more up-to-date picture of PSP’s holdings with Starlight. PSP returned these documents with this information 100 percent redacted.
Fast-track hearing
In mid-August, Thorncliffe tenants were informed that Starlight had been granted a fast-track hearing for the AGIs following a June 23 ruling by Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) Vice-Chair Egya Sangmuah. The LTB is an adjudicative tribunal operating in the province of Ontario that provides dispute resolution of landlord and tenant matters.
Instead of a physical hearing, the LTB asked parties to make submissions in writing. Tenants were given a deadline of September 15, and the landlord September 30 for any final comments or reactions.
Tenants’ request for a change to an in-person hearing, because language barriers make written submissions difficult for the largely immigrant population, was denied.
The Thorncliffe tenants say AGIs should not exist at all because they unfairly pass maintenance costs from profitable companies onto the backs of struggling renters. The ruling is expected in the near future.
In their submission to the LTB, the landlord alludes to “harassment” and “defamatory comments” on the part of organisers, but without offering any specifics.
PSP directed Al Jazeera’s questions to Starlight, which declined to provide any additional clarifications about the allegations contained in the LTB submission.
Sameer Benyan, one of the tenant organisers, said that Starlight’s “lack of specifics makes any of their arguments useless”, adding that organisers have taken a respectful, non-violent approach.
The landlord’s submission also paints the movement as being the work of outside agitators, something Benyan said is disrespectful since “it doesn’t regard the tenants at all” who have been organising for nearly two years to keep their homes affordable.
Cole Webber, a housing organiser and community legal worker with Parkdale Community Legal Services, is named as one of the outside “offenders” in the submission. His involvement in the movement, he said, is limited to attending several events.
Webber added that this judgement to speed up the hearing was unprecedented in his experience as both a housing organiser and community legal worker. “I have never seen the LTB grant a landlord’s request to shorten time to the hearing of its AGI application, let alone grant a landlord’s request based on the landlord being under pressure from tenant organising,” he told Al Jazeera.
Sameer Benyan and his parents, who arrived in Toronto in 2016 as refugees from Saudi Arabia, are currently on a rent strike against above guideline rent increases (AGIs) to their rent [Neal Rockwell/Al Jazeera]
The other outside organiser named in the landlord’s LTB filing is Philip Zigman, a Toronto housing advocate and the co-founder of a website that maps renovictions called RenovictionsTO. Zigman confirmed he has been assisting the tenants to organise, but said he is not leading this movement.
Both Starlight and the LTB declined to comment on proceedings that are before the tribunal.
‘An attempt to kill the movement’
Benyan said that he and other tenants were “shocked” that the LTB fast-tracked the AGI application and it feels like “an attempt to kill the movement”.
He added that it was unfair that the landlord could submit a document that he considers to be full of vague, defamatory falsehoods, without involving tenants or giving them a chance to give their version.
“From the beginning, we have been trying to reach PSP members, trying to reach Starlight as well. But each and every time we’ve been faced with people who told us that this is not the place to speak of this, this is not the time to speak of this. And they’re not willing to listen to any of our demands,” he said.
No party with any power has heard out the tenants, and when they are acknowledged at all, as in the case of the fast track application, they are portrayed as hapless victims being led about by two outside “agitators”, he pointed out.
Benyan has lived at Thorncliffe Park since arriving in Canada from Saudi Arabia with his parents in 2016. Originally from Eritrea, his parents arrived in the Gulf state 40 years ago as labourers. Benyan was born there in 1990. Owing to Saudi laws, none of them were granted citizenship, and once his parents retired, they lost their residency status and had no retirement benefits. With turmoil in Eritrea, the family instead came to Canada as refugees and settled in Thorncliffe Park, where they already had family members.
Benyan and his ageing parents joined the rent strike because they felt that without tenants doing something, Starlight/PSP would eventually force them out with successive rent increases.
“When these above guideline increases started, we felt that Starlight basically … wants to replace the older tenants – those who can least afford to live in this neighbourhood – with other tenants who can afford to pay a higher amount per month,” he said.
Benyan, 33, has been supporting his family since the age of 19. Ideally, he says, he would like to have his own apartment, to start his own family, but given the current rental market in Toronto with a two-bedroom available for more than $3,300 ($2,430 US), that does not seem likely.
His parents each receive about $750 ($555 US) a month in government benefits. Benyan’s job as an office administrator, where he earns about $3,000 ($2,208 US) per month before taxes, covers the rest of the living costs for the three of them.
Benyan said he often thinks about what could happen should he lose his job and the idea leaves him feeling “really anxious … the fear is there” on how they would survive.
Evictions
Both Benyan and the Israels, along with the other rent strikers, have received eviction notices for non-payment of rent – and a collective hearing date of December 11 for these notices – but both feel this would be the inevitable outcome of the price increases if they do not act.
Lewis’s research shows that their experiences fit into a larger trend in Toronto and elsewhere. Financialised landlords target minority neighbourhoods, and try to evict as many tenants as possible so they can reposition neighbourhoods, he said.
“Part of the reason you often find underperforming, undervalued properties in racialised and economically disenfranchised communities [is] largely because those communities have been historically disinvested, not just by the private sector, but by the state itself,” he said.
Lewis’s research also shows that in terms of evictions, Starlight stands out.
Between 2018 and 2021, which covers the time of the COVID pandemic, the single largest number of eviction notices in the city came from the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) at 5,132. Starlight came in a close second, issuing 4,622 eviction notices in that period. TCHC has approximately 60,000 units, whereas Starlight has around 18,000 units in Toronto.
Evictions are highly overrepresented in racialised communities, Lewis said. For instance, during the period mentioned above, a full five percent of all of Toronto’s evictions took place in the 0.34 percent of the city that had Black populations of more than 70 percent. Ten percent of evictions took place in areas with a greater than 50 percent Black population.
Once again, Starlight stands out. Twenty-three percent of the company’s evictions took place in areas that are more than 50 percent Black, even though these neighbourhoods make up only one percent of the city as a whole.
During this period, a building owned by Starlight at 2737-2757 Kipling Avenue in Etobicoke, where 71.5 percent of the population is Black, saw tenants served with 758 eviction applications, Lewis said. The complex has 759 units in total.
PSP has a history of investing with companies that disproportionately evict racialised populations. In 2021, PSP was revealed to be part of a $950m ($700m US) joint venture with the United States private equity real estate firm Premium Partners, which was exposed for evicting Black residents in some regions in the US at seven times the rate of white residents during the pandemic.
PSP directed Al Jazeera to Starlight for any comments, but the latter has not responded.
Some PSP beneficiaries object
Housing experts say financialised landlords target minority neighbourhoods, and try to evict as many tenants as possible [Neal Rockwell/Al Jazeera]
The striking tenants have found support from at least some of the beneficiaries of PSP’s investments.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the union that represents about 70 percent of the federal employees who benefit from PSP’s investing, is often critical of their pension fund’s investment decisions for being unethical.
The law that brought PSP into existence prevents unions and their members from having a say in how the pension fund invests money on their behalf. Instead, PSAC often engages in political campaigns against PSP as this is the only lever of influence it has.
On its website, the Ontario PSAC branch has posted a letter of solidarity with Thorncliffe rent strikers demanding that PSP and Starlight withdraw the AGIs, stating, “Starlight has applied for more above guideline rent increases than any other landlord in Toronto and was one of the top evictors during the pandemic.”
At least one of the rent strikers of Thorncliffe Park who has been served an eviction notice is a PSAC member.
When asked about the relationship between one of Canada’s largest public pension funds and Canada’s largest landlord and the role they played in the gentrification of her neighbourhood, Israel summed it up with: “The government don’t care … [The two entities] work hand in hand.”
It’s sure starting to look like New York’s progressives are simply anti-Asian.
Their latest cause célèbre, the “Good Cause Eviction” bill, aims to effectively bring some 2 million apartments in the city alone under a new statewide rent-control regime.
On top of being a sure housing-killer, it’s gotten the city’s Asian community rightfully up in arms.
Strongly represented among the city’s small-landlord community, they see this as yet another oblique attack on them by arrogant, far-off leftists.
Indeed, an association of Chinese landlords, the New York Small Landlords, has been fighting back against prog policies on eviction since the eviction moratorium — disastrous for smaller landlords — was declared in 2020.
But GCE is only the latest in a string of progressives efforts in the city and Albany that have hurt New York’s Asians.
Consider the effort to wreck the Big Apple’s merit-based admissions policies to academically rigorous schools.
The “problem” this aims to correct is precisely that Asian students (many from poorer backgrounds; many the children of immigrants) compete so effectively: 2021 saw them win 54% of freshman seats in selective high schools.
Mayor Bill de Blasio did major damage to the system on his way out of office, banning competitive tests for most “selective school” admissions, but the new administration left it intact in most of the city.
Which leaves Asian-Americans increasingly looking to charters as a way to find excellence in public education.
But the progs hate charters, too: They’re leading the charge against Gov. Kathy Hochul’s bid to allow dozens more charters to open in the city. If the left succeeds, it means no new charters for Asian neighborhoods.
Like the 2022 murders of Michelle Go and Christina Yuna Lee.
When New York’s Asian community raised their voices in response, all they got from the crime lovers in the Legislature and elsewhere was pabulum about “white supremacy” — and a total refusal to budge on the cause of the crimes, i.e. laws that leave murderous thugs free to walk the streets.
It’s no mystery why the left’s policies are so profoundly anti-Asian.
This minority group’s economic and educational attainments blow to smithereens the lies about America being incurably racist that serve as the basis for most progressive policies.
But electoral results — with Asian voters swinging right in the governor’s race and New York’s legislative races — shows that Dems’ policies are driving this key demographic away.
It’s an opportunity for the GOP — and thus for actual democratic rule in the Empire State — if Republicans can only seize it.
The Issue: The Post report that it’s costing taxpayers $4.6 million to provide for migrants in New York City.
The Post reports that New York City is paying $4.6 million per day to provide for illegal immigrants sent to New York from the southern border (“$4.6 million a day,” March 4).
This stat is staggering, and requires urgent intervention before we go broke.
Our state legislators and president are completely responsible for the crisis we face today. It was caused by implementing their radical, narrow- minded agendas.
As if the economic crisis isn’t bad enough, we’re in the midst of a crime wave, increased homelessness, increased gun violence and a failed public school system — to name a few.
I’m certain $32 million per week could help alleviate the suffering of many Americans impacted by these crises.
J.P. Norris
Southold
This is getting crazy. $4.6 million a day comes to more than $1.6 billion a year.
Imagine what could be done for the homeless in New York with that much money. Imagine that money going to New York’s infrastructure.
Biden is responsible for this. His open-border policy is bringing this country to its knees.
Charlie Honadel
Venice, Fla.
I can barely think or write straight — $4.6 million a day to house and feed illegal immigrants. There are thousands of homeless Americans sleeping on park benches, many of them veterans, and we give these illegal immigrants free hotel rooms and three squares a day — and don’t forget free medical care.
This is so disgusting and surreal. I wish I could afford to retire and move somewhere else. America is not the greatest anymore.
Pete Sulizcki
Milford, Conn.
This is another reason to flee the once-greatest city in the world.
Liberal New York City and New York state are decaying at a very fast rate. Now we see that $4.6 million a day of taxpayer money is going to feed and house 30,000 illegal migrants living better than New York’s poor and homeless veterans.
It’s time for the failed mayor and governor to go to the White House and tell Biden to cease and desist his open-border policies, or he’ll lose even New York’s bleeding-heart liberal voters.
Instead of asking for money, tell Biden New York’s borders are closed to unvetted illegal immigrants.
J.R. Cummings
Manhattan
The Issue: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s late or non-payment of many of her expenses for the Met Gala.
So the dress that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore to the Met Gala should have said: “Tax the rich, but I don’t have to pay” (“AOC: Tax The Rich [But Stiff The Help],” Nicole Gelinas, March 6).
Does it really surprise anyone that AOC is the poster child for political hypocrisy? I just wish her constituents would wake up.
Amy Hendel
Manhattan
It’s always difficult to realize you have been played for a fool and your idol has feet of clay — albeit beautifully shod in designer shoes.
Perhaps the signs of AOC’s hypocrisy can now be acknowledged by those who supported this fraudster.
From the crocodile tears at the border (but only when she knew the camera was pointing her way) to her despicable elitist attitude toward the little people in this Met Gala scandal, she exemplifies a true communist wannabe.
The politicians who push socialism are not interested in helping you. They will live like kings, and you will live like a pauper.
Sharon Wylie
Westport, Conn.
Want to weigh in on today’s stories? Send your thoughts (along with your full name and city of residence) to letters@nypost.com. Letters are subject to editing for clarity, length, accuracy and style.
A substantial plunge in US home prices is likely “just beginning” as decades-high mortgage rates cause a downturn in the housing market, a prominent economist cautioned Friday.
The warning from Pantheon Macroeconomics chief economist Ian Shepherdson followed more dismal data that showed a slowdown in housing activity.
Pending home sales – a measure based on signed contracts – plunged 10.2% in September, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The pending home sales index has plummeted 35% compared to one year ago, according to Shepherdson.
But cratering demand has only recently started to result in lower home prices – meaning more financial pain is on the way for prospective sellers.
“The bad news is that prices have much further to fall before the market adjusts fully to the collapse in demand,” Shepherdson said in a note to clients.
“Home prices have only recently started to decline on a month-to-month basis,” Shepherdson added. “The resilience in prices was made possible by a lack of existing homes on the market, but supply is now rising — albeit slowly — as homeowners who previously held off on selling worry that further delays will mean they fetch a much lower price.”
Mortgage rates are above 7%.Bloomberg via Getty Images
As The Post reported, Shepherdson recently warned he expects home prices to fall by 20% by next year – a substantial correction after values hit record highs during the pandemic-era housing boom.
Mortgage rates topped 7% this week for the first time since 2002, according to Freddie Mac. Long-term rates have spiked as the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates to combat inflation.
“The good news is that mortgage rates likely are close to a peak, and if they remain around their current level, sales will find a floor early next year,” Shepherdson added.
Home prices are falling fast in some markets.Getty Images
Sellers are slashing their asking prices to entice buyers who are facing the worst affordability crunch in decades. Mortgage payments are commanding a much larger share of household income, and while home prices are falling fast, they’re still higher than they were one year ago.
NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun warned that 7% mortgage rates are the “new normal” for buyers until the economy begins to improve.
“Only when inflation is tamed will mortgage rates retreat and boost home purchasing power for buyers,” Yun said.
US homebuilding fell more than expected in September, led by a 13.1% decline in multi-unit projects, according to Census Bureau data released on Wednesday.
Housing starts dropped 8.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.439 million units last month. Data for August was revised down to a rate of 1.566 million units from the previously reported 1.575 million units. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast starts would come in at a rate of 1.475 million units.
The Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary policy tightening has significantly weakened the housing market, with most indicators falling to levels last seen during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. In contrast, other sectors of the economy, like the labor market, have shown resilience despite the central bank’s attempts to cool demand.
Since March, the Fed has lifted its benchmark policy rate from near zero to a range of 3.00%-3.25%, and the fed funds rate is now expected to end the year in the mid-4% range with inflation yet to show signs of abating materially.
Mortgage rates have risen even higher. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.94% last week, the highest since 2002, up from 6.81% a week earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Permits for future home construction rose 1.4% to a rate of 1.564 million units in September. Residential fixed investment declined at its steepest pace in two years in the second quarter, contributing to the second straight quarterly drop in gross domestic product during that period.
Homebuilding is likely to remain on the back foot for the rest of the year. A survey on Tuesday showed the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market sentiment index fell for the 10th straight month in October.
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