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As a renter and New Yorker for 35 years, I have firsthand experience with the struggles and insecurities that come with finding an affordable place to live in our city. As a minister, I witness these same struggles with my neighbors and parishioners.

New Yorkers across all ideologies can agree we are in the midst of a housing crisis. A combination of limited space, zoning regulations, rent control laws, and high construction costs have made it difficult — if not impossible — to keep up with housing demands.

Many of our elected leaders have taken these challenges seriously, offering proposals such as up-zoning, building more affordable housing units, and providing housing vouchers to assist those struggling to pay rent. However, a subset of city and state lawmakers, driven by socialist ideology, are propagating ideas that would only exacerbate our housing crisis. Chief among these problematic policies is Good Cause Eviction.

The title of the bill may sound reasonable, but it’s important to understand that so-called ‘Good Cause Eviction’ does nothing to address the housing supply shortage and would make the process of finding an affordable place to live even more difficult and expensive.

More damning, however, is the fact that Good Cause Eviction does nothing to help tenants facing eviction for non-payment, which has accounted for over 80% of all eviction filings over the past five years, on average. Instead, Good Cause Eviction is about rent control, which virtually every economist agrees reduces the supply and quality of housing. 

According to a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rent regulation “leads to reduced property values, misallocation of housing, reduced housing supply, and reduced housing quality.” The Brookings Institute has also noted that rent control “decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative spillovers” in the long term.

The reason for this, as economists often stress, is because rent control measures like Good Cause Eviction fail to address the root cause that explains why housing is so expensive: lack of supply. And this is what makes Good Cause Eviction such a dangerous idea – it would make attracting investment capital for development nearly impossible, hindering the creation of desperately needed affordable housing.

After strict rent control measures controls passed in St. Paul, Minnesota in November 2021, there was a staggering 80% decline in issued building permits within the subsequent three months. In contrast, just across the river in Minneapolis, where rent control regulations are absent, the construction industry experienced a notable upswing. New York’s Good Cause Eviction bill bears a striking resemblance to St. Paul’s rent control policies, and if enacted here in the Empire State, we’re in for a harsh reality check. 

Time and time again, we’ve seen socialist ideology thwart progress in our communities, particularly in majority Black and brown neighborhoods. Last year, one Democratic Socialist Councilmember in Harlem single-handedly killed a project that would have created over 450 units of affordable housing. The developer built a truck stop instead.

Even more concerning, just last fall, Democratic Socialist sponsors of Good Cause Eviction — accompanied by their left-wing lobbyist friends — took a trip to Vienna, Austria, to visit the Karl Marx Houses, a “social housing system” based on communist principles that was created by the socialist Austrian government in the 1920s. During and after their trip, they touted these houses as an aspirational model for New York.

Good Cause Eviction is just another bad idea rooted in this dystopian, backward-thinking ideology — and it’s the last thing we need in New York.

The problem is low housing inventory, and the long-term solution is to build more housing. In the short term, we should protect struggling tenants by providing them with vouchers to keep them housed.

It’s time for our elected representatives in Albany to put aside ideological fallacies and focus on common-sense solutions to address the housing crisis. That’s something every New Yorker should agree on.

Reverend Conrad Tillard is a Baptist and Congregational Minister in Brooklyn and an Adjunct Professor at The City University of New York

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* This article was originally published here

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A female shooter wielding two “assault-style” rifles and a pistol killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday in the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country growing increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.

Police said they believe the 28-year-old female shooter was a former student at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in 2001. Police shot and killed her. Investigators were searching her Nashville-area home.

The attack at The Covenant School — which has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members — comes as communities around the nation are reeling from a spate of school violence, including the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year; a first grader who shot his teacher in Virginia; and a shooting last week in Denver that wounded two administrators.

“I was literally moved to tears to see this and the kids as they were being ushered out of the building,” Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at an afternoon news conference.

The identities of the deceased and the suspect have not been released. The shooter’s motive was also not immediately clear.

President Joe Biden, speaking at an unrelated event at the White House on Monday, called the shooting a “family’s worst nightmare” and implored Congress again to pass a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons.

“It’s ripping at the soul of this nation, ripping at the very soul of this nation,” Biden said.

The suspect’s identity as a woman surprised experts on mass shootings. Female shooters make up only about 5% to 8% of all mass shooters, said Adam Lankford, a criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama who has closely studied the psychology and behavior of mass shooters.

Researchers believe there are three main explanations for why men commit more shootings than women, according to Jonathan Metzl, a professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University who has studied mass shootings for more than a decade.

Metzl listed those explanations as: Men have more testosterone, are socialized to be engaged in violence and own more guns than women.

“There is some story we don’t know here,” Metzl said of the suspected female shooter in Nashville. “From school shootings historically, very often we think that people have some historical connection or emotional connection to the school. There’s an untold story here.”

Monday’s tragedy unfolded over roughly 14 minutes. Police received the initial call about an active shooter at 10:13 a.m.

Officers began clearing the first story of the school when they heard gunshots coming from the second level, police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news briefing.

Two officers from a five-member team opened fire in response, fatally shooting the suspect at 10:27 a.m., Aaron said. He said there were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school.

The Covenant School’s victims were pronounced dead at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. One officer had a hand wound from cut glass.

Other students walked to safety Monday, holding hands as they left their school surrounded by police cars, to a nearby church to be reunited with their parents.

Rachel Dibble, who was at the church as families reunited in the nearby church, described the scene as everyone being in “complete shock.”

“People were involuntarily trembling,” said Dibble, whose children attend a different private school in Nashville. “The children … started their morning in their cute little uniforms they probably had some Froot Loops and now their whole lives changed today.”

Dr. Shamendar Talwar, a social psychologist from the United Kingdom who is working on an unrelated mental health project in Nashville, raced to the church as soon as he heard news of the shooting to offer help. He said he was one of several chaplains, psychologists, life coaches and clergy inside supporting the families.

“All you can show is that the human spirit that basically that we are all hear together … and hold their hand more than anything else,” he said.

Jozen Reodica heard the police sirens and fire trucks blaring from outside her office building nearby. As her building was placed under lockdown, she took out her phone and recorded the chaos.

“I thought I would just see this on TV,” she said. “And right now, it’s real.”

The Covenant School was founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, according to the school’s website. The school is located in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville, situated close to the city’s top universities and home to the famed Bluebird Café – a beloved spot for musicians and song writers.

Top legislative leaders announced Monday that the GOP-dominant Statehouse would meet briefly later in the evening and delay taking up any legislation.

“In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting,” Mayor John Cooper wrote on Twitter.

Nashville has seen its share of mass violence in recent years, including a Christmas Day 2020 attack where a recreational vehicle was intentionally detonated in the heart of Music City’s historic downtown, killing the bomber, injuring three others and forcing more than 60 businesses to close.

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* This article was originally published here

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will try to deepen and reframe U.S. relationships in Africa during a weeklong trip that is the latest and highest profile outreach by the Biden administration as it moves to counter China’s growing influence.

Harris plans to visit Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, focusing on economic development, climate change, food security and a rising youth population. She is scheduled to arrive in Accra, Ghana’s capital, on Sunday. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, is traveling with her.

“For too long, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has treated Africa like some kind of extra credit project and not part of the core curriculum,” said Michelle Gavin, an Africa expect at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former U.S. ambassador to Botswana. “I see a big effort to change that thinking now. But it takes time.”

In Africa, Harris will be closely watched as the first person of color and first woman to serve as America’s vice president. Her mother was born in India and her father was born in Jamaica; Harris was raised in California.

“Everybody is excited about Kamala Harris,” said Idayat Hassan, director of the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, Nigeria. “You can be anything that you can think of — that’s what she represents to many of us.”

A centerpiece of Harris’ trip will be a speech in Accra and a visit to Cape Coast Castle, where enslaved Africans were once loaded onto ships for America. Harris also plans to meet with leaders of each country she visits and lay a wreath to commemorate the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania.

Her itinerary also includes several less traditional stops intended to highlight the dynamic future of a continent where the median age is just 19.

Harris plans to visit a recording studio and meet with female entrepreneurs in Accra and stop by a tech incubator in Dar es Salaam. In Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, Harris is expected to meet with business and philanthropic leaders to talk about expanding access to digital and financial systems.

Emhoff has a similar focus for his events. While in Ghana, he plans a town hall meeting with actors from a local television show, will attend a girls basketball clinic and tour a chocolate company owned by women.

The hope, administration officials said, is to portray Africa as a place for investment, not just aid packages, a theme that Harris emphasized in December during a U.S.-Africa summit in Washington.

“I am an optimist about what lies ahead for Africa and, by extension, for the world because of you — because of your energy, your ambition, and your ability to transform seemingly intractable problems into opportunities,” she said. “Simply put: your ability to see what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

The trip includes three nights in Ghana, two nights in Tanzania and one in Zambia, before Harris returns to Washington on April 2.

“It’s a trip about supporting reformers,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, co-director of the Africa Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution. “All three countries have been going through significant challenges and significant changes.”

Ghana faces a debt crisis and high inflation, dragging down an economy that was once among the region’s strongest. It’s also wary about instability from Islamist militants and Russian mercenaries who operate in nations north of Ghana.

Tanzania has its first female president, and she’s lifted bans on opposition parties and rallies. Zambia has made its own changes, such as decriminalizing defamation of the president. However, democratic progress is believed to be fragile in both places.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and first lady Jill Biden have already been to Africa on their own trips. President Joe Biden is expected to go later this year.

Harris will be returning to Zambia for the first time since she visited as a young girl when her maternal grandfather worked there. He was an Indian civil servant who helped with refugee resettlement after Zambia achieved independence from Britain.

Harris writes in her book that “grandpa was one of my favorite people in the world and one of the earliest and most lasting influences in my life.”

The U.S.-Africa summit held in December was the only one since 2014, which was hosted by President Barack Obama. Although Washington’s approach to Africa has featured some historic success — for example, President George W. Bush’s initiative to fight HIV/AIDS has saved millions of lives — there’s also been periods of neglect.

“There’s huge doubt and skepticism about American staying power,” said Daniel Russel, a former State Department official who is now at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “They’re very familiar with American promises that peter out and don’t amount to much.”

It’s a sharp contrast with China, which has led far-reaching infrastructure projects and expanded telecommunications operations there as well.

John Kirby, a White House national security spokesman, said this past week that African leaders are “beginning to realize that China is not really their friend.”

“China’s interests in the region are purely selfish, as opposed to the United States,” he said. “We are truly committed to trying to help our African friends deal with a spate of challenges.”

Senior administration officials have been careful not to portray Harris’ trip as another move in a geopolitical rivalry, an approach that could alienate African leaders who are wary of taking sides between global superpowers.

Now they wait to see what Harris and the United States can offer over the next week.

“She has a very good reputation in Africa, because of her profile,” said Rama Yade, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. “But beyond that, very quickly, the public opinion in the three countries will have expectations.”

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* This article was originally published here