Priced Out YouTube Premiere, Live Chat with Nikki Williams, Oct 22, 6 pm PST

https://www.youtube.com/c/pricedouttalesofgentrification

Cornelius Swart

May 10, 2019

Long Beach Stories: The Latina Who Fought Back

Cornelius Swart

May 10, 2019

Cynthia Macias grew up in the black and Latino neighborhoods of Long Beach, California. It was an idyllic "hood" growing up. But as an adult, she led a harrowing and heartbreaking life filled with domestic violence and housing discrimination. But Cynthia became a fighter and a housing activist instead of a victim.

Cynthia Macias grew up in the neighborhoods of Long Beach, California when it was the most diverse city in the country. It was a place filled with family, safe streets and ice cream trucks. Sadly, when she grew up, she moved to Ohio and led a heartbreaking life filled with domestic violence and housing discrimination. When she came back home to Long Beach she found her community transformed. A racist landlord tried to give her family the boot, but Cynthia became a fighter and a housing activist instead of a victim.

Join us for a very personal edition of the Priced Out Podcast, as we listen to the pain, the struggles and the victories of one Long Beach resident who has finally had enough.

More on Housing Long Beach
http://www.housinglb.org/

What's up with Priced Out: Rent Control Screening, Podcast Season 2, Public Television

Cornelius Swart

April 25, 2019

Screening and community organizing event in the Latino communities in the path of Portland’s new light rail project. Partnership with Unite Oregon, the City of Tigard and RACC.

It's been a great first year for Priced Out and the fight for affordable housing.

We launched into a second season of the Priced Out Podcast. Please check out the new shows, including an interesting discussion about gentrification in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where we recently had two screenings—one of which even included a remote Q&A with director Cornelius Swart via Skype.

The biggest and most important event, of course, was Oregon becoming the first state in the nation to pass statewide rent control.

This new legislation, while far from perfect, will make it hard for landlords in Oregon to engage in the price gouging we see in the film, with renters being slammed with 30 to 100 percent rent increases. The legislation has also effectively put an end to no-cause evictions.

Just weeks prior to the vote, we had the opportunity to share Priced Out with about 20 legislators and their policy advisors, right across the street from the capitol at a screening organized by SEIU and House Speaker Tina Kotek.

It was a great event and we’re grateful that Priced Out has become a part of the housing discourse here in Oregon. We hope that it’s helping to inform new policies and spread awareness.

Rent control is such big news that we've added a title card to the end of the film that provides a solid final point to the social narrative told in the movie. Making the edit did present some technical issues with re-exporting the film and getting it out to our streaming platforms, including Kanopy and Vimeo, but we think it was worth the effort.

In the coming months, we will also be sending the new, improved Priced Out to iTunes, Amazon, and with luck, Netflix and Hulu. We'll let you know when it becomes available on those platforms.

Screening today at Central @multnomahcountylibrary. Honored to be curated among such great works as Root Shock by Mindy Thompson Fullilove and Mathew Desmond's Evicted. #gentrification #pricedout

8 Likes, 1 Comments - Priced Out Movie (@pricedoutmovie) on Instagram: "Screening today at Central @multnomahcountylibrary. Honored to be curated among such great works as..."

Before then, we expect to have the broadcast premiere of Priced Out on Oregon Public Broadcasting. We signed a contract with OPB in late winter and are finalizing delivery of a slightly shorter version (by about 4 minutes) to OPB engineers. It's an excellent opportunity and we’re very thankful to OPB for including Priced Out in their programming mix.

We've attended a good number of conferences over the last few months, including screenings and discussions at the national gathering of Applied Anthropology and the Urban Affairs Association's national convention in Los Angeles. As always, we have a few local community screenings here in Portland to share:

Tuesday, April 30 at 5:30pm – Central City Concern, Downtown Portland, with panel discussion

Thursday, May 2 at 7pm – Leaven Community Center, Northeast Portland, with panel discussion

Saturday, June 22 at 12pm – Gregory Heights Library, East Portland, with director Q&A

Please note and share these dates if you or someone you know still hasn't had a chance to see the film. Being an informed and caring resident is the first step to making fair housing a reality now and in the future. Keep up the good work getting the word out!

Team Priced Out

Cornelius Swart

April 18, 2019

Black Businesses, The Black Middle Class, and Gentrification: Priced Out Podcast

Cornelius Swart

April 18, 2019

stephen green, gentrification, portland, black business, oregon, displacement.

Stephen Green is in our film Priced Out, but not enough. Stephen is an economist, venture capitalist and activist. He oversaw property acquisition for the Portland Development Commission during some of the most volatile years of gentrification in the black community. He is also sits on many important boards including one that distributes funds from Portland's affordable housing bond and the board of the city's premiere black community organization (Self Enhancement Inc.). He also helped create the nation's first nonprofit brewpub.

For Stephen, the black community is far more broadly defined than simply a neighborhood. He also sees wealth creation, rather than social justice, as the most vital challenge to charting an equitable future for Portland’s and the nation's African American community. Listen in as Stephen talks about the emerging role that the black middle class will come to play in urban America and all the things that Priced Out the documentary failed to cover.

Stephen Green's Ted Talk:

https://youtu.be/abKBA9RvQ0I

More about Priced Out here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/pricedouttalesofgentrification

Cornelius Swart

April 4, 2019

Gentrifying Romania: Gypsies and Post-Communists in "the Capital of Transylvania:" Priced Out Podcast

Cornelius Swart

April 4, 2019

Cluj is experiencing “hipsterfication” among other “neo-liberal” market pressures. Photo from Ukulele Road Trip.

Cluj-Napoca is a historic city of about 300,000 residents in northeast Romania. The city is considered the unofficial capital of Transylvania and it contains the country’s largest free university.

Since the fall of communism in the 1990s, Romania's housing stock has been re-privatized. That's created the first generation of renters in 50 years while at the same time little rent regulation and low-cost housing have been put in place. Recently, a new mayor has pushed free-market reforms, tax breaks and zoning changes in a bid to make Cluj-Napoca into the hipster, tech-hub of Romania. The result has been skyrocketing rents and displacement of the region’s students, renters, and Roma (gypsy) population.

Sound familiar?

It’s gentrification with a post-communist twist.

Cornelius speaks with tenant organizers Vlad Muresan of the Cluj Tenants Union for an amazing look at how global capital puts the pinch on working people around the world.

If you have ideas that can help people in Cluj, please reach out to Muresan via the groups Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/chiriasicluj/

More about Priced Out here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/pricedouttalesofgentrification

Cornelius Swart

March 7, 2019

Light Rail is Coming. Next Stop, Gentrification: Priced Out Podcast

Cornelius Swart

March 7, 2019

light rail, portland, gentrification, tigard, displacement, affordable housing, tranist

Join us for a live recording of a panel discussion about the threat by a mass transit project poses to the working class, and minority residents of Tigard, Oregon. Tigard is a suburb immediately to the southwest of Portland. There is a large streetcar project (known as light rail) planned for the area.

As viewers of Priced Out (the documentary) know, that fifteen years ago local government built a light rail system that caused massive displacement of black and other residents in North Portland. The City of Portland anticipated that the project would create gentrification and promised to build 2,000 units of affordable housing to offset displacement. But 15 years later the city had only produced about 500 units.

Priced Out producer Cornelius Swart, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, Unite Oregon, the Fair Housing Council of Oregon and City of Tigard teamed up to sponsor a screening and discussion aimed at engaging the residents of Tigard, and helping them avoid the mistakes of the past.

Find us at: