The increasing cost of housing and the lack of homes for ordinary people is happening because the wishes of global capital are serviced over and above the needs of the many.
As Architects for Social Housing have observed: “Building more homes does not push house and rental prices down. While the law of supply and demand describes competitive markets responding to human needs, London’s financialised housing market, flooded by global capital, is driven by profit margins. Building more properties for home ownership, Buy to Let and capital investment will only push house and rental prices up.”
But it is not just in London, it is happening in cities across the world. A new documentary film explores the financialisation of housing — property as an increasingly liquid asset — the investment of choice for corporate finance, and asks what can be done about it.
In Push, investigative filmmaker Fredrik Gertten follows Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, as she meets with residents, mayors, campaigners and economists in New York, London, Barcelona, Seoul and Valparaiso, to reclaim housing as a human right, not a commodity.
Push is showing at The Bertha DocHouse Screen, Curzon Bloomsbury, The Brunswick London, WC1N 1AW. 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM Saturday 12 October 2019. The film is followed by a discussion. View trailer.