Tag Archives: Michael Weinstein

Pure Politics? AHF Reveals True Agenda In Affordable Housing Fight

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Last summer, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)/ Healthy Housing Foundation announced a controversial project near downtown Fort Lauderdale for at-risk and working class residents. According to AHF, the proposed “low-income and affordable housing residential development campus” would be built to “specifically address the housing needs of low-income, and chronically ill individuals and families with a focus on sustainable SRO and rental-to-ownership models.” Dubbed “Trantalis Tower,” the proposed development failed to gain the support of local residents.

When Fort Lauderdale residents asked AHF CEO Michael Weinstein and other officials for specifics, they were labeled as uncaring bigots who did not care about the “affordable housing crisis” in Broward county. Many details of the project were vague including who would live at the campus, whether any social services would be provided on site and even the size and number of units.

AHF simply wanted Fort Lauderdale residents to trust them because they would use private funds to solve the “affordable housing crisis.”

3Ps: PURE POLITICS?

As REDBROWARD reported last week, AHF is desperately fighting a California bill addressing housing. A Healthy Housing Foundation mailer launched a racist attack on State Sen. Scott Wiener, the sponsor of SB50. The bill calls for the creation of “new zoning standards for constructing housing near job centers and public transportation, along with protections against the displacement of renters and vulnerable communities living in those areas.” Labeling the legislation as “gentrification,” AHF likened Wiener’s bill to “negro removal,” racist housing policies of the 1960s.

AHF’s tactics were vilified by local leaders and Democrat politicians. AHF CEO Michael Weinstein refused to apologize.

This week, AHF tried damage control. Claiming it “Boldly Tackles Housing Affordability Crisis.” AHF said, “The housing affordability crisis, which experts widely consider a serious public health threat, is another instance of AHF stepping up when others have not.”

After touting its Los Angeles housing projects, AHF finally revealed its true agenda:

T]hrough Housing Is A Human Right, AHF seeks to create policy change and push forward a people-first housing agenda known as the ‘3 Ps’: protect tenants; preserve communities; and produce housing. The 3 Ps directly confront a profits-over-people, trickle-down housing agenda pushed by the real estate industry and its political allies in government.

AHF thinks profit is bad. AHF thinks landlords and developers are villains.

“We must urgently address our housing affordability crisis by first helping those in most need,” said Housing Is A Human Right Director René Christian Moya. “That means creating policies and building housing for the middle- and working-class. They are bearing the brunt of excessive, unfair rents and harmful policymaking driven by the real estate industry, which includes corporate landlords and developers.”

AHF announced the “Rental Affordability Act,” a statewide rental control measure to be included on the California ballot in 2020.

Think south Florida is safe from rent control measures? Think again.

PUSH FOR LOCAL RENT CONTROL IN FLORIDA

Earlier this year, Florida State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) introduced a bill to overturn State prohibition of rent control measures. Eskamani wanted to allow local governments to institute rent controls to combat the “affordable housing crisis.”

“We know we have an affordable housing crisis in this state. And I’m a firm believer not just in home rule, but also as a legislature it is a responsibility to provide a tool kit of ideas and solutions to local government to solve this problem,” Eskamani said.

Rep. Carlos Smith, Eskamani’s fellow Democrat in the Florida House, filed another anti-landlord bill.

Both bills died in committee.

In 2017, Carlos Smith introduced legislation to “prohibit HMOs from classifying prescriptions for people living with HIV at the highest tier in regards to copays and deductibles.” One of the bill’s biggest backers was AHF.

“The Legislature should take seriously the affordability of HIV drugs if the state truly wants to achieve zero infections in Florida,” AHF official Jason King said. “These bills are about patients being able to afford the medications they need to live and thrive, and we at AHF are going to do everything we can to support…Representative Smith and their efforts around these bills.”

(REDBROWARD previously exposed the close ties between Jason King and Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis).

According to the report, “SFGN contacted Ida Eskamani, Smith’s legislative assistant said the bill has not been placed on the house health innovation subcommittee agenda.” The bill ultimately died in committee.

Ida Eskamani is the twin sister of Rep. Anna Eskamani. Currently, Ida Eskamani is the public policy director of the New Florida Majority (New FM), a progressive group behind “affordable housing” protests in Miami-Dade.

When will Fort Lauderdale leaders realize Trantalis Tower is a political ploy and not a solution to the homeless problem in Broward? Do they even care? Or, do they believe in rent control? Does Dean Trantalis view developers and landowners as the bad guys?

Another “Trantalis Tower” Supporter Wants To Reshape Fort Lauderdale, But Her Neighborhood Is Off-Limits

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Marie Huntley is featured prominently in an AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) commercial attacking Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Ben Sorenson over a sixteen story monolith planned near downtown which would house homeless and at-risk citizens. After residents complained at a townhall meeting, Sorenson and other Commissioners grew concerned about the size and scope of the project dubbed “Trantalis Tower.”

Since that meeting, AHF CEO Michael Weinstein and supporters tried to demonize opponents. At his disastrous December press conference, Weinstein threatened reporters and residents who questioned his claims that race played a large role in the opposition. Other Trantalis Tower proponents have claimed residents who question the project may be homophobic or anti-poor. Even those residents who actively support affordable housing initiatives are said to be suffering from NIMBY (NOT IN MY BACKYARD) syndrome.

AHF is running commercials on local television urging voters to contact Sorenson. In the latest commercial, Fort Lauderdale resident Marie Huntley discusses the affordable housing crisis. Huntley says, “We do have a problem with people being pushed out of neighborhoods…the solution to this is affordable housing.”

Huntley does not live in the area where Trantalis Tower is planned. New developments in the area were built with affordable housing components.

Like other AHF shills and supporters, Huntley talks a good game when it comes to other peoples’ neighborhoods.

This week, Huntley, better known as “Miss Peaches,” sang a different tune about a new project in her neighborhood.

“RESISTANCE” AGAINST ALL DEVELOPERS (EXCEPT AHF)

As REDBROWARD exposed last month, AHF and its Healthy Housing Foundation continue to support “resistance” against California developers seeking to build projects around Los Angeles. This ideological battle is nothing new to AHF CEO Michael Weinstein.

In the 1960s, a teenaged Michael Weinstein joined a “group of activists occupying” a New York high-rise development to protest the gentrification of their Brooklyn neighborhoods. According to an April 2017 exposé in the New York Times Magazine, Michael Weinstein’s an “ex-Trotskyite” would create one of California’s first gay communist organizations.

In 2016, Weinstein supported California activists who likened housing and office developments to racism and ethnic cleansing.

One left-wing activist described his fight to stop a new shopping mall from being built in Leimert Park, a predominantly African-American neighborhood near Los Angeles. He claimed the Leimert Park “gentrification is basically cultural erasure, urban cleansing, a reduction of people and land into dollar signs.” The activist claims the “perpetrators of gentrification” are not limited to “global capitalists.” This activist even attacks “flippers looking to make a buck.” He says, “there is a target on every tenant” in Leimert Park.

This week, Miss Peaches echoed this anti-gentrification sentiment.

The Fuse Group wants to put an office building and parking garage on the corner of Sistrunk Blvd and Powerline Road, a historic African-American neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale. The land is currently occupied by a small neighborhood market.

According to the Sun-Sentinel, a neighborhood meeting about the project quickly centered on race and gentrification.

“The dream of the city is to change the tenor of the neighborhood, period. I don’t like the word gentrification, but basically, that’s what it is,” said Sydney London, who lives in the Durrs neighborhood off Sistrunk. “There are white folks that moved into the neighborhood, and we all know once that starts happening, you know what’s next.”

The story quoted an e-mail sent to developers and elected officials by Miss Peaches.

Neighborhood leader Marie “Miss Peaches” Huntley said the Home Beautiful Park Civic Association doesn’t support it. In an email to elected officials and Peretz last fall, she said the idea of a new building sounds attractive, but no one knows what will be in it. And there’s more:

“We are deeply concerned about being displaced by gentrification,” she wrote. “Your plan appears to be geared towards drawing customers from outside our community to create profits for you and your investors.”

Sounds like a classic case of NIMBY.

At his December press conference, Michael Weinstein filled his remarks with the political language of an experienced communist activist. He asked, “Will Fort Lauderdale…and these other communities of great wealth, continue to be places that are hospitable to people of low income or will these cities become, in essence, rich ghettos.”

Who elected Michael Weinstein? Why should we let Weinstein and his shills force change on neighborhoods when they fight change in their own backyards? Who put AHF in charge of Fort Lauderdale development and social policy?