As I was riding the bus, a man initiated a conversation that struck a chord with me. As he entered the bus and sat near me, he recognized my Pinellas County DSA shirt, featuring a rose and the outline of a roseate spoonbill–a native Floridian bird. Excited to meet another socialist in the South, we quickly delved into a conversation on his socialist convictions–he wanted to do concrete and effective work instead of just being on Twitter. I shared that I happened to be on my way to a protest for a rent stabilization ballot measure and that I had been working on some other longer-term housing efforts with DSA and our allies. But the piece of our discussion that stuck with me the most was his understanding he could be more effective in realizing a progressive future. Yet, he did not know where to start outside of logging off Twitter.
So, say you’re like the man I met on the bus and you care about leftist politicsYou may even engage with an online leftist community, as various “BreadTubers” such as ContraPoints and Philosophy Tube have rapidly grown in popularity and infographics have diffused over Instagram stories, particularly over the course of the pandemic. Unfortunately, your activities largely are limited to posting socialist memes to your Twitter and Instagram account. But what would more impactful actions look like?
The recent efforts related to electoralism and social housing in my hometown, the coastal city of St. Petersburg, Florida, are a compelling example of a recent effort at concrete activism. St. Pete, from my perspective, is a particularly interesting case for a few reasons. For one, it is the fourth largest city in Florida, a state notorious for its headline-grabbing right-wing government and a large population of Cuban immigrants who inherit, to say the least, a sour relationship with the S-word. Secondly, the Tampa Bay area, in which St. Pete is located, has one of the worst housing crises in the United States, facing the highest rent increases of any metropolitan area in the country in 2021. The area experienced an average rent increase of 24 percent as well as a concerningly high home vacancy rate of 19%, suggesting that living spaces are widely misused as investments rather than for housing.
Regarding the notorious conservatism of the Floridian government, despite appearances, support for progressive policies is actually quite pervasive among Floridians. For instance, in 2018 and 2020, respectively, Florida overwhelmingly approved amendments to the state constitution which would restore the right to vote for former felons and phase in a $15 minimum wage. This demonstrates an opening for progressive organizing even in a red state like Florida.
The desperate need for affordable housing directly affects a wide range of people, regardless of political affiliation. Because of the tangible impacts that housing insecurity has on so many people in St. Pete, housing policy is an issue that many renters care about and are passionate about addressing. By recognizing these two realities, progressive groups in the Tampa Bay area were able to conjure up ideas for moving forward.
The Richie Floyd Campaign
Throughout 2021, the Pinellas County chapter of DSA volunteered their human resources to intensely focus on getting one of our members, Richie Floyd, elected to the St. Petersburg City Council. Richie–despite being a founding member of the Pinellas DSA–has had quite the political trajectory. Before his time as a union leader while teaching at a public school, he first worked as an engineer at Honeywell, a multinational company that engages in military defense contracting, which in his eyes conflicted with his most fundamental principles and initiated his turn toward public service and his greater focus on community activism. In the years preceding his campaign, he already had been fighting for progressive policies, including leading an organized effort to reach out to Floridians about the $15 minimum wage initiative and pushing for the CALL program, which, since its passing in St. Pete in January 2021, diverts police calls to social workers regarding non-criminal or non-violent issues.
This year, an unprecedented grassroots movement behind Richie formed in the city as a consequence of his history as a fierce community organizer. Richie was the only candidate to get on the ballot through collecting petition signatures rather than paying a fee in any municipal race for the election cycle. Instead, his campaign relied heavily on “raising money from small-dollar donors, knocking on as many doors as possible, … and having as many face-to-face conversations with people as [his campaign] could manage,” These constituents who volunteered their time for Richie’s campaign were often eager for a candidate who broke from typical approaches to politics in favor of a democratic socialist vision. Rather than seeking to appeal to the realtor lobby, as other municipal candidates frequently rely on, Richie actively spoke for alternative models of housing, such as social housing, aggressive environmental, economic, and social policies as well as democratizing the workplace. Regular canvassing and phonebanking supplemented by frequent community socials helped to spread the message for progressive change throughout the city and allowed for St. Pete residents to get to know Richie and his vision for a better city.
On the night of November 2nd, 2021, the general election was called for Richie Floyd against a moderate opponent who had formerly served on the City Council, opening up new opportunities for organizing around progressive policies, such as city-owned social housing.
As expressed by Richie, “meeting people where they are and talking to them about how their material conditions can be better can build a broad coalition and can win things in places where you might not have thought it was possible.”
Ongoing Social Housing Efforts
Going into 2022, a coalition that includes Pinellas DSA, Faith in Florida, the St. Petersburg Tenants Union, and many groups uniting under the People’s Council formed efforts under the unique conditions of St. Pete around social housing–including city-owned, mixed-income, and tenant-managed housing, partly inspired by examples in Vienna and Singapore.
In addition to acknowledging the rapid rent increases in the city, the proposed redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District posed another significant issue. The Gas Plant District was once a thriving black working class neighborhood in St. Pete. However, the historical community was displaced by the construction of Tropicana Field, a baseball stadium that ended up consisting mostly of a vast parking lot. The neighborhood’s residents were promised housing and jobs by the city, yet the Gas Plant residents and their descendants continue to face worsening problems with housing insecurity and unemployment.
Under the previous city administration, the land was going to be sold to private investors and was to include luxury apartments. However, the new mayor of St. Pete, Ken Welch, restarted a process for the redevelopment of the Gas Plant District to make better use of the land. For housing advocates, this opened up a new opportunity to push the city to maximize the public utility of the 86 acres of publicly-owned land, in part with social housing.
During Community Conversations held by Mayor Welch, community members overwhelmingly advocated to keep the land public and to utilize it for social housing rather than selling out this long-term public investment for merely private profit by constructing temporary affordable private housing. In the midst of Pinellas DSA’s efforts preceding this reopening, Council Member Floyd noted in a private communication that “[w]hen we canvassed homeowners and tenants, almost universally, the social housing piece was responded with ‘Yes, why aren’t we doing that immediately?’”
Under such an environment, other tenants’ issues, such as the right to counsel and rent increase notices, came to the table through the action of Council Member Floyd. Additionally, through the Tenants Union’s correspondence with the City Council, proposals to put short-term rent control on the ballot were considered, though with serious obstacles, for the first time. The ultimate goal–social housing–was consistently brought to the City Council’s attention through the frequent attendance of housing activists at public meetings and Council Member Floyd’s advocacy.
With these factors combined, the dialogue has shifted in favor of social housing and other tenants’ issues. Instead of merely discussing subsidized private developments with a limited number of temporary affordable units, even landlords, news outlets, and the mayor have begun to use the language of social housing as a potential solution to our local housing crisis.
The fight for equitable and affordable social housing continues, however, as Pinellas DSA works on a whitepaper with the consultation of housing policy experts to present to St. Pete city officials on the benefits of social housing and pushing the Mayor to ensure the Gas Plant District remains publicly-owned. In addition, the Tenants Union and various other progressive organizations continue to organize members of the public around the housing crisis and convert community frustrations into unignorable protest.
Takeaway
Although taking implementable action is the most effective way to realize a more democratic and just future, it can be difficult to imagine what progressive political action can look like. However, thinking about concrete and actionable ways the left can build momentum and awareness is the first step in ensuring the liberation of the working class and other oppressed groups.
As said by Trimarco, “[W]e’re already seeing an openness toward a fairly radical housing policy that I don’t think we’d be seeing without the legitimacy brought by … a sitting City Council member.”
As I told the fellow socialist on the bus, there is plenty that socialists and progressives can do outside of online engagement to effectively organize our communities. St. Pete’s organized efforts for a socialist representative and a robust social housing system serve as a model for just two areas of interest for activists, but the possibilities are endless. The most important part is considering the most pressing issues in our local communities and adapting to their specific conditions to best serve human needs and move “beyond the predatory phase of human development.”
Bryce Springfield is a sophomore from St. Petersburg, Florida and Co-Chair of Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) of Princeton. He can be reached at brycespringfield@princeton.edu.
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