Last week, while many of us were out buying overpriced Christmas trees and stepping over each other for the last Zhu Zhu doll at the local toy store, Jon Bon Jovi was out there making the world a better place. He was present, along with Newark Mayor Cory Booker and HELP USA Chairperson Maria Cuomo Cole to help open the doors on 51 new affordable housing units in Newark, New Jersey. The facility is the first in the state to provide permanent housing along with fully integrated services for post-acute care AIDS patients. Not only that, but the building is environmentally friendly and even the plumbing can accommodate solar panels. That's 51 families and individuals whose dignity has been restored, whose holidays will be brighter this year, whose lives have newfound hope.

Chalk one up for the good guys. If only everyone could be one of them.

You've read it in this space before and it continues to be true: Affordable housing is one of the biggest issues facing our society today. That's right, one of the biggest. Housing issues directly affect quality of life, demographics, crime rates, and much more.

What happened in Newark is but a small step toward what needs to be a revolution nationwide. It's time to fight back. The Housing Wars must be fought and must be won. But first, know thy enemy.

Systematically, politicians and developers have conspired against an unwitting public to allow housing laws (such as Mitchell-Lama) to expire; they've reversed zoning laws by 'bribing' local residents with cash and household appliances (dishwashers, refrigerators, etc) to testify on their behalf at City Board Hearings; they've worked to remove stabilized units from the market, going so far as to cherry pick the paperwork of the aged and disabled to find errors that would make them eligible for eviction, and they've provided tax abatement to developers to continue to carve up New York City (and other cities) for the wealthy and over-privileged.

Little by little the truth presents itself, and those who understand the value of affordable housing and are willing to fight for it compile victory after victory.

One such victory came in the form of a New York State Supreme Court ruling last month. Tishman-Speyer, a property management organization, was ruled to have illegally taken tax abatement money from the city, while at the same time destabilizing apartment units in Stuveysant Town. The court ruled the units were to remain stabilized, and that Tishman-Speyer was to return the money to the tenants, whom they had illegally overcharged for years while the case was fought in court (a practice commonly known as stealing).

In a public statement that was both appalling and at the same time revealing about whose side the City of New York is on in this battle, the City said that they "would have to find a way to assist Tishman-Speyer" in repaying the money they illegally took from tenants. Yet, in all the years that tenants in Stuy-Town (and many other buildings in NYC as well) were evicted or forced to move from their homes, while still others saw their rents raised by four and five times, the city never once said that THEY should be assisted in any way. Hmmm. Call it collusion, call it corruption, call it coincidence. Call it what you want. I'll just call it the facts and let you decide for yourself.

It's interesting to note that the very people who work to protect our beloved city - police, firefighters, EMS workers - can't afford to live here. If left to the city and the Speyers of the world, affordable housing would cease to exist. They supposedly subscribe to the "let the market do what the market does" philosophy (of course, they themselves manipulate the market by overturning and breaking laws). The people who were living in affordable housing units and have lost their homes aren't the criminals, they are the victims - victims of the greed and political motivations of the rich and powerful.

The city constantly points to some mythical increase in affordable housing over the last few years. This is a manipulation of the facts. Don't believe me? Just ask them where those units have been added. For all the affordable housing units that have been lost in Manhattan and Brooklyn in the last few years, how many have been replaced in those boroughs? The answer is zero. And if they really wanted to preserve affordable housing why didn't the city or the state do anything to prevent Mitchell Llama Laws from expiring, back when they had a chance? The answer is simple: They wanted their developer cronies to benefit from the de-regulation. Prime real estate units in Manhattan and Brooklyn were warehoused, by any means necessary, for years, so that those units could rent for exorbitant rates once the protection of stabilization laws had ended.

A few weeks ago, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was lit. Tishman-Speyer Chairman, CEO, and Tax Abatement Thief Jerry Speyer (Tishman-Speyer owns Rockefeller Center too) was there and helped to pull the lever that illuminated the Norway Spruce. How ironic that this man would be chosen to kick off the holiday season in New York. Thanks to him, and his friends in government, if Jesus returned to the city nowadays, no doubt he'd be turned away again, unable to find an affordable apartment in NYC. Certainly not on a carpenter's salary, anyway.