Having a HOME (Not Just a House)

Is a Human Right!

Perhaps it’s difficult for us to understand how important it is for every human being to have, not only a material shelter of some sort to shield us from the physical elements—cold, heat, rain, snow and so on—but people also need at least one place in all the world where they are sheltered from all the other many threatening elements we encounter so often when we’re out and about, such as, threats against our privacy, against our safety, against our comfort, against our sense of belonging, and against our need to be in charge. As the outside world continues take more and more of these things away, with cameras watching our every move, with smart phones tracking our every purchase and click, and with corporations spending $Billions each year to find more and more effective ways to manipulate our minds and emotions, so we’ll, without even noticing, “choose” their products and services over others, it is now more important than ever that every one of us, whether we are a family of one or many (pets included) have that one place to where we can retreat and truly experience as our emotional and mental sanctuary!

It's for this very important reason the legalization of HOAs is turning out to be one of the biggest mistakes our society has ever made! And the reason is simple—so-called “Homeowners Associations” are specifically designed to rob us of our HOMES, to invade our privacy, to infringe on our comfort, our sense of belonging, our “locus of control, and to deprive us of an emotional and mental sanctuary!

Of course, the HOA Movement got a big lift when an entire FOR PROFIT industry arose right alongside them who, with the $Billions they make every year (in 2023, it’s estimated the HOA Industry hauled in $88,000,000,000.00) devote a large portion of their funds to influence government, social media and hone propaganda rhetoric which they supply to the HOA Boards they either control directly or to assist them in their efforts to displace (if not to actually run them off, to at least displace them in every other way) the people in their communities they cannot stand. In other words, they’ve become very skilled at MONETIZING BIGOTRY!

Though HOAs are maybe the latest iteration of one group of people taking control of others, in order to profit off of them, and “keep them in their place,” dividing and conquering is one of the oldest human strategies of abuse, disenfranchisement and enslavement. Think of how Julius Caesar employed his divide et impera in order to conquer Gaul (modern France), by amplifying the differences between the Gallic tribes, taking advantage of their suspicions, of their prejudices, and of their sense of superiority over others, which ultimately helped him pick them off once tribe at a time!

Likewise, HOAs use the same strategy, by amping up people’s fears about others who, were they permitted to enjoy the same level of home sovereignty as “us,” they would tear the neighborhood down by committing serious neglect and decorating their houses in ways the "Superior Us" deems inappropriate.

Worse, though, the HOA Propaganda Machine has, for many decades, been influencing people to believe our homes are nothing more than an “investment,” and its only value is measured by how much it could be sold for at a later date! Even in communities where there is no HOA, it’s not uncommon for homeowners to think they shouldn’t decorate or remodel their homes the way they would really want to, because “That will probably hurt the house’s resell value!” What then happens? People spend decades of their lives decorating their houses to make them appealing, not to themselves, but to people who don’t even live there!

Right now, the full impact of way HOAs deprive homeowners of their fundamental need to have a place where THEY are in control may take decades to understand. However, there are already some studies out which are, already, explaining the dangers. For example, Dr. Gary Solomon, a psychology professor at the College of Southern Nevada, has identified the adverse affects of associations who take away a homeowner’s vital emotional and mental needs as “HOA Syndrome,” resulting in measurable signs of anxiety, irritation, and worry!

It's for this reason, a good number of the residents, along with non-resident homeowners who make up the Peachtree Village community, have formed the Peachtree Village Neighborhood Union. No longer are we going to allow a small group of people who believe themselves to be superior to all the rest of us to treat us like children, to constantly act toward us in a condescending manner, to take our money and hand it off to FOR PROFIT HOA management corporation, and to spend so much of it on foolish, unsustainable common area crabgrass, all the while failing, miserably, to carry out what should be their primary responsibility—repairing our (non-public) roads which are covered with potholes, replacing rotting retaining walls, and getting the trash (most all of it from careless passersby) and fallen tree limbs picked up off our greenbelt.

We’re not sure if this small group of control-obsessed people will ever come to understand how their behavior is actually exasperating, if not creating in the first place, the very carelessness they claim must be met with draconian threats of fines, because the more people don’t FEEL their principal dwelling is THEIR HOME, their unique emotional and mental and safe and private SANTUARY then, of course, their not going to have the sense of pride and desire to maintain and improve upon it, as would naturally, otherwise take place! We hope, one day, they’ll figure this out, but in the meantime, we are going to use every legal means at our disposal in order to claw back our right, for each and every one of us to have a HOME, not just a house!