The People’s Housing Union

04/27/2026

Indiana Is Selling Our Future to the Surveillance Economy

While working people across Northwest Indiana are struggling with rising rent, stagnant wages, and disappearing stable jobs, our political leadership is busy cutting deals behind closed doors transforming our state into a hub for defense tech, data extraction, and surveillance infrastructure.

This isn’t abstract. It’s a direction. And it mirrors the worldview pushed by companies like Palantir Technologies and its CEO Alex Karp, a worldview where technology doesn’t serve the public, but instead strengthens state power, surveillance, and military priorities.

Let’s be clear about what’s happening.

Indiana politicians, under the banner of “economic development” are aggressively courting defense contractors, AI firms, and foreign-linked venture capital tied to security industries. They’re reshaping our universities, shifting programs away from broad public education and toward narrow pipelines feeding drone engineering, data analytics, and military logistics.

They call it innovation. But innovation for who?

Not for the warehouse worker in Gary.Not for the truck driver watching fuel and food costs eat into their paycheck.Not for the young person now priced out of college unless they enter a defense-linked technical track.

Instead of investing in housing, healthcare, or community infrastructure, the state is pouring resources into data centers and high-tech corridors designed to serve corporate and military clients. These facilities don’t employ thousands, they automate, consolidate, and extract. They generate profit, not stability.

And here’s the contradiction they don’t want you to see:

The same politicians who stir up outrage about migrants and working people crossing borders are the first to roll out the red carpet for foreign investors and defense linked capital. Millions in deals, exclusive meetings with foreign officials, and backroom agreements, while everyday people are told to tighten their belts.

So what does this “Palantir-style” model actually mean for us?

It means:

More surveillance, not more security for working people

More data extraction, not more economic opportunity

More alignment with military and geopolitical agendas, not local needs

This is a future where your labor is undervalued, your data is commodified, and your community is reshaped to serve interests far removed from your daily life.

Northwest Indiana doesn’t need to become a testing ground for surveillance capitalism or a satellite for defense tech expansion.

We need:

Investment in jobs that actually sustain families

Education that empowers people… not funnels them into militarized industries

Transparency in deals being made in our name

Accountability for politicians who prioritize corporate and geopolitical interests over their own constituents

The question isn’t whether this transformation is happening.

It is.

The real question is whether we’re going to accept a future built for data centers, defense contracts, and political elites, or fight for one built for the people who actually live and work here.

Whose Indiana is this going to be?

04/16/2026

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04/16/2026

04/15/2026

10 KEYS OF CONTENTION OF COMMODIFIED HOUSING

1. HOUSING IS SOLD, NOT GUARANTEED
Shelter is treated as a commodity, not a human right-access depends on money, not need.

2. LAND IS MONOPOLIZED
A small class controls land while the masses must pay simply to exist on it.

3. RENT IS EXPLOITATION
Landlords extract wealth without labor… living off the necessity of others.

4. HOMES SIT EMPTY, PEOPLE SLEEP OUTSIDE
Artificial scarcity is maintained for profit while homelessness grows.

5. UTILITIES ARE WEAPONS OF PROFIT
Water, heat, and electricity are privatized… shutoffs enforce poverty and discipline.

6. CLEAN WATER IS NOT GUARANTEED
Profit-driven systems contaminate and restrict access to life’s most basic necessity.

7. DEVELOPMENT SERVES PROFIT, NOT PEOPLE
Luxury housing expands while working-class communities are neglected.

8. GENTRIFICATION IS DISPLACEMENT
Communities are uprooted and replaced in the name of investment and “growth.”

9. DECISIONS ARE MADE WITHOUT THE PEOPLE
Housing is controlled by corporations and the state….not by those who live in it.

10. ISOLATION UNDERMINES COLLECTIVE POWER
Housing is designed to divide, weaken solidarity, and prevent mass organization.

“SERVE THE PEOPLE … NOT PROFIT”

04/09/2026

04/04/2026

Statement from PDC and PHU on the NIPSCO Lockout:

To the locked out workers of NIPSCO and your families,

We extend our full solidarity to the 1,700 union workers locked out by NIPSCO. Your fight is not just your own it is a struggle shared by working people everywhere.

In the wake of this lockout, the company will attempt to shape the narrative. It will highlight signing bonuses and wage increases while concealing what is actually being taken: secure healthcare, reasonable working hours, and the basic ability to live a life outside of work.

This lockout exposes the reality behind corporate messaging. Workers are being asked to accept less control over their time, endure increased mandatory overtime, and face uncertainty around benefits they have already paid into. What is being demanded is not simply labor, but total submission to the needs of the company at the expense of workers’ families, health, and dignity.

For the overwhelming majority of workers affected, this is not about “wanting more money.” It is about protecting what little stability remains: the right to reliable healthcare, the ability to spend time with loved ones, and the refusal to be subjected to endless, forced labor under the threat of losing everything.

NIPSCO’s actions make one thing clear: profit and control take priority over the well-being of the very people who keep the system running.

We also reject the narrative that will be pushed in the coming days that workers are to blame for rising utility costs, or that their resistance somehow harms other working people. This framing is designed to divide.

Working class people are not each other’s enemies. The same households struggling with high energy bills are the households whose labor is being exploited, whose conditions are being worsened, and whose security is being undermined.

If costs continue to rise, it is not because workers are demanding dignity. It is because corporate profit remains protected at all costs.

This is not a conflict between workers and ratepayers. It is a conflict between a profit-driven system and the people who are forced to live and work within it. The wealth generated through labor and paid by communities is not being reinvested for their benefit it is being extracted.

That is why this fight matters beyond any single workplace.

If workers are divided, the outcome is predictable: lower standards, fewer protections, and greater control in the hands of corporations. But when workers recognize their shared interests and act together, that dynamic can be challenged.

We call on all workers—union and non-union—to stand in solidarity with those locked out. Reject the attempts to turn working people against one another. Understand that the fight for fair conditions, healthcare, and control over one’s time is universal.

An injury to one is an injury to all.

Now is the time to unite not as separate groups with competing interests, but as one working class with a common struggle.

Stand with the workers. Oppose the lockout. Stand against the prioritization of profit over human life.

In solidarity,
PDC & PHU

https://peopleshousingunion.site/

04/04/2026

Statement from the PDC and the People’s Housing Union on the NIPSCO Lockout

The ongoing lockout at NIPSCO is being framed as a dispute over labor costs but what is unfolding in northern Indiana tells a very different story.

This is not about lowering rates for working people. It is about restructuring the workforce to protect and expand profits.

Under the direction of its parent company, NiSource, NIPSCO has chosen to lock out skilled union workers while forcing operations to continue under extreme and unsustainable conditions. Non-union employees are being pushed into roles they were never trained to perform. Workers from affiliated companies, including Columbia Gas, are being pulled from across the country taken away from their homes and families to fill gaps created by the company’s own decisions.

At the same time, these workers are being driven to exhaustion, working up to 72 hours a week under conditions that strip them of basic overtime protections. This is not a solution to a labor dispute it is exploitation on a mass scale.

And while the public may assume the company is losing money in this process, the opposite is closer to the truth. NIPSCO is relying on high-cost contractors and reclassifying expenditures in ways that allow them to shift costs away from profits and onto future rate increases. In other words, working people will be made to pay for this crisis both on the job and on their utility bills.

This exposes the real priority: not affordability, not reliability, but profitability.

The long-term goal is clear. By undermining union labor, overworking non-union employees, and normalizing the use of contractors, NIPSCO is attempting to reshape its workforce into one that is cheaper, more disposable, and easier to control. This is about cutting labor costs not to pass savings onto the public, but to increase returns for executives and shareholders.

We reject the false narrative that workers are the reason utility costs rise. Workers do not set rates. Workers do not control corporate budgets. Workers do not decide how profits are distributed. Blaming them is a deliberate attempt to divide the public from the very people who keep essential services running.

The reality is simple: when workers are weakened, communities pay the price.

For tenants already struggling with rising housing costs, utility hikes are not an abstract concern—they are a direct threat to stability. The same corporate logic that drives up rent drives up energy bills: extract more, give less, and shift the burden onto those who can least afford it.

That is why this is not just a labor issue. It is a community issue. It is a housing issue. It is a working-class issue.

We stand in full solidarity with the locked-out workers and with all those being exploited to maintain operations under these conditions. We call on the public to reject attempts to pit worker against worker, and to recognize the common interest we share in fighting back against corporate practices that prioritize profit over people.

The path forward is not division it is unity. Across unions, across workplaces, and across communities, we must stand together against a system that treats both labor and basic necessities as tools for profit.

An injury to one is an injury to all.