The New Bottom Line, an alignment that is highlighted in the Fall 2011 issue of Shelterforce, recently received the “Most Valuable National Coaltion” honor from The Nation as part of the magazine's Progressive Honor Roll
“Objecting to a politics that makes Wall Street's bottom line the nation's top priority, National People's Action, People Improving Communities through Organizing (PICO National Network), the Alliance for a Just Society, the Right to the City Alliance and the Main Street Alliance declared in 2011, “We need a new bottom line that puts the economic interests and financial security of working American families first.” As the New Bottom Line coalition, they organized multi-state projects like the Move Our Money campaign to take $1 billion out of big banks. And the coalition allied with the Occupy movement in its Occupy Our Homes campaign, which supports families fighting foreclosure and eviction and helps homeless families move back into their vacant foreclosed homes.”
Those organizations mentioned in that blurb are only the national ones — The New Bottom Line's scope comprises a much larger group of local and regional organizations as well.
In the Shelterforce article, “The New Bottom Line,” SEIU's Stephen Lerner and NPA's George Goehl explain the foundations of the coalition, and how so many organizations, while sharing common goals but disparate in many ways, came together behind certain fundamental principles:
Wall Street bankers crashed the economy, but none of them have been held accountable for their crimes. They have not paid to fix what they broke, and they continue to duck from paying their fair share of taxes. The result: a shrinking middle class, widening gaps in wealth inequality, and our most vulnerable populations spiraling into deeper debt, wealth loss, and joblessness.
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