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Gail Schechter

6 Posts

Gail Schechter is the executive director of Housing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly (H.O.M.E.) in Chicago . Schechter, a longtime fair and affordable housing organizer and advocate, is the author of “We’re Gonna Open Up the Whole North Shore” in the anthology The Chicago Freedom Movement: Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights Activism in the North.
Opinion

Living in a Bubble: Development When Community Doesn’t Matter

How suburban luxury high-rises are lowering everyone’s quality of life.

Housing

‘Do We Need Affordable Housing’ Is the Wrong Question to Ask

How we can help elected officials promote genuine community by ensuring inclusive, mixed-income housing.

Opinion

Systemic Racism Starts and Ends with Housing

Along with standing up against police violence and systemic racism, we must also fight to end housing systems that devalue Black people.

Housing

“More Than the Sum of Our Property Values”

How can power over land be used in such a way that people who are at a political disadvantage—who are poor, members of racial, ethnic or religious minorities, very young or very old, or have a disability—benefit? How about those who cannot speak for themselves, like trees or rivers?

Organizing

Community Organizing: Integrating a Woman’s Approach

“In closed or structured societies, it is the marginal or ‘inferior’ person . . . who often comes to symbolize . . . ‘communitas.’” —Victor Turner

Uncategorized

Affordable in Name Only

At first glance the news of late has been good regarding fair and affordable housing in Illinois. In September Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the Comprehensive Housing Initiative, an executive order […]