James Tracy
James Tracy is a Bay Area native and a community organizer. He is co-founder of the San Francisco Community Land Trust and is on staff at Community Housing Partnership. He is the author of, Dispatches Against Displacement: Field Notes From San Francisco’s Housing Wars, as well as co-author of
Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times.
Housing Organizing in the Year of the Pandemic
California housing organizers reflect on what changes, and what stays the same, during a pandemic.
Perspectives on the Community Land Trust
An interview with John Emmeus Davis, Line Algoed, and María E. Hernández-Torrales, editors of On Common Ground: International Perspectives on the Community Land Trust.
What Do Housing Groups Think About Dems’ Affordable Housing Plans?
Despite the near silence about the housing crisis during the last five Democratic debates, several frontrunners have proposed serious housing legislation. But will the plans actually address the crisis? We talk with several housing groups to get their take.
Where Do We Go From Here? Toward a New Freedom Budget
If, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, a “budget is a moral document,” then this budget is a reflection of the moralities of the boardroom, the eviction notice, the emergency ward, and the pink slip.
Five for the Frontlines: 2016’s Best Books to Prepare for the Fight Ahead
We asked some of our regular contributors for suggested reading lists to prepare for the coming four years. As we receive their suggestions (specifically...
Interview with Gabriel Metcalf, author of Democratic by Design
Gabriel Metcalf, CEO of SPUR, discusses his new book, "Democratic by Design: How Carsharing, Co-ops, and Community Land Trusts are Reinventing America."
Review of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime & Resistance in the Heart Of San Francisco
I learned about the history of the Tenderloin, San Francisco’s maligned neighborhood, through walks in it with my Great Uncle, Milton Hendrick, and listening...
A Land Trust Q&A
Tracy Parent, the organizational director of the San Francisco Community Land Trust, was kind enough to answer some questions I had about SFCLT's work...
Public Housing Residents as Activists
In the 1990s, a group I co-founded, the Eviction Defense Network, was asked by public housing residents to organize alongside them during the HOPE...
Return to the Roots: Solidarity Networks and Housing Justice
On January 20, two Portland, Oregon women visited their former property managers with several dozen of their friends in tow. Becky and Aubrey Cook were evicted from their apartments, run by Fox Management, after complaining about slum conditions including raw sewage spilling into their apartments. In a bizarre turn, Fox then charged the women $437.00 […]
Stepping Back From “Stepping Forward”
Public housing tenants are celebrating the Seattle Housing Authority’s (SHA) decision to retract a controversial plan to raise rents by more than 400 percent in the coming years. The “Stepping Forward” plan, announced last September, was immediately met with stiff resistance from tenants mostly organized through the Tenants Union of Washington State (TUWS). In November, […]
Beyond the Box
A movement for second chances takes root.
San Francisco Housing Activists Win Land and Shift the Debate
On May 11, 2004, homeless people in San Francisco scored a victory by convincing the city’s Board of Supervisors to set aside 15 city-owned...
Tenant Organizing Wins One-for-One Replacement
In 1996, a small group of highly organized residents of North Beach public housing in San Francisco began to raise questions about the fate...