Peter Dreier
Peter Dreier is professor of politics at Occidental College and has contributed to Shelterforce since the 1970s. He served for many years on the board of the National Housing Institute and was a founder of the Massachusetts Tenants Organization in the 1980s and has worked with housing activist groups since then.
Jane Jacobs’ Radical Legacy
Sometimes a book can change history. Books often influence ideas, but only rarely do they catalyze activism.
Frank Wilkinson’s Legacy
His was a life devoted to the preservation of our civil liberties. But it all began with a belief in decent, affordable housing.
Katrina: A Political Disaster
The handling of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath underscores the human disaster resulting from the ascendancy of right-wing ideas and corporate domination of the federal government, which extols market forces, individualism and private charity over public responsibility and the common good.
NYC Tenants Don’t Want Tourists
Tenants in New York City are getting fed up as growing numbers of tourists camp out in their buildings. Landlords have taken to evicting...
Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness in America
While the media looks fondly at President Reagan's accomplishments two decades ago, they all but ignore the devastating affects his policies left on the poor.
Enraging the Right
It’s not everyday that a powerful right-wing think tank takes aim at a grassroots organization – after all, there are many groups working in...
Renewing Bonds
President Harry Truman's pledge to address the postwar housing shortage and the problem of urban slums played a key role in his 1948 presidential...
Growing Together:
After civil unrest shook the streets of Los Angeles in 1992, local low-income communities of color enjoyed what Andy Warhol once described as fifteen...
A Brief Triumph for Progressive Housing Policy
Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era by Gail Radford. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 273 pp.
Until the Depression,...
I’m a Tenant and I Vote!
New York's Republican legislators learned a lesson in June: Hell hath no fury like a New York City tenant scorned. Just when it seemed...
Organizing the New Tenants Movement
During the past year, the tenants' movement has suffered major setbacks. Landlords in California and Massachusetts, once strongholds of tenant activism, succeeded in wiping...
Public Housing: What Went Wrong?
Public housing is not only high-rises full of drug dealers that should be demolished. It has been a successful way to create affordable housing that has suffered segregation, stigmatization and concentration of the very poor.
Start Your Engines: The Housing Movement and the Motor Voter Law
The Motor Voter law, which associates voter registration with drivers licenses, can improve voter turnout and could have important ramifications for the housing movement.