A Matter of Trust
Although a March 2007 Zogby International poll found that affordable housing was an important election issue, most elected officials have yet to place creating...
Still Riding Route 61
A labor/community partnership stops a fare hike and gives workers a boost
Living Wage Lives in L.A.
It was 1996, and an economic Godzilla loomed over Los Angeles, coming to crush the city's precarious prosperity. That, at least, was the way...
Building A Power Base
The first and most important battle organizers face is working with members to build an independent power base. Building an organization, and forcing a...
In Red State Florida, Victory for Working People
While 52 percent of Floridians voted for George Bush in the November election, 72 percent backed a Bush-unfriendly ballot initiative: a constitutional amendment raising...
Artists as Organizers
Creative placemaking means more than merely adding public art into the mix. To be sustainable it needs to build relationships—and power.
Finding Common Ground
Everyone knows the real story of Las Vegas – enormous power concentrated in the hands of casinos, unchecked by government and oblivious to community...
Getting New Jersey to Divest from Payday Lending
NJ Citizen Action says having a state pension fund invested, even indirectly, in a form of lending illegal in the state cannot stand.
Holding Politicians Accountable
The elections of 1994 demonstrated the power of constituent organizing (mostly done by the right wing), the dissatisfaction of many voters with the current...
Bringing Down the Barriers to Enrollment in Federal Programs
Constance Etheridge went to the Department of Social Services office in South Carolina for a simple reason: she and her children were hungry and...
Tenderloin Senior Organizing Project
"It's hard to do this – I was scared," said Robin King, one of the younger women living in a building organized by the...
Winning a Land Bank We Can Trust
Lessons from Philadelphia's Campaign to Take Back Vacant Land
No Place for Us
The low-income students living in Irvine Meadows West, a historic trailer park at the University of California, Irvine, received more than a liberal arts...
Rhode Island Tenants Fight and Win!
On August 1, 2005, 193 residents at the Barbara Jordan I properties in Providence, Rhode Island, received a letter informing them that the owner...
Alabama Arise Fights For Tenant Protections
It was hardly an unusual story in 1993 in Montgomery, Alabama. A tenant had spent months trying to get her landlord to fix a...
Housing, Not Warehousing—A Victory 10 Years in the Making
Warehousing is one of real estate’s best-kept secrets, and a crucial piece of how the housing market can keep supply low and demand high. One New York City organization rallied to prove warehousing still posed a problem, and pushed the boundaries of what was politically possible.
Oakland Campaign Puts Kids First
Low-income youth and youth of color are often first to feel the effects of shrinking local human service budgets. In Oakland, California – across...
A Victory Over the Slumlords
When the last light in her hallway at the Juanita Apartments in Burien, a working-class city just south of Seattle, burned out in January...
Vertical Integration
When Vickie Stapleton’s landlord announced his intention to terminate his project-based Section 8 contract with HUD last year, she got nervous. “A lot of...
Park 1 – Stadium 0: The People Win!
In April 1996 residents of Newark's Ironbound neighborhood – an old industrial area now home to a thriving immigrant population – read in a...