Tenant Organizing When Rising Rent Isn’t the (Main) Issue
Tenant organizing has been re-energized in coastal cities where housing costs are soaring. But tenants need a voice in the rest of the country too—and they are organizing to get one.
Gaining Ground by Holding Back
Late last year, St. Louis ACORN members learned that Regional Hospital – the city's only "safety net" hospital that guaranteed care regardless of ability...
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...
A Neighborhood in Brooklyn Says “No” to Worker Exploitation
A language barrier, I believe, has muddled my conversation with Nieves Padilla. “We’re fighting to get the workers on Knickerbocker Avenue the minimum wage,”...
New Jersey’s Campaign Against Lead
The effects of lead poisoning on a child’s physical and emotional development and cognitive ability are well known. An investigation that ran two years...
Fighting Gentrification Through Collective Bargaining
For the past two years, the Crown Heights Tenant Union of Brooklyn has turned collective bargaining strategies on landlords—and policymakers.
Still Riding Route 61
A labor/community partnership stops a fare hike and gives workers a boost
Occupy Makes Space for Community Advocates
By smashing the wall of media silence about America’s wealth and income divide, the Occupy movement has opened a dramatically new terrain for organizations...
A Radically Different Planning Process in Brownsville
In a year-long program that included bike rides, serenades, and Dragtivist performances, an art collective guided Brownsville, Texas, residents in reimagining how they could influence equity and justice in their city.
Don’t Start Small
It’s often said that organizers should begin with easily attainable goals to bolster their group’s confidence. But Caroline Murray, executive director of the Anti-Displacement...
Clearing the Air
The Bronx neighborhood of Hunts Point has one of the highest asthma rates in the world. Home to the world's largest food distribution center,...
Cross-Community Collaboration on NYC’s Municipal ID Program
Lack of identification hurts many different groups in different ways—from the homeless to immigrants, and they all need to be considered in the fight for an alternative.
The Right to Know
Josefina de la Cruz’s migration history does not stop at her arrival from Mexico in 1972, but continues through five different Chicago neighborhoods, most...
Walking the Walk
In a city full of problems and promise, I'm taking the first steps toward learning up close what community organizing can accomplish.
Organizing to Build a Movement
In December 1994, President Bill Clinton proposed converting public housing and project-based Section 8 into vouchers. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Congressman Rick Lazio...
From Brooklyn to Berlin: Organizing Schoeneweide
The scene looks familiar enough. In a foyer outside an elegant legislative chamber, a group of citizens is pigeonholing their local politicians. A vote...
Thirty-Five Years of Building Citizen Power
The 2008 presidential contest vaulted community organizing into the national limelight, as the McCain campaign sought to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Barack...
Housing Set-Asides: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
In August 2002, Kevin Jackson, director of the Chicago Rehab Network, sent a letter out to network members and supporters to introduce a campaign...
Winning a War, But Losing the Battle
Victory in a tenant organizing campaign is usually defined by improving conditions for the tenants involved – an egregious repair problem is fixed, landlord...
Fighting for Worker's Rights in Maine
Years of alleged wage, immigration, safety, and civil rights violations, environmental sanctions, and other infractions at the DeCoster egg farm in Turner, Maine, have...