Occupy Wall Street: A New Wave of Fair Housing Activism?
Is there a new community reinvestment movement afoot?
Organize! A media campaign on the value of affordable housing
Advocates for affordable housing and a high-powered public relations firm make an unlikely team, at first glance. But that’s exactly who teamed up over...
A Battle for Wards in New Jersey’s Hub City
How an organization of residents crossing age, race, and socioeconomic lines took on an unyielding City Hall known for quelling grass-roots efforts and (almost) overtook the political party machinery.
Living in the Buffer
Preventing the development of new affordable housing in close proximity to freeways isn't a just solution to the health effects of LA's air pollution.
Once a Landmark, Always a Landmark
The Winthrop, a grand hotel converted to affordable housing in the 1970s, was at the center of a conflict between the city’s hopes for...
Organizing Lessons from Allen Parkway Village
When Lenwood E. Johnson, the son of Texas sharecroppers, moved into Houston’s Allen Parkway Village project housing, the Freedmen’s Town section of the city...
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...
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...
Helping the Mayor Get Your Way
“We need more buses!” That’s what organizers with Miami’s congregation-based organizing group PACT (People Acting for Community Together) heard loud and clear as they...
A Guide for Tenants on Leadership and Building Control
Renters in Washington, DC’s Shaw neighborhood have a little extra help these days as they organize to improve their living conditions – and maybe...
Affordable, But for Whom?
How a box of felt pieces helps organizers help New York communities advocate for their real affordable housing needs
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...
Grassroots Advocacy Strengthens Housing Trust Fund
Washington state housing activists came together in 1997 to launch the Housing Our Community Campaign to increase the state Housing Trust Fund (HTF) to...
Injecting Racial Equity into an Election Cycle in St. Louis
A group of 10 St. Louis organizations joined together to encourage mayoral candidates to address racial equity and make it a focal point in an election.
Persistence Pays
Employees of Erickson Cosmetics Company (makers of Banana Boat lotion) only wanted what they had earned. Especially workers like Juana Vasquez who worked at...
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...
Using Information to Confront Corporate Power
In 1991 the United Steelworkers of America, locked in a bitter labor dispute with Ravenswood Aluminum Co., decided to extend the battle beyond the...
Greater Boston Interfaith Organization
Massachusetts has one of the nation’s worst housing cost problems. Its rents and home prices have risen at one of the steepest rates in...
Winning a Land Bank We Can Trust
Lessons from Philadelphia's Campaign to Take Back Vacant Land
Strategy Shift Yields Jobs from Marriott
A local organization affiliated with National People's Action, a 27-year-old coalition of grassroots neighborhood groups, won a public meeting with Chicago Police Superintendent Terry...