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...
Learning to Love Sticky Cities
Dispelling stereotypes, the Great Lakes Urban Exchange has set out to unite the Rust Belt, starting with restoration of the Great Lakes region and ending with equitable, sustainable transformation.
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.
A Word of Caution: The Forgotten Photograph
The trouble with many of us, and with our culture as a whole, is that we don’t take time to “relate,” to connect formally...
Homeless Revolution
An organization of homeless New Yorkers rallied residents of Harlem and Manhattan to stand up and take notice of the city's long-standing practice of warehousing vacant properties.
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...
Building For the Future
The supply of affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area is expected to increase in the next five years because of an innovative...
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...
Make Your Nonprofit a Media Empire
Using soap operas and talk shows to mix entertainment with financial education
Thirsty for Justice
Some 200 miles from the Mexican border, residents of New Mexico’s 23-year-old Pajarito Mesa community pay taxes but lack essential services like roads, electricity...
Still Riding Route 61
A labor/community partnership stops a fare hike and gives workers a boost
Demanding a Better Deal
Save Middle East Action Committee (SMEAC) was created in 2001 by community stakeholders and representatives in Baltimore after the local newspaper announced that they...
The Fight to Save Section 8
In April 2004, when the Bush Administration launched a major assault on the program that helps Marion Brady pay her rent, she sprang into...
A Victory Over the Slumlords
In response to tenant organizing, the Washington state legislature approved a bill that requires landlords to pay for relocation assistance for tenants forced out of their homes by the landlords' own negligence.
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...
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,”...
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...
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...
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...
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...