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.
National Collaboration Drives Transportation Policy
On August 12, 1998, almost 1000 leaders from 14 states gathered in St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Chicago, Illinois, for a one-of-a-kind...
Tenants Block Evictions by Any Means
Tenant organizers across the country—in places like Virginia, Louisiana, and New York—have taken direct action against surging eviction cases through tactics like mass outreach, shutting down court hearings, and picketing lawyers who represent landlords.
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...
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...
Organize! Shedding Some Light on Fighting the Right
Draconian cutbacks in health, welfare and housing services, attacks on the civil rights of people of color, gays and lesbians, immigrants, and the reproductive...
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...
Flipping the Script
A nonprofit forgoes the typical community meeting for a "living charrette," which leads to greater neighborhood feedback about a proposed 24-acre development in Austin, Texas.
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Occupy Wall Street: A New Wave of Fair Housing Activism?
Is there a new community reinvestment movement afoot?
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...
Housing Is Health: Ballot Initiatives in California Approved
A conversation with three county supervisors who were instrumental in moving affordable housing ballot measures forward in the California Bay Area by bringing in the health factor.
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...
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,”...
Alameda Corridor Jobs Coalition Wins Railroad Jobs
In 1997, residents of Los Angeles area neighborhoods in the path of what will be the largest public/private rail transportation project in the country...