When the Homeless Took Over
As the homeless and affordable housing crises become a focus on local and national campaigns, we must remember the rich history and critical contributions of homeless organizers.
How California’s “Sleeping Giant” Woke Up and Won Statewide Rent Caps
California's momentous statewide win for statewide rent caps is owed to organizers and the power of organizing. Now that the giant is awake, what's next?
HUD Finally Puts a Landlord on Notice for Interfering with the Right to Organize
There must be actual, meaningful penalties for landlords that retaliate against tenants who fight for safe, standard home conditions.
The Guadalupe Neighborhood in Austin: 40 Years of Pushing Back Against Displacement
The community of Guadalupe’s 40-year struggle to fight displacement in the face of development pressure is instructive for other communities facing similar challenges.
Moving Beyond Place-Based Community Organizing
How to train organizers to work across various communities, not just neighborhoods.
The Collaboration Behind California’s Successful Statewide Ballot Campaign for Housing
As housing becomes ever more urgent an issue, California's model for running a statewide ballot campaign offers insights to organizations around the nation.
Organizing for Water Security in Detroit
A coalition's comprehensive study on the Detroit region’s water ills also acts as a road map to organizers' work around water justice.
Speaking Up On Race, Housing, and Opportunity in Minnesota
In the housing world, narrative plays an important role in defining whose voice gets heard, how issues are framed, and what solutions are developed. This is especially true in Minnesota.
It Takes Strong Roots to Achieve Climate Justice
Throughout 2018's Sol-2-Sol climate justice convening, indigenous people led many of the actions and activities.
What the Fight for Universal Rent Control in New York Can Learn from Prop...
Voters have set up an unprecedented fight between progressive housing groups and real estate interests. It will be a brutal fight. For proof of this, housing advocates in New York need only to look at California.
Organizers: There’s No Shortcut to Success
Overcoming the ideology of individualism and corporate power is achieved not through framing or advocacy but through the experience of collective struggle. A review of No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane McAlevey.
Reimagining a Neighborhood, The Way It Ought To Be
The arts have a long history of highlighting social issues and creating public conversation that results in measurable change. As an arts administrator with...
Housing Advocates—Seize This Moment!
I’ve been working to address housing affordability since the late 1970s. There has never been this much media and public focus on the issue.
Chicago Activist Convention Shifts Focus to Community Benefits Campaign
Standing on a truck in front of a group of several hundred protesters, Tom Gordon expressed a feeling shared often at the ONE Northside...
Despite Win Against Landlord, Minneapolis Tenants Still Face Eviction
North Minneapolis residents fight to take control of their buildings after city administrator finds homes to be uninhabitable.
Practical Ideas for Addressing Micro-Segregation in Mixed Income Communities
Practical lessons from long time community builders on promoting integration and interaction among residents of mixed income communities.
Here’s Why Costa-Hawkins Repeal Would Be Revolutionary for Housing in California
Rent control is one of the foremost demands of grassroots movements organizing around housing justice today. To activists across the country, from Los Angeles...
Participatory Budgeting: Why Not Fix Everyone’s Sink?
Participatory budgeting offers a glimpse of how a more civically engaged society might work, but it’s also a distraction.
Why Tenants Should Be Given the Opportunity to Purchase Their Buildings
Unlike so many owners who are quickly selling their properties to the highest bidder amidst rising real estate values, an East Oakland landlord was intent on giving the existing tenants a fair shot to purchase the property.
Remember Slavic Village? It’s Back
A Cleveland neighborhood made famous as an epicenter of the foreclosure crisis works its way back to stability. Here’s how.