Interview with Ai-jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance
Ai-Jen Poo has been organizing with domestic workers for over 15 years, helping in New York to win some of the first statewide labor protections for occupations often exempt from labor laws, and expanding this campaign to a nationwide vision for a strong caregiving workforce and infrastructure for elder care. In 2014 she became a MacArthur Fellow, but this was hardly her first award.
Winning a Land Bank We Can Trust
Lessons from Philadelphia's Campaign to Take Back Vacant Land
Affordable, But for Whom?
How a box of felt pieces helps organizers help New York communities advocate for their real affordable housing needs
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.
Review of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime & Resistance in the Heart Of San Francisco
I learned about the history of the Tenderloin, San Francisco’s maligned neighborhood, through walks in it with my Great Uncle, Milton Hendrick, and listening...
Social Innovation and Civic Participation
We have some insight from Sonal Shah, the head of the new White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, who is advocating...
Don’t Call It a Comeback for Neighborhood Schools
In the face of widespread school choice, some D.C. residents are advocating for an equitable system of neighborhood schools. But what's the chance that will become a reality?
The Government Should Use Private Funds to Invest in Organizing
Many applauded when President Obama announced his new initiative, My Brother's Keeper, to support opportunities for young men of color....
Breaking Up the Pipeline to Prison
President Obama is doing more than speaking out for criminal justice reform, he is taking action.Earlier this week, President...
Community Organizing: Integrating a Woman’s Approach
“In closed or structured societies, it is the marginal or ‘inferior’ person . . . who often comes to symbolize . . . ‘communitas.’” —Victor Turner
CRA Should be Becoming Less Partisan. Instead, It’s More.
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is a law that requires banks to serve the credit needs, consistent with safety and soundness, of all communities,...
How Organizing for Justice Helps Your Mental Health
How do social justice, organizing, and mental health interact? Shelterforce chats with clinical social worker Dawn Belkin Martinez to find out.
Interview with Gordon Chin, Founding Executive Director of the Chinatown Community Development Center
Gordon Chin started San Francisco Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC), a longstanding CDC well-known in the field, in the mid-1970s. In June 2015, he released Building Community, Chinatown Style, a book about his professional life, the founding and evolution of CCDC, and the future of community development. Josh Ishimatsu, director of Research and Capacity Building at the National Coalition for Asian-Pacific American Community Development, and a regular Shelterforce contributor, spoke with Chin about where community development is going, and where it should go.
Are You An Advocate?
“Isn’t it true, Dr. Squires, that you are an advocate?”
As an occasional expert for plaintiffs in fair housing lawsuits this is a question I...
In Wisconsin: Do You Hear the People Sing?
We just had our second amazing Saturday in a row, with estimates ranging from 70,000 to 120,000. The problem with the estimates was that...
Collective Action for Stronger Communities
Shortly after President Obama’s second inaugural address calling for collective action on our greatest national challenges, I happened to speak...
4 Reasons Why We Need More Community on Labor Day
“Good Jobs: Strong Communities” read many of the signs at the Labor Day rally and march in Cambridge organized by...
Housing Recovery, But Not For All
Our annual report, The State of the Nation’s Housing 2013, issued last June, documented the growing evidence of a...
Planned Shrinkage by Thirst?
Even the much beleagured CEO of Nestle, who has been accused of trying to privatize the water resources of poor communities...
At Last, Apprenticeships Will Be for All People
Not surprisingly, last Friday's headlines focused on the announcement that the Obama administration had rejected the proposal to build...