Stacy Davis-Gates of CTU started our gathering by reminding us: “This work is not for the timid, y’all, This work is for the impatient, those willing to fight for it. Wall Street does not stand in line. The real estate lobby does not wait their turn. We need to be as impatient as them.”
Veronica Mendez-Moore of Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL) in the Twin Cities led us in a discussion around the impact of corporate power and concentrated wealth on our communities. As she said, ““The city council isn’t the reason developers control our city. DEVELOPERS are the reason developers control our city. We need to cut out the middlemen and go to where the power is. We need to create a crisis for them the way they create a crisis for us.”
Carroll Fife from Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) in Oakland helped us explore the history of racialized injustice in housing in this country, explaining how those in power have consistently denied people of color in particular the ability to build wealth through homeownership. Carroll explained, “We need to take on the speculators, we need to pay attention to where our money is, we need to speak truth to power, but also speak truth to each other and call each other IN when we’re not moving toward the right direction.”
We shared stories about the impact of corporate landlords on our lives, our families and our communities. Lupe Ramirez from MH Action talked about the impact of a private equity landlord buying the manufactured housing park where she and other seniors live.
In workshops we learned about opportunity zones and funds, the newest scam to “solve poverty” in this country by taking money away from public goods and putting it into the pockets of the wealthiest. We delved into research that helped us identify where our pension fund money is helping fuel companies driving the housing crisis, and we talked about building the base we need to take on these companies.
Then we dug into the heart of why we had convened – unions and community groups spent hours building relationships, thinking and planning campaigns in fifteen geographies across the country. Folks from Southern California and Seattle, to Colorado and Iowa, to Tennessee and Florida, to New York, Chicago and Puerto Rico met to explore opportunities to join together and transform what “home” looks like for millions of Americans.
We not only named those who are driving and making money off of this crisis, but worked to build plans to challenge their power and win housing justice. We left the convening energized, determined, and feeling connected to all the amazing folks that are part of this national movement to change our housing in this country. As so many of us said – these are our people! We are excited to see how the seeds plants by this convening will grow in the months ahead.
Many thanks to the Bargaining for the Common Good (BCG) Housing Steering Committee, a dynamic group of housing justice and labor leaders from around the country, was the driving force behind making this event a success. This committee did everything from planning the agenda to coordinating organizations from all fifteen geographies. We’d also like to recognize the BCG Advisory Committee for their support of this work.
The BCG Housing Justice convening was a joint effort of three convening organizations – Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor (KI), the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations’ Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) and the Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE).
