1. Stabilizing Communities:
Advancing Housing Justice
Organizing and Policy Strategies
in This Political Moment
Thursday, March 30, 2017

2. Twitter: @ourcity
Facebook: Right to the City Alliance
Address: 388 AtlanticAvenue,Brooklyn, NY 11217
Email: Dawn@righttothecity.org
Website: www.RightToTheCity.org

3. ROCHESTER
Hill District Consensus Group
Alternatives for Community and Environment
Boston Workers Alliance
Boston Tenant Coalition
Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation
Chinese Progressive Association
City Life/Vida Urbana
Coalition of Occupied Homes in Foreclosure
Dudlety Street Neighborhood Initiative
New England United for Justice
Penn Loh, Tufts University
Right To The City Boston
Right To The City Vote
Leadership Center for the Common Good
Movement Generation
National CAPACD
National Domestic Workers Alliance
National Low Income Housing Coalition
People’s Action
Participatory Budgeting Project
Rainforest Action Network
RoadMap Consulting
Ruckus Society
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Take Back The Land-
Rochester
Autonomous Tenants Union
Centro Autónomo
People’s Institute for Housing Justice
Frank Avellone, LawyersCmteforBetterHousing
East LA Community Corporation
Gilda Haas, Antioch University
Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance
Strategic Actions for a Just Economy
Causa Justa::Just Cause
Design Action
Housing Rights Cmte of SF
North Bay Organizing Cmte
Sustainable Economies Law Center
Tenants Together
Urban Habitat
Alliance for a Just Society
Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility
Campaign for a Fair Settlement
Center for Story-based Strategy
Climate Justice Alliance
Grassroots Global Justice
Home Defenders League
Indigenouse Environmental Network
Jobs With Justice
Right To The City Alliance
Alliance and Campaign Membership, 2017
MIAMI
ATLANTA
JACKSON
NASHVILLE
PHILADELPHIA
BALTIMORE
KANSAS CITY
MEMPHIS
LOUISVILLE
SANTA FE
SANTA ANA
PHOENIX
LONG BEACH
MINNEAPOLIS
MADISON
LINCOLN
DENVER
PROVIDENCE
SPRINGFIELD
POUGHKEEPSIE
NEW YORK CITY
HARTFORD
BOSTON
LYNN
LOS ANGELES
BAY AREA
PORTLAND
SEATTLE
Housing Justice League
Yanni Loukissas, Georgia Tech
Women’s Community Revitalization Project
Baltimore Housing Roundtable
Vinelanders Community
Land Trust
Cooperation Jackson
Homes For All Nashville
Mid-South Peace & Justice Center
Kentuckians For The Commonwealth
Homeless & Housing Coalition of KY
Esperanza Center for Peace and Justice
Chainbreaker Collective
El Centro Cultural de Mexico
Center for Neighborhood Leadership
Housing Long Beach
LiBRE
Well House
Grand Rapids Tenant Union
Burlington Associates
BuildingMovementDetroit
DetroitPeople’sPlatform
NorthEndWoodwardCommunityCoalition
StorehouseofHopeCLT
Direct Action for Rights and Equality
ARISE for Social Justice
Springfield No One Leaves
Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson
CHARJLynn United for Change
CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities
Carroll Gardens Association
Community Voices Heard
David Harvey, CUNY Graduate Center
FUREE
FIERCE
Gianpaolo Baiocchi, NYU Urban Demoracy Lab
JFREJ
Marnie Brady, CUNY Graduate Center
Metropolitan Council on Housing
Miguel Robles-Duran & Gabriela Rendón, COHSTRA
and New School, Design and Urban Ecologies Program
Peter Marcuse, Columbia University
Picture The Homeless
Inquilinxs Unidxs
Eric Olin Wright, UW Madison
Jake Carlson, UW Madison
We Are Vital
Globeville Elyria-Swansea LiveWell
Mile High Connects
Project VOYCE
9to5 Colorado
Lopez Island CLT
Recover The World
Standing Against Foreclosure and Eviction
Tenants Union of Washington State
Community Alliance of Tenants
Community Justice Project
Miami Workers Center
Core Member Organization
General Member Organization
Homes For All Campaign Partner / Endorser
Resource Ally
Statewide Organization
Regional Formation
National Partners
CHICAGO
GRAND RAPIDS
BURLINGTON
SAN ANTONIO
DETROIT
PITTSBURGH

4. Gentrification is a profit driven race and class
remake of urban, working class
communities of color that have suffered from a
history of disinvestment and abandonment. This process
is driven by private developers, landlords, businesses and
corporations and supported by the state, through both
policies that facilitate the process and funding in the
form of public subsidies. Gentrification happens in
areas where commercial and residential land is cheap,
relative to other areas in the city and region, and
where the potential to turn a profit, either
through re-purposing existing structures or
building new ones is great.

6. TRANSFORMING OUR CITIES
NEOLIBERAL
DEVELOPMENT
- Development that is
driven by private interests
- Public agencies / policies
support and facilitate
private interest
development
- Community provides
input
HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
- Development that is driven by
community residents and
organizations
- Public agencies / policies
support and facilitate community
driven development
- Community provides vision and
makes decisions

7. Community
Stabilization
Community –
Led
Development
Community
Control &
Ownership
Short / Immediate
Term
Medium Term
Long Term
* Municipal Power
* Community Health
* Sustainability
* Democracy

8. The TRANSLOCAL Approach
Translocal campaigns elevate our greatest strength -- local
organization and power - to larger scale impact.
Local organizations unite their common struggles as one national
campaign with common branding,strategies,and tactics. This
strengthens each local campaign,creates momentum to replicate
campaigns in new cities and lays the groundwork for policy and
social change regionally, the state,national and international
levels.
Rebel
Cities
New
Urbanism
Freedom
or
Sanctuary
Cities

13. Causa Justa :: Just Cause
www.cjjc.org
Facebook.com/causajusta
Twitter@causajusta1
Right to the City Alliance
www.righttothecity.org
Facebook.com/righttothecityalliance
Twitter.com/ourcity

14. 1
Introduction
Assuring our Future
Sasha Hauswald

15. 2
A Housing Policy Tale

16. 3
The Town

17. 4
The Business Man

18. 5
The Results of Investment

19. 6
The Limits of Investment

20. 7
The Policy Makers

21. 8
The Wonks

22. 9
The Opportunity
Change comes from champions
both inside and outside of City
Hall.
There is no panacea. Policy-makers
must commit to more than a quick
fix or isolated near-term win.

23. 10
The Outcome

24. 11
Chapter 2
• Public-Facing Housing Affordability
Strategic Plan
• Preservation Working Group
• Community Land Trust Feasibility Study

25. 12
Relevance for Philanthropy

26. 13
The Political Moment

27. 14
Advocacy
We need strong local partners to win
these policies and to improve them
over time.

28. 15
Mission Driven Consulting
Ensure that the technical experts
advising cities are accountable to
values, not hand-strung by the
ledger of accounts.

29. 16
Implementation & Accountability
Front line staff need to
administer programs and
steward affordable units to
benefit future generations.

30. 17
Connecting the Dots
Technical experts
Practitioners
Advocates and community voices
Policy makers

31. 18
Thank You!

32. Sasha Hauswald, Director of State and Local Policy
Grounded Solutions Network
Shauswald@groundedsolutions.org
510-915-6858

33. Felicia Griffin, Executive Director
fgriffin@fresc.org
303.936.0503ext. 100
www.fresc.org

35. When you think of Denver think of...
Creamy frosting
on the inside…
Smooth
Chocolate on the
outside...

36. When you think of Denver think
of...Creamy frosting
on the inside…
Smooth
Chocolate on the
outside...

37. Colorado is experiencing a
Housing CRISIS!!!
Problem: Gentrification/Displacement/the “free” Market
Our “Recipe for Success”
● 1 cup inside policy work (Mile High Connects, Enterprise, Legal Services)
● 1 ½ cups of reframe of what “Affordable Housing” is today
● 2 cups grassroots organizing
● 3 cups - statewide housing table
● 4 cups of community land trust

38. ORGANIZE! Work on Local Renter Protections
Our local “We Organize
Westminster committee is
working on:
-Renters Bill of Rights
-Housing Trust Fund
-Housing Legal Advocate

39. Colorado Homes for All
Statewide Grassroots Housing Table
Local Community Groups and Leaders affiliated with Homes for All in
February of 2016
Table consists of 15 grassroots organization in the Denver Region and is
being facilitated/organized by 9to5 Colorado and FRESC: Good Jobs,
Strong Communities
Goal is to engage 20,000 Coloradans in the campaign in the next two
years
This table has the ultimate goal of winning a statewide “Rent Control”
ballot measure in 2020. Currently the group is focused on leadership
development and training for table members and have turned out
members to testify on 2017 state housing bills.

40. Community Land Trust
Residents in Denver and surrounding suburbs
have identified CLT as a viable solution to
prevent displacement
Community organizations in Denver’s
Globeville/Elyria/Swansea neighborhoods
have formed a coalition that has prioritized
CLT and are engaging with Burlington &
Associates to do a business feasibility study
of a CLT in their neighborhood
Community leaders in GES are receiving
training from Grounded Solutions to
prepare them to run their own CLT once
financing is secured

41. Finally, we
must cash
in on the
promises
of our
elected
leaders.
Housing is
a Human
right.

42. Ed Whitfield
Co-Managing Director
F4DC.ORG
ed@f4dc.org

44. Fund for Democratic Communities
Founded in 2007, F4DCis a Greensboro,North
Carolina based private foundation supporting
community-based initiatives and institutions that
foster authentic democracy to make communities
better places to live.

45. 4
We believe in the power of ordinary people in
neighborhoods, workplaces and other communities to
understand and solve their own problems when given an
opportunity to put their heads together and hear the diverse
voices of all involved.

46. Theory of action:
• Help Communities do for themselves
• Facilitate Communities as their own Developers
• Invest in Community, not Wall Street
• Promote Finance as a new Commons
• Promote permanence of Community, impermancyof Foundations
• Recognize Labor as the source of All Wealth, including Foundation
Wealth
• Advocate the development of metrics for foundations to decide
Sunsetting
• Strive to answer: What would have to change for the logic of the
system not to dominate our lives? Owning Productive Assets!

47. • Local: RCC and Grassroots Matching Grants
• Regional: SRLF and CoopEcon
• National: The Financial Cooperative, Reinvest in Our
Power and Shake the Foundations
• It all ends at the end of 2020. We are Sunsetting!
Our Work at F4DC

48. Solving a Food Desert in a Black Working Class
Community

49. Winn Dixie left this strip center in 1998
leaving a community eyesore and a food
desert
Experts assured us that this community was too black,
too poor and too uneducated for a food co-op.

51. Strong community engagement across all phases
The community had built its
organizing muscles fighting
to close a landfill
When the landfill fight was
won, that organizing muscle
was repurposed toward the
grocery store
50 to 120 people attend
monthly RCC community
meetings

55. With 1200+
community owners,
Renaissance
Community Coop’s
Grand Opening was
November 4th and
5th 2016!

56. Basic info about the RCC
10,530 square feet of leased space, with roughly
7,200 square feet of retail space
Full service grocery – not a glorified convenience
store
Food is primarily sourced from MDI, a reputable
“conventional” distributor that tries to source
locally where possible.
Prices are competitive with Food Lion or Kroger
100% owned and controlled by its community of
owners: one share–one vote per owner

57. For more information:
renaissancecoop.com
f4dc.org
ed@f4dc.org

58. Discussion
Created by Kreativkolors - Freepik.com

59. Thank you for
joining!