Activism for Affordable Housing
It’s been three years since the big Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, the protest movement that began in response to rampant social and economic inequality. While it appears that the protesting aspect of the Occupy movement is dormant, the fact is, the movement is alive and well. Why? Because the same rampant conditions that compelled the movement continue, and are even worse. Income gaps continue to widen, people continue to lose their homes, and the robber barons continue to raid every aspect of the country on all levels. Moreover, while these things continue to worsen, our so-called leaders continue to cut social programs, which were designed to relieve poverty and to provide security nets.
Even though social justice activism is not currently centralized in the Occupy Movement, the spirit of it is dispersed far and wide, seeding new programs everywhere. This is because, after the protesting, comes the real work: that of building a better new world, a sustainable world based on equality and justice of all kinds, for all people everywhere
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One exciting issue that the Occupy Movement focused on, and that the New World Rising cares a lot about, is Alternative Housing, Affordable Housing, and Fighting Gentrification.
What can social justice activists do to advocate for affordable and alternative housing, in this terrible time of economic collapse and housing market nightmares? We can commit ourselves to direct action, by actually building shelter and by cooperatively acquiring properties to rehab and sell at low cost, for example.
We can organize marches and encampments to rebel against gentrification. We can fight alongside and on behalf of socioeconomic victims, in areas where housing will be torn down for corporate developments. We can bring people together to participate in trainings on legal home ownership defense and nonviolent direct action, and then participate in coordinated actions, which will hopefully grow and strengthen the movement.
Most importantly for the focus of the New World Rising, we can work together
to acquire and build affordable and alternative housing, to be occupied by fellow activists.
We are not powerless. Together, we can do this.
The federal government has proven that it’s unwilling and unable to address the economic and housing crises. And while the Occupy Movement did have difficulty translating into a widespread political movement, the fact remains that we still have power to make effective change on the grassroots, local and community levels. If you care about affordable housing and alternative housing, whether for the homeless, for activists, or for anyone else, then it’s important to get busy and organize a grassroots community group to deal with the city, county, corporate and other forces that try to oppose fair housing. That seems to be the best and possibly only way to demand that things like sustainability and affordability play a vital role in housing plans. When opposition and protest do not work, we turn to actively building viable alternatives together.
All of the elements that led to the Occupy
movement’s birth are still in place, and are in fact worse. The rich are richer, the corrupt live without fear of going to jail, and everyone knows the government is not coming to save us.
Social Justice Activism is the individual or collective effort to address injustice and to promote justice, by direct or indirect means, including writing letters and signing petitions, campaigning for politicians who stand for justice and equality, commitment to boycotts or to such things as only buying local, going to street marches, going on strike, and things of that nature, performed with all due respect. We make it known that the situation is unacceptable. My favorite and most accessible form of activism is online networking,
using social media to facilitate your participation in the conversations,
and to organize collective actions.
The New World Rising is aligned with the cooperative movement style of activism. In this way of activism, people work collectively to build alternatives to what is not working, going so far as to build new institutions and entities that are in accord with cooperative principles. The intentional communities movement would be a good example of this. Intentional communities help to reinhabit the suburgatory of America and rewild it with life ways closer to those of our grandparents, living with and loving your neighbors, more like family than strangers. Activists in cooperative mode don’t seek to lobby politically or to protest, they simply combine powers and resources in order to accomplish great things that actually address the needs of the common people, the common wealth, and the common good.
We’ve touched on the Occupy Movement as an ongoing event that drew in many people to protest widespread economic and political horrors, but failed to translate into a huge widespread movement with the power to actually transform society. However, we sure tried it for quite a good long time, planting memes and seeds for future change and growth. We touched on the fact that all of those seeds dispersed far and wide, as activists went home and reinvigorated the sociopolitical climate wherever they lived. Now I will round this out by touching on the right to housing, which is why social justice activists fight for affordable housing in the first place.’
The right to housing is the basic socio-eco-cultural right to adequate housing and shelter. This most basic human right is endowed to all humans, and is recognized in most national constitutions, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is stated that humans have a right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. It states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” According to international human rights law, in the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the right to housing is regarded as a freestanding right.
So what’s wrong with this picture??? What’s wrong is that this is theoretically
one of the richest countries in the world, yet millions of people of all ages are homeless!
And the vast majority of them are homeless due to circumstances beyond their control.
They're completely deprived of their basic human rights,
and very few people do anything about it.
Sure, we can be creative and talk about earth bag houses, boat houses, tree houses, and all kinds of cool stuff. But for now, consider that these things are not even in the realm of possibility for the vast majority of people. They can’t even find a bathroom sometimes, so how are they to find a way to create a humble little home like that,
as their basic human rights say they can and should have?
That’s where social justice activists come in.
Habitat for Humanity does some mainstream things, and they have their pros and cons. However, there are many innovative people out there,
actually inventing housing solutions of all kinds, both permanent and mobile.
They are putting their money where their mouths are,
they are walking their talk, and they are a gift to the world.
And if more people lived like them, we would have a lot less homeless people.
We must work individually and collectively to promote solutions,
economically, politically and culturally,
at the grassroots, local, and countrywide levels.
We need a return to diversity, extended families, sustainability,
innovation, clean energies, and so on.
We need gardens on every rooftop, so every family can feed itself.
We need rain catchment barrels with filters at every home.
And most importantly, we need a nice humble home of some kind or another
for every single person and family who wants one.
There is no excuse for it to not be that way.
The reason is greed and power in the wrong hands.
We have a long road ahead, but if we take it together,
one step at a time,
we make real change in lives, in history and in the world.
