Week of February 8
Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign
Week of February 8th
1) Community Meeting (2/11)
UCLA Institute to Focus on Activists Tackling Inequality
In 2014, the Chicago Housing Authority opened its public housing waitlist for the first time since 2010, and its housing voucher waitlist for the first time since 2008. More than a quarter of Chicago households applied. Meanwhile, more than 55,000 homes sat vacant in Chicago and the surrounding county.
The Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, founded in 2009, has been tackling that problem by occupying foreclosed homes — asking neighbors’ permission first — taking them over, cleaning them up, refurbishing them if possible and then moving in a family in need of a home. The family pays no rent or mortgage. The campaign also prevents evictions, often by nonviolent force, with campaigners standing in front of houses to physically block evictions. Co-founder and chief organizer, Willie “J.R.” Fleming (J.R. stands for “Just Righteousness”), regularly accompanies families to court. Chicago didn’t have just a housing crisis, he told New York Times Magazine in 2013, it had a moral crisis.
The campaign’s work caught the eye several years ago of Ananya Roy, now professor of urban planning and social welfare at UCLA. She began studying Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign’s work, building relationships with Fleming and others from the organization. Roy is the inaugural director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, which launched this week. The Institute plans to support social science work rooted directly in the ideas and experiences of social movements like the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign.
For more, go here
1)
What: Weekly Community Meeting
Meet at 6:30pm at 1401 E. 75th Street
When: Thursday, February 11th, 6:30pm
This Thursday, we will be hosting Ashraf Cassiem of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign to our weekly meeting and discussing the ongoing Community Land Trust project.
For more information, call 773-236-0559
--
= = = =
To contact the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, email us at antiev...@gmail.com or call (312) 287-7228
To join our emergency contact network, text @OccupyOurHomesChi to 23559
Visit us on the web at chicagoantieviction.org
and twitter at @chiantieviction