Related stories:  Privatizing Public Housing, UK and Estate, a book review

This cartoon was created by Dr. Pop and the  Campaign to Restore National Housing Rights (CRNHR), a national organizing effort led by grassroots groups from the across the country who are fighting for a human right to housing in the United States. We also got great critical feedback and help from public housing members of the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) and Union de Vecinos in Los Angeles and Community Voices Heard (CVH) and the Red Hook Initiative in New York City.

A Clear View of Public Housing is a story about public housing in the United States.  It takes place on a sunny day when three women of different economic classes meet up at a city park along with their young children and then get into a conversation about public housing.

A Clear View of Public Housing was made to be used as a  springboard to conversations and actions led by communities organizing in defense of human rights and, in particular, the human right to housing.

The story will be  available in three forms:

The above Video which you can share by email, post to your  website, or download.  A Spanish Version is also available.

An Interactive Slideshow version of the video, for use in workshop settings, as suggested below. [request]

A Comic Book (coming soon) for door-to-door outreach or to hand out after a workshop

Tips for Facilitators

Here are three simple ways that the Campaign to Restore National Housing Rights has used the story in workshop settings.

1.  Role-Play
Ask volunteers from your meeting or workshop to take on a character’s role and read their speech bubble aloud to the rest of the audience.  We found the results to be engaging and funny.

2.  Practice: “What Would You Say?”After watching the video or slideshow, break up into small groups or pairs to practice answering one or two questions that came up in the story, such as:

What would you say, if someone said this to you:
Housing is a business and the government should stay out of it.  They should leave business to the business people.
or
Public housing over-concentrates poor people into neighborhoods, and that is not good for anybody.
or
Subsidized housing takes away people’s incentive to work hard.  No one should get something for nothing.

The burden is often on public housing tenants and housing rights activists to re-educate legislators and the general public on the issues that we face.  This often means that we must engage in conversations that are full of myths and prejudices.  You can use A Clear View as a tool to practice our side of these conversations, share the results with each other, and build the confidence we need to confront hidden myths and prejudices.

3.  Make Your Own Story!
Before we created A Clear View, we took some time to break down the story that we are being told about public housing.  We found that that exercise gave us a window into the assumptions and vulnerabilities of that story, and helped us get better at building one that reflects our own reality.  To do this, we used the Narrative Power Analysis tool which you can find in smartMeme‘s really helpful book: Re-imagining Change.

For more information about the CRNHR and to send feedback, stories, and suggestions, visit restorehousingrights.org or contact Brittany Scott.  We would love to hear from you!

Andrea Gibbons, among other things, established SAJE‘s Research Department with some path-breaking work that uncovered an invisible criminal slumlord empire just by digging into the information that surrounded a single building.  Andrea was followed  by Albert Lowe (aka Uncle Joe) who laid the groundwork for the Shame of the City reports that are referred to in our recent Get the Lead Out article.  Both of their  efforts contributed mightily towards the criminal convictions of two of L.A.’s biggest and baddest slumlords.  Here Andrea share’s her 5-step method on how to research a slumlord, which is also summarized in the 5-minute video below.

So you wanna get down and dirty and research a slumlord?

How to Research A Slumlord from Gilda Haas on Vimeo.

I believe that each and every one of us has a right to a safe and secure, I’d go so far as to say cozy, place to call home. While I have not yet succeeded in making this a universal belief (and I do stress the yet), I will say there is widespread agreement that a landlord must maintain his building if you’re paying him rent. Given that most owners see our beloved homes as nothing more than income streams that are only hurt by maintenance expenses, this is always a cause of no small tension. There are, of course, those among the wider pool of investors who are out and out blankety-blanks. Buy me a drink sometime and I will tell you what I really think, especially as this post has nothing to do with the whys of slumlords, so don’t forget the larger forces at work here that also require attention!

Far too many of our people are forced to live with rats, roaches, peeling paint, mold, an absence of heat, raw sewage, leaking pipes… the list goes on, as does my fury. If you’re going to dig deep and put the hours in to finding out exactly who is profiting off of such daily assaults upon their tenants, then I would first recommend love and fury in equal measures. They will make up for your learning curve, and sustain you in your attention to numbing detail and bureaucracy.

And so! For the agony and ecstasy of corporate research in 5 “easy” steps (and my apologies that specific sources are American though the theory is the same everywhere), keep reading…

Know them up and down, backwards and forwards before you do anything, and I mean anything.  Slumlords don’t like tenants or tenant organizers getting uppity, so be extremely prepared.

• Dig out those contracts, read them, find out exactly what you’ve signed up for if you didn’t already know. I’m afraid to say there are often some nasty surprises in there.  Those lawyers know what they’re doing.

• Cities and states have different laws protecting tenants, find out which ones apply to you. All of them have basic requirements for building maintenance. At best you also have your rent control (which limits how much an owner can increase your rent), and you have your just cause eviction (which limits the reasons you can be evicted). If your town has neither, then it’s just down to you and whatever you can negotiate into your contract. Make sure you have back up, and check out Vida Urbana/City Life to see just how much tenants working together have been able to negotiate into collective contracts.

Knowledge alone isn’t power, I’m afraid.  If it were my life would be much different. What knowledge does is allow you to use your power most effectively to place pressure where pressure will make a difference. You need to consider your options on how best to use it.

You can pressure the owner directly. For example when I worked at SAJE, we once took a tenant delegation to meet with their landlord’s pastor. That stopped the harassment and threatened evictions pretty quickly.

Another obvious target is the city or county, who are more likely to try and act effectively after you have built a picture of the landlord’s evil business operations and their effects on their tenants and community.

The picture below shows the kind of  strategic information that maybe be useful and where the pressure points might lie, but don’t let this limit you!  Every landlord and city is different.  There are undoubtedly other possibilities.

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