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This is Sarah and Mariam from Occupy Our Homes Atlanta (OOHA) and we’re proud to share with y’all our experiences taking part in the very first Occupy Our Homes Housing Justice Academy held here this past weekend. We had folks from all over the Southeast join us– from Florida to Louisiana to Tennessee– to develop our organizing skills, learn home defense tactics and strategies, and participate in nonviolent direct action. Fueled by our new friendships (and many, many pots of coffee), we made our way through the weekend, covering topics from media production seminars to the history of the mortgage crisis to Kingian nonviolence, even taking a field trip to the MLK Center. We shared stories and strategies and, most importantly, built community power to form the relationships and coalitions necessary to help move the housing justice movement forward.Image may be NSFW.
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Being a housing justice activist means wearing many different hats, which was reflected in our schedule. We started the weekend with our first session, The Story of Us. We each shared our story with each other to see the commonalities that brought us all together, whether that’s our sense of justice, our debt, or our resolve to change things for the better. It also helped us see what made us all unique, each offering different strengths and experiences that can contribute to the movement. Storytelling is an essential tool in our work; it is through our narratives that we are able to put a face on the destruction of our communities caused by big banks and Wall Street.
After learning about each other, we learned about what we’re fighting for. OOHA staff member Rob Call dropped some knowledge about the housing crisis, including the history of how we got to where we are today and who’s responsible for leading us there. He broke down ideas and concepts so we understood what we’re up against and can better strategize for how to fight back and bring power back where it belongs– with the people. Here’s a link to Rob’s presentation and here are the notes that accompany the slides.
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After lunch, it was time for the main event: the OOHA tour! We set up four stations that represent the main stages of an OOHA campaign: Creating a Narrative, Community Engagement, Relationship Building, and Escalation. Each station was facilitated by an OOHA member, who was able to offer background and context for what we do and why we do it. We also had activities — after all, the best way to learn is by doing! Creating a Narrative offered strategies for how to best express a homeowner’s struggle in their petition and tips for communicating our stories to be engaging, effective, and affective. We discussed how to target people who can enforce change, tapping into existing resources and support networks, and how to speak to both people’s heads and their hearts. The Community Engagement session focused on the importance of building support and reaching out to others facing foreclosure to build a base of enthusiastic housing justice advocates. Outreach can sometimes feel like a daunting process and it can be expensive in both time and resources, so we focused on some of our fears about reaching out to others before working on how we can overcome those challenges.
The Relationship Building tour stop covered how to build relationships with all types of media outlets, as well as how to build a base by using effective social media and creating your own media. Finally, the main objective of the Escalation tour stop was to help folks understand best practices and chronological steps they should take in organizing a creative direct action.
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On Sunday morning, we covered the basic principles of grassroots organizing, including best practices and the ladder of engagement. The rest of the Academy was filled with interactive and engaging group activities that gave us a space to practice what we had been learning and discussing. The Beloved Community activity helped us deal with conflict resolution and how to manage outside forces that can try to co-opt or redirect a community movement.
We also went through a skit that put us in the various roles that are played during a home liberation (including cops!) so that we could get a sense of what experiences and challenges to expect in that situation. The activities all emphasized non-violent tactics so we know how to keep our cool in the high stress, high anxiety circumstances that might come out of a direct action. Considering all the twists and challenges we threw at the participants during the exercises, Sarah and I were so impressed and so proud at how resilient and strong all our home defenders were!
Thinking back to the start of the Academy, we shook hands over coffee and muffins and expressed our anticipation for the weekend ahead of us. By the end of the workshop, we were exchanging hugs and contact information and making plans for how to take the next steps in everyone’s home cities. The Academy was much more than a skillshare; through our activities, we developed trust in one another and formed bonds to carry through to the next workshop, the next action, and the next victory.