Stand Together, Fight Displacement, Fund the Movement to Defend Homes
Channel: OOH Atlanta
Date: 2015-10-21

Help fund this important movement :https://www.gofundme.com/g66stgyt 
 Over the past 3 years Occupy Our Homes Atlanta has launched dozens of campaigns that have ended in victories for regular everyday people standing up to big banks and slumlords, we’ve help bring national attention to mortgage fraud, and helped renters organize tenants associations, won back churches, a farm, and even small business from the big banks clutches.. Now we’re trying to go deeper, but we need your help to do it!

Neighborhoods south of I-20, like Peoplestown,  were hit hard during the housing crash; most of the neighborhoods surrounding Turner Field lost more than 60% of their wealth. The mass displacement that followed has created a perfect storm for developers and bad news for longtime residents. Occupy Our Homes Atlanta has been working with residents to organize housing justice trainings, tenants associations, and build local leaders who have to capacity to organize to win.

We're grateful to have been able to help Miss Mattie Jackson and her neighbors to launch a campaign to save their homes from a development project in Peoplestown.

Development done wrong could result in the displacement of hundreds, maybe thousands.   We have an opportunity to insure that development lifts up those that have lived here for years. Development could bring jobs, improve and expand affordable housing options, bring healthy food options, and create new community space! This isn’t work we aspire to do, its work we are already doing! We’ve already launched five new tenant associations in the Peoplestown and Mechanicsville communities and we’re currently providing tenant leaders with organizing workshops, access to legal experts, and on the ground organizing support.

Just last month we worked with homeowners facing displacement in Peoplestown and launched a city wide campaign that caught the attention of every media outlet in the city and beyond and forced the mayor to give one of the homes slated for demolishment back to the rightful owner, we’re halfway to a major victory.

We know we need real resources to have a decade’s long impact that insures more affordable housing and real economic growth that sees longtime residents benefitting from the development of their communities. 
We have a three tiered approach to building power in the Turner Field Communities.
1.            Continue to help build tenant associations in complexes around Turner Field prioritizing Project based section 8 complexes that have HUD contracts expiring in the next 5 years or failed REAC scores.
2.            Continue to build community wide SMP Housing Justice Movement which acts as a space to bring tenant associations together along with community leaders, homeowners facing displacement, and ally organizations. Our goal is to launch more and more issue based campaigns through SMP Housing Justice Movement.
3.            Continue to engage and play a leadership role in the Turner Field Community Benefits Coalition. This is the space that brings together over 40 organizations based communities surrounding Turner Field who are concerned about how the area will be developed once the Braves leave Turner Field. Our hope is to continue to engage the base we are building to turn out to the coalition to ensure that a benefits agreement prioritizes affordable housing and community control over as much land as possible.
Our goal is to hire a highly skilled full time organizer and a part time canvassing coordinator. Can we count on you to pitch in and help us make this happen?