 All right, thank you. So this discussion will center around housing justice in New York and the United States. It will generally follow a format of first describing the structural problems in the American housing system that cause chronic housing insecurity, defunded public housing and mass homelessness. And then we will discuss alternative systems to housing and how community organizing and political organizing are the tools of achieving the structural change needed. Finally, we will end with questions from the audience. Throughout this panel, please feel free to enter your questions into the chat and we will post them to the panel toward the end of this event. And without further ado, let's introduce our panelists. Excellent, so beginning Karen Blondell is the executive director and co-founder of the Public Housing Civic Association in New York City, a community liaison for the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine and she's the newly elected resident association president of the Red Hook Houses, as well as the current Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her organizing work is concerned with rebuilding deteriorated public housing and involves education around climate change adaptation and mitigation and political education workshops to empower marginalized communities. Moving on, Liz McGriff is an activist and community organizer at the Citywide Tenant Union in Rochester, New York. She is also a founder of the City Roots Community Land Trust also in Rochester which formed after she and Take Back the Land organized a successful event against her bank when they attempted to foreclose her house and evict her from her home. And Robert Robinson is an adjunct professor of urbanism at the New School Parsons School of Design. He is a co-founder of the Take Back the Land Movement and member of its leadership committee. And he is currently a special advisor at Partners for Dignity and Rights, among many other national and international housing organizing positions. Two decades ago, Robert experienced homelessness for nearly three years and it was this lived experience that it was this lived experience that led him to the critical perspective toward housing that he will share with us tonight. And finally, Cia Weaver is the campaign coordinator at Housing Justice for All, housing organizer with the Democratic Socialist of America, one-time nominee for the New York City Planning Commission and a prominent presence in all things New York housing. Welcome to our panelists and thank you once more for joining. So in our first half, I would like to start by asking our panelists to simply describe the problems with housing as it currently exists as you see it from the perspective of your organizing work. And, Cia, I would like to start with you if you could describe kind of the power and balances involved in housing right now. Wow, I wasn't expecting to have to go first. I'm sorry to do so. No worries, can you guys hear me okay? Awesome, well, thank you everyone for having me and I am really lucky to be in the presence of such an amazing co-panelist, really amazing. I'm a housing organizer and it's an activist across the state, so I'm really honored to be here with them. So I work as a campaign coordinator at Housing Justice for All, which is a statewide coalition of over 80 grassroots, tenant unions and organizations of homeless New Yorkers fighting for housing justice in Albany. And what I know from doing that work is that the real estate industry is far and away the most powerful presence in our state capital. And they do that in two ways. They have a lot of power when it comes to simply donations but it's also deeper than that, right? The real estate industry is able to really shape the discourse and shape the thinking about so many issues that shape how our policy makers think. So that means that our policy makers are quite often thinking about homeowners before they're thinking about renters because we are trained to think that homeowners are more likely to vote. So there's that power imbalance that shows up in Albany. And then simply when it comes to, you know, where are we for that sort of like a political power imbalance that we're trying to attack by fighting for statewide tenant rates policies like good causes of a kin are probably top priority in Albany right now. Another sort of power imbalance in our state capital is just that there are so many people who are elected, who are landlords or who are homeowners who are not renters, right? So there's not actually that many tenants who hold power in our political system. And that matters, right? Because the bills that we are fighting for are overwhelmingly popular with voters. Every time we do a poll, it's really like, everyone believes that the things that we're fighting for are good and just but the people who policy makers in Albany believe that they're representing do not end up supporting these things. And that's sort of, that's terrible. That's like a terrible state of affairs. When you're taking a step back from the political system and we're really just thinking about like how people live, the reality is that right now for millions of New Yorkers, they're living basically at the behest of their landlords. It is simply far too easy for your landlord to push you out of your home. It is far too easy for your landlord to raise your rent to a level that you can't afford. And all of that is baked into sort of centuries of public policy in this country. A country that really was founded as a real estate company. This is not like first to democracy. The United States is a real estate company first in the democracy second from the moment that European stuff put on this land, right? And the reality is that our entire political system is structured around the rights of people who own property and not the rights to housing. And that shows up in ways big and small for renters and homeless New Yorkers every day in our state. I'll stop there. Thank you, Sia, very thorough. So we do have a panelist who has experienced this very lopsided dynamic of power. Liz, I was wondering if you could talk about your experience with your bank trying to foreclose your home and their attempts to evict you from your home? It was, you know, when I originally brought my home, it was, you know, a very, it was a very, you know, liberating experience. It was an opportunity for me to build some generational wealth for my children. And then a set of circumstances happened where I lost my job and I could no longer pay for the home. And so when I did go to reapply for, you know, different type of employment, it was at a lower rate than what I was originally making. So it just made it impossible for me to catch up from being behind. And so the bank foreclosed my home and then through the foreclosure process, there was a point of negotiation and the bank sent me a letter saying, you know, because we're in negotiation, we can't, you know, continue with the foreclosure. So I thought, you know, I have some breathing room. But then, you know, a week later, I found out that the bank went through with the foreclosure and basically was, you know, telling me to get out without, you know, other notice. And I got a little angry. I got a little upset. And then somebody came knocking on my door from take back the land and they said, we can help you with this. And at first, when I looked, I was a little nervous. You know, I kind of peeked around the door and said, okay, who are you? You know, I had my own, you know, how I was going to bring myself out of this. I had my own, you know, mechanism. I was going to use the system to kind of help me, you know, they had lawyers that could help with this. So I went through the process and just going through the process was, you know, even though I had a job, I had to take off my work just to go to court the court system to try to get this turned around. And just, I kind of just, I think with my situation, I just fell through the cracks even though there was a way to save my home, I fell through the cracks and, you know, the bank just proceeded the court system, gave the bank, you know, pretty much everything that they wanted, everything they asked for and did not even regard, you know, what I was saying, well, I have income. I'm able to pay a certain amount, but the bank really wanted the home. So they proceeded with the foreclosure. I went through four eviction attempts and because I did, you know, take the advice of the folks that knocked on my door and said, hey, we can help you. And got a lot of community support around it and started telling my story. So, you know, I went through five evictions, eviction attempts and, you know, every time they said we're going to come on this day, we had a crowd of people on my lawn saying, you know, we don't want this to happen to people in our community. We don't want the police involved in this. We just, we want to negotiate, you know, a different means of just taking foreclosures for taking people's homes, just keeping people, keeping people in their homes. And so, so the fifth time I was evicted and I was out of my home for a month and then I just got so angry and just so mad because I felt like this was an injustice because I put so much sweat equity into that home and it was something that I'm losing and just, you know, losing a future for my kids. I also put, you know, some of my 401K in to kind of save the home because it was a long period of time where I wasn't working. So I was using that, those funds to kind of keep me, you know, to be able to survive. And so, you know, I just got angry. And so I ended up going back into my home and, you know, talking to the bank and negotiating, saying, you know, this is, this is an outrage. This is unfair. This is not right. And the community is still supported. The bank said, we're still gonna evict you. They said, but we had a lot of a series of programs on my front line, we had lawn. We had ministers come out and saying, this is an injustice. This is not fair to the community. The community should have, you know, a say so of who, you know, they want in their community. And, you know, through a series of actions we were able to get the bank to resell my home back to me at 15% of the market value of the home, which it took a lot of community support. And like I said, we had ministers on the lawn. We had sermons on the lawn. We had music on the lawn. We had a cookout and we invited the neighbors down the street. So we did a lot of background stuff just to bring attention to it. The media was there each night and, you know, saying, you know, keep this person in their home. So there was a lot of things that happened on, you know, those days. And there was one day they came, they were gonna come in the middle of a snowstorm to take my home. And I got pictures, I didn't bring them, but, you know, the snow is this high and, you know, there's people out there shoveling. So it was a community event and it was great because it, you know, we showed there was community support and we wanted like a different structure, a different way and something else to happen. So, you know, after, you know, during that time period we were kind of forming the city roots community land trust. And so there was three people. St. Joseph's House of Hospitality was supporting as well as take back the land. And myself and we kind of started, you know, doing the paperwork for doing forming the CLT. And then we had set up a board with the St. Joseph's House of Hospitality's board and they were willing to, because they already had the Dorothy Day house, which is a house which is very affordable and the tenants, you know, really have, they pay very low rent. So they thought this would be a good model to follow after. So then, you know, the city roots community land trust was formed and my home was one of the first homes to go into the city roots community land trust. And now it's affordable for years to come, even for next generation, which is a different way of looking at things. Totally, totally. And I want to come back to that later in the panel and hear more about the, you know, the structure of that community land trust. But yeah, it's really an incredible story. It's, you know, I think what bothers me is how very minor disruptions in someone's life can end up totally destabilizing them by making them unable to afford their housing suddenly. And, you know, one respite for, you know, many, many thousands of people from that sort of dynamic is public housing. And, you know, unfortunately, public housing has been defunded at the national level for decades and decades now. And Karen, I know that you are a community organizer involved in public housing. I was wondering if you could tell us about the state of public housing right now as you see it. Sure. Thank you for having me. My name is Karen Blondell. I'm a public housing advocate and organizer in Brooklyn. And I must say that when I hear these stories from other panelists, it's devastating to hear that everybody is going through so much. I mean, I have a person up here in Harvard with me and his fellowship who was a topic executive and he was living in 500 square feet and feeling really like a substandard conditions in New York City. And I'm sure he was able to pay more rent than I was or I'm able to pay. So that really points to the fact that we have a lot of deteriorating infrastructure and built environment throughout New York City. And we grandfathered in a lot of these properties in regards to toxins, in regards to repairs. And I feel that, well, doing my research, I realized that it's not just the disinvestment by the federal government, but it also is the way the money is handed down. So the federal government as we saw in the last eight years can pivot like a pendulum. And so we had a Republican administration in and things were very volatile. Things were very different. Each administration gets to appoint their heads and commissioners and friends and family for that matter. And so when you deal with Black America, those who migrated from 1917 to 1970, find yourselves veiled pinned in public housing in New York City. You have to really take a moment and think about what that means. We're still in a state where I don't feel comfortable moving around at least 40% of the states that make up the United States of America. We use underground railroads and all kinds of things. And some of them are still around thanks to advocacy in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn because we wanted to come to areas where we had more freedom. But we, again, found ourselves inheriting buildings that were built in the 1930s. And these buildings had all kinds of toxins from asbestos to lead-based paints, the gas rises, the waste traps, the sewage, all of those lines when Black people started moving into public housing in numbers in the 70s and 80s, those things were already 50, 60 years old. So I don't think we've ever had anything as a community that was new. We always get the hand-me-down infrastructure from others, even during urban renewal, even during these different processes. And so we find ourselves disinvested not only by the federal government, but also by the state and by the municipality. Over and over, we hear everybody pointing fingers saying, no, the money goes that way. No, it goes this way. We really need a political education in public housing so that we can understand who our targets are because we wind up wasting a lot of time talking to the wrong people. And so that brings me to what's happening in public housing now. Most public houses in the New York City is built around waterfronts or in lowlands. So one thing we're dealing with is the ramifications of climate change and this deteriorating infrastructure as well as the divestment of these areas. And so back in the Obama days, they came up with a program called RAD, Rental Assistance Demonstration. This was created by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. And in New York City, it would only, in its best days, cover 60,000 of 176,000 units. So that's the first thing I wanna make clear to people is that when you hear about this Rental Assistance Demonstration, it's appropriated by the federal government. And so it will be based on appropriations going forward. These appropriations usually cover 15 to 20 years and they're willing to, or we can voluntarily, as the State of New York acts for this Rental Assistance Demonstration, which is the vehicle that New York City uses to create this system is called PAC, Permanent Affordability Commitment Together. So RAD and PAC go hand in hand. RAD is the money or the authorization if you wanna convert to public-private partnership. And PAC is the New York City way that they get it done. This is very controversial to public housing residents because nobody's explaining it like I am. It takes time. Even the way I'm explaining it to you, it has to be said and you have to realize it over time exactly what's being said in regards to RAD. But RAD, one of the things that it does, it provides New York City Housing Authority a way to rehabilitate and repair its units without depending on additional taxpayer money. We get a lot of money from the federal government for public housing. But when that money comes down, it passes through the state of New York. The state of New York then decides whether to send it downstate, which New York City is called, or upstate because there is public housing upstate in New York. And so I don't feel like we get out fair share. I feel like it's a form of redlining. We don't get out fair share in New York just based on the number of blacks, black descendants of slaves and Indians who are congested inside of New York City housing authority in these vertical structures. Another thing that they were thinking of doing was something called infill. But infill would be placing a market rate building on the underutilized open space at each development. In my opinion, they look at that more as like which development could get the most per square foot rather than looking at it as which one has the most underutilized space. So that's an issue for me in and of itself with that one. And then finally, I wanna explain something called Resident Management Corporations because I think that Rob and Ms. McGriff, when you talk about how you were able to, it took a lot and it took persistence and you had it and you got through this and you got a community land trust together. But I'm also always hearing from resident leaders about what do you want a resident management corporation? Well, I looked it up. It's not an easy thing to do. It can be done, but it is not something that you will be able to do overnight. And I feel like if resident leaders really wanted this, it's been on the book for decades. You can learn a little bit maybe by partnering up with Rob or someone. And then finally, the thing is the preservation trust. So there was a big lawsuit in New York City back in 2018. Thousands of children were poisoned with lead and the city had fraudulently filled out affidavits that this lead was even contained or non-existent. The residents really came and spoke out about other conditions like vermin, like broken pipes, like leaks, like mole. And so through a court order, we received a federal monitor and we received a CEO. And the CEO's job was to come up with another alternative to save public housing. Because if you recall, in 2018, when this was all in the news and President Trump was still in office, the threat was federal receivership, which is the way things are supposed to go if the city and the state cannot remedy the situation. And everybody was like, no, not under the Trump administration. Please, no receivership. But what's happening is we're being held in suspended animation in regards to these repairs. Because if it's no because of a political agenda in Washington, or it's no because the state decided to send more money upstate than downstate, or it's no because, hey, these kids aren't on the lease, but yeah, they live in public housing. You kick them off the lease during the crime, crime bill of 1996 in direct contact with the Noriega contraband and crack epidemic of the 1980s. So that's what I remember. I was growing up in red public housing in 1980. By 1985, 86 out of nowhere crack invaded the community. The community tried to fight back as best they could and it did a good job. We also brought in a lot of organizing in the community, like the Red Hook Community Justice Center. We started lifting each other up, you know what I'm saying? But unfortunately, there was still policies in place that are very racist and that also do a pendulum swing every time a different administration comes into office. So I'll stop right there and give someone else the floor. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Karen. So, you know, I think that there's a kind of background feature to a lot of these problems and it can be summed up in one word and that's profit. And Rob, I was wondering if you could kind of dissect these issues from the underlying structure of profit for us and other problems that you see with housing as well. So thank you. First, I wanna commend my fellow panelists. I just agree with all of the thoughts that they dropped on the table and there's a relationship in one way or the other. Sierra and I have worked together for years, we know one another. I was obviously from my bio, I was very much involved in the take back the land movement. While I didn't work directly with Liz, one of Liz's neighbors, Catherine Lennon, is a house that we liberated through the work of take back the land. And you know, in the chat, I put a name, some people say don't call people's names out, but Ryan Acuff was a leader in the take back the land local action group up in Rochester and made a lot of stuff happen. So Liz, your story is powerful thanks for sharing. And I think we have to share stories like that because that's how we build, I like to say data, right? So we often think of data as surveillance, but data is often used against us. We can use data to make our stories and push forward. So we have to think that way. Karen Red Hook Initiative stands tall in the face of those cruise ships and overlook in New York Harbor. And I've seen public housing fall all over the country and I keep saying, yo, how the hell is Red Hook House is still standing there? So the fight has been strong props to all of you guys out in Red Hook houses. It has been a powerful effort out there. And, you know, I know Red Hook Initiative real well. I go out there often and talk to the youth and collaborate with them. So yeah, you know, sometimes it could be daunting and it doesn't feel like you're winning, but y'all are doing some dynamite work out there. And obviously, you know, Sia and I, Sia is leading the housing justice for all movement, which is bringing folks together. So just before I go into the economics of this issue, I wanna talk, there's some fundamental things because the work that housing justice for all is working on and organizing tenants really says there's a problem in this country. And I think part of it is class, right? Because there's single family homeowners who might say to the renters, go get yours. I got mine. I worked hard. I believed in the American dream. I believe the American dream can be somewhat of a false narrative at this point. Conditions have changed and we have to understand that. And then we have to do, I think it was Karen who bought a popular and political education. And we as organizers on the ground have to do a better job of that because how do we get that information out to people so that they stop salivating about that American dream? Home ownership is not gonna lead to wealth in my opinion and I'll debate this with anybody. I would say for many people, it'll lead to perpetual debt. And I think the biggest problem here is we haven't gone at the core issue. See a mention from the creation of this country and taken land from indigenous folks. And poverty was never addressed in this country, the way it should be, right? That's the fundamental problem, right? Wages don't rise as fast as rents, right? So renters are always gonna be in a stuck situation. So we have to look at that. But I think the commodification of land and housing has also led to problems in this country, right? What Liz talked about community land trust is a way to remove land from the market. The market is not gonna solve our problems. It's just not gonna do it, right? And there was a certain percentage of people in this country let them deal with the market all they want, right? The 1%ers can do that and they can play in the market all they want. But for 99% of us, that's gonna be a challenge, right? And we have to be honest about that and we have to talk openly about that. So how do we bring more humanity to the way that we live? And I think we have to learn to share, we live in a country where we decide, I'm gonna get mine and I get my family's, you go get yours. That's not gonna build community, right? And I think that's what about struggle, whether we're open enough to admit that or not. I think an economic system that preys on us, and I was on the subway this morning and it was a sign for people to get their credit rating up. I'm not a believer in credit rating, but there are some people that do because they want to buy a home and I don't wanna crush anybody's wishes, but there's a credit card that they have out now that has an APR rate from anywhere from 12% to 30%. That's gonna put you deeper in an F in the hole and people don't get it. And we salivate towards this and they constantly push these messages out at us and we've absorbed it. If we stop saying we don't want to borrow money, then the system is gonna change. So we have to push back on the system but understand how it works back to popular and political education. There was a time in this country when you talk about capitalism, socialism and some of these other reasons people didn't wanna hear it. Oh, you're just a communist, get away from me. What are you talking about? And I would say that even my own family and my dad and mom on here to defend themselves but I grew up in the house that believed in those narratives. Work hard and you're gonna get this. They didn't look at some of the obstacles that were put in the way of preventing them from getting ahead, right? And then you come to the situation that Liz was in during the economic downturn. Our president, we all salivated for this guy, Obama, who got elected and he took our tax money and bailed out banks and basically sent a message, you know what Liz, it's okay for you to fail but Bank of America can't fail. And then Bank of America and Citibank and JP Morgan Chase started foreclosing and evicting us in record numbers, right? So that's how the work of take back the land came about. You can't have the houses and attach money to just doesn't work that way. So we're gonna take back the houses. And I think that's the kind of way we have to rise up in this country. I am a little disenchanted with society in this country. I thought that was the time and I'm not preaching violence here, folks. I understand what I'm saying. I thought that was the time for revolution and we sat and we did nothing in 2008. That was the time for us to send a message back at our government. So fast forward to today, some of these signs have perpetuated themselves through the pandemic. We see a tidal wave of evictions being prepared and ready to go through the courts and it makes the work of housing justice wrong and some of these other coalitions very strong right to counsel something we want. They're trying to take away from us. So folks are struggling. So I think it all comes down to money, right? The wealthy landlords in the 1% are trying to make sure that their lives are stable but dispose of the other 99% of us. But I think through popular and political education our voices need to rise up and we need to be heard. And sometimes that happens in many ways. We have made our voices heard at the ballot box. You're starting to see a wave of change in New York City. We have an all women city. Well, a majority, let me change that. A majority, I actually see a laughing city council. You can see how happy I am. That's a huge change for New York, right? Women are in the majority in the New York city council. That's huge. So I think there are opportunities here but we have to be smart and take advantage of those opportunities. As I like to say the door is a jaw. We need to kick it open and make the changes necessary for a better life. So I'm gonna stop right there and we can go into part two or however you guys wanna proceed. That is a wonderful segue into talking about solutions. How is it that we kick open that door? You know, Sia, I would love to hear about some campaigns that housing justice for all has done. Maybe stuff you're working on now. Just your perspective on how to achieve these things. Yeah, totally. A lot of my co-panelists has raised some really interesting ideas that I think are solutions here. So to me, the solution to adjust housing market, housing market, I don't wanna even use that word, adjust housing, whatever it is. System. System, there you go. Really relies on two things. The first is housing that is held off of the market in the public sector and is invested in in the public sector, is safe, is affordable, is well maintained, doesn't make us sick. Like housing in the public sector that is high quality and affordable permanently. And the second is this issue of, who is making decisions about the housing? People really wanna make decisions about where they live. Even if I had the best landlord in the world, if I was completely trapped out of the dignity that comes with making decisions about, am I gonna paint this wall the color that I want it? Am I gonna be able to make decisions about so many things? I mean, even from the moment you're a kid and you get your own room, you wanna put up the posters on the wall. Dignity and decision-making in our homes is incredibly important. And so this issue of democratic control over our housing controlled by the people who live in it is really, really meaningful and is really critical to the world that we wanna live in. So housing justice for all. And Karen spoke about that when she talked about resident management corporations. And it's hard work. Like making decisions about your home, it's hard work. But in public housing, in community land trusts, even in home ownership, this sort of like us getting to make decisions about where we lay our head at night is so important. Emotionally and for building the political buy-in to have that model sustained over time. A lot of sort of experiments with mass housing haven't worked when the people who live in the housing hate living there, you know? That is like so critically important that people feel connected and feel like they can like have a say in the future of what happens where they live. So at housing justice for all, we try to pursue policy campaigns that address those two lanes. One, public investment in safe housing and two, tenant power and tenant control. And we try to evaluate the legislation that comes before all of me and fight for bills that, you know, work on both of those things. And I, you know, Liz is on our hearing committee at housing justice for all. I work really closely with Rob. I don't work as closely with Karen, but I know Karen, your reputation precedes you and I'm inspired by your work. And our top priorities in Albany right now are two bills that I wanna speak about that really speak to both of these things, expanding public investment and expanding tenant control. The first is good cause eviction or right to remain. This is like a really straightforward bill that would expand more or less the right to a tenancy. So your landlord doesn't decide if you have to, if you get to leave or go to four million renters in New York state who currently have no protections whatsoever. The right to renew your lease or the right, it's not technically the right to renew your lease because in fact, many tenants don't have leases, but it is, it does say basically that if your landlord wants you to leave from your home where you live, they have to have a good reason to pursue that displacement action. And that's a second thing too, it says that a rent increase greater than 150% of the consumer price in that is as good as an eviction. So it's really a basic set of tenant protections, but the reason why we think it's like so relevant for this sort of tenant power and this public investment is that unregulated renters all over the state, including in New York City, cannot do a very basic thing. They can't set up a tenant organization and they can't get organized without a fear of landlord retaliation and a fear of then like eviction, right? There's so many predatory evictions. There's so many retaliatory evictions. There's so many families who are so afraid to call code that they don't call code so they're living in completely unsafe conditions. Unsure about what will happen if they try to get the lead paint out of their apartment, if they try to get that wiki mold fixed or that wiki ceiling fixed, whatever, whatever. So good cause eviction is a bill that we've been fighting for since 2019. It's before the state legislature right now sponsored by Julia Salazar in the Senate, Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter out of Syracuse in the Assembly and we're so confident that we can get it done this year. And I'm really thankful for the support of a lot of the folks on this call who have really built the campaign for this bill from scratch. The second thing that we're fighting for is tenant opportunities to purchase or write a first refusal. This is a bill that would give tenants who currently live in their homes a write a first refusal when their building is up for sale or for closure and also like I'll write a first offer. It's a mechanism and it allows a six month to a year process where tenants can seek public financing through either HCR or the local housing agency make an offer on the building and convert that building to a limited equity cooperative so a shared equity co-op, a community land trust like the one that lives as a private city route or if they so choose to convert that building to public housing. The bill says that if the tenants want to become public housing, they can do that. So that's sort of a second bill that we're pursuing that would allow to have use housing that's currently on the market to be controlled by things like resident management corporations like Karen mentioned. So those are our two priorities as housing justice for all in this legislative cycle. We were fighting for some things in the state budget. The state budget is being signed as we speak. It was a total disaster and hopefully we can turn some things around to get some things done in the remainder of the legislative cycle. And the last thing I wanna say is that the reason why I think these bills are so important is that we need to expand the number of people who are organized as renters in order to build more tenant power and in order to change to a new housing system. Right now, public housing tenants are organized as public housing tenants. Rent-stabilized tenants are organized as rent-stabilized tenants. Unregulated tenants are not as organized as they need to be, but we are really getting going and the tenant union and Rochester is like really leading the way on that. We need to find a way for all of these silos and homeless New Yorkers are also organized as homeless New Yorkers. We need to break out of these silos and have a basic set of protections for everyone that can unite us as a housing movement of people who are sort of locked out of the housing system, public housing residents, unregulated rent, all renters, homeless New Yorkers fighting together for a system that's, you know, for a new system because the one that we have right now is really not built for us. And so I'm really eager to figure that out to like raise the floor for all tenants so that we can be fighting together for investment in our public housing, investment in, you know, bringing more housing off of the market and into the public good. Very well put, Sia. Thank you. Karen, did you have something you wanted to add to that? Yes, I do. I mean, that all sounds great and, but I just have to remind Sia that public housing, affordable housing, rent stabilized, rent control housing, all different programs and public housing is a beast unto itself. And while you raised the issue that public housing has resident councils, it only took me 35 years to get elected. We had the same president for 40 years, okay? So that's nonsense. And I believe, and I'm gonna be provocative enough to say this, elected officials know what's going on in those residents council is really a part of the veal pen, is really a part of keeping us from getting the information that we need to take the next step in self-sufficiency. And because a lot of times they come in and they looking us for a voting block, instead of looking at us as human beings, intelligent enough to vote for those who look out for us, that we won't be doing anymore. And I'm putting everybody on notice today. We will not be voting in people who continue to do gaslighting with public housing residents. I do not share the stage with other work like housing justice for all, unfortunately because we weren't on their radar. And when it comes to public housing, public housing residents have to be the ones who speak. So I'm gonna say the reason why I created the Public Housing Civic Association was because things aren't working for public housing residents. Now, we also are a sanctuary city and I'm very grateful for New York City stepping up to the plate for that. But that doesn't mitigate the fact that I've been living in public housing for 40 years, paying over $100,000 out of my own pocket and ring. And I have no equity. Y'all talking about homes, I'm talking about holding onto a 400 square foot apartment because I paid a 30-year mortgage living in that same apartment for over 30 years. And I don't believe that we should start this compromised conversation around what I'm talking about and what you're talking about, Sia. And I'm not trying to be funny or nothing, but I'm not talking politics here. I'm talking fix our homes, period, period. And I want equity in my little 400 foot or whatever it is apartment because I've been in there since 1989 and nobody upgraded an electric wire, a riser, took as best those elect, they damn near try to kill me in there. That belongs to me. And if you really know the law, if it's proven then you really don't have to pay to be there. I'm gonna stop then. I don't mean to be confrontational, but I don't want nobody coming in red hook. Thinking that because we're organizing now, you're just gonna come out there and start gaslighting my community because we are organized and we will not be standing for that. That's not right. Public housing needs to get fixed first before we keep on going this person, that person, next thing, next thing, next thing. You're already talking about converting apartments through HCR. HCR has ignored public housing residents and so has DASM. Where's our money? Where's our money from the state? So if I'm up there begging for public housing and you begging for somebody else, we need to sit down and talk and come to a real consensus on how we're gonna both get some of this money. Cause right now y'all gaslighting us and I don't like it. Okay, I think an interesting pathway that's outside of electoral politics is the creation of community land trusts. We've mentioned them a couple of times in this conversation so far. Liz, I was wondering if you could describe the structure of your community land trust as a way of illuminating what community land trusts are. Well, community land trusts, they're kind of, they're built in this way so the land is held by the community for 90 years and the home is always affordable. It remains affordable for the next generation and how that affordability happens is people can, you know, you can pass it down to your children, it's kind of, and you build equity in your home, but it's not, you know, there's equity that's built in your home. Like if I go to sell my home, I would pay, you know, up to 25%. Well, I would, well, let me take this back for a second. The amount of money that I would get for selling my home, I could only sell it at a 25%, you know, advance. So that's, you know, if you look at any house on the market, it goes up, like for example, if I bought my house for 20,000 and now it goes in a year or so or, you know, a 10 year period, it goes up to 40 or 50,000. The amount of equity that I can sell it for is like 24 or 5% of what it was originally, what I originally brought it for. So you get an opportunity to build some equity, but it's not to the point where it's like the market, the market will sell the house if it's 25% and then it goes up to 40%, they can sell it even higher than that, or they can, you know, basically they can make it whatever out of the price range, whatever the price of the market is at that time. Like originally when my house, when I bought my house, it was at 55,000, now it's at 90,000. So when I go to sell my house, I will sell it at a price that's going to be like a percentage, 25% above of what the original cost that I sold it, that I brought it for. So that cost is kind of moved on to the next person that buys it. So they buy it at a lower cost, it's not at the market rate cost, but it's at a lower cost. So it's passing that savings on to the next homeowner. And the good thing about it too is like, we have like one of the things we were able to do was get a community garden. So we have a community garden at Land Trust. We have like an encampment, homeless encampment within the Land Trust, where, you know, people have some place to go, you know, when they are homeless, if they choose not to go into like a shelter setting. So we have this opportunity to build a different kind of a different kind of model to allow, you know, for a different type of housing. There's the Champaign Community Land Trust, there's the Albany Community Land Trust, and these are successful because people have an opportunity to say what happens in their community, have an opportunity to say so, of what type of things they want in their community. It gives the community an opportunity to speak in their voices to be heard, unlike the real estate industry, where it's, you know, based on a market. And one of the other things that happens, it's part of the Community Land Trust has a board, it has three public representatives, tenants that live on the land, resident, we call them resident owners, and community members that, you know, they may not live, they may live in the area, they may live someplace else, but they all kind of help, you know, with the formation and the bylaws and all that, and the policy, and so we do have a board of a director, and he's kind of, you know, kind of his, the work that he does, the, I'm sorry, I said that wrong, we have like a CEO, and basically the board kind of tells the CEO what we want, what we want to see, what we want to see, how we want to see growth. So it's an opportunity that gives the community a chance to say what they want to see in their community. So that's kind of the, that's a little bit of the structure of how it's set up. Yeah, that's very interesting. I was wondering if you could go back to the homeless encampment that's part of your CLT. I'm curious how that works. I imagine in Rochester, it's like most parts of the country, homeless encampments are probably illegal in some way. Is it legal because it's on your private property or you know, the private property of the CLT? It's, it was one of the things that when the Community Land Trust was first started, it was one of the things we had a homeless encampment that was kind of, kind of pushed around, you know, if the city didn't like it, they would take a bulldozer and bulldoze pretty much everybody else's stuff. This one encampment was in one area, they were there for like two years. And so what we did was we were able to get a bunch of lawyers to represent them because that was their residence and they had to be evicted in order for them to move them. So, so the city of Rochester, a bunch of organizations like I said before came together to support and we provided food, we provided, you know, so that they could remain in their, their, their, the space that they had created because they had been there for so long, for such a long period of time. And so the city decided, you know, we don't want this here, we got to get it, we have to move it. And it was kind of strategic because the place where they were, it wasn't run by the city, it was actually run by the state. And they were under a bridge. So it was the state had control over it. So the city negotiated with the tenants, they sat down with them and said, you know, we want you to move. And the tenants said, well, we need a place to move to. And so the city, you know, compromised and they said, well, we have this spot. The tenants went and looked at three different spots in the city and then they chose the spot that they wanted to go to, which was centrally located and close to a home, a couple of shelters. So if they needed to have a shower, there was a place for them to do that. So that's how that came, came about with the CLT. And so the CLT, the city actually gave the land to the CLT for that to happen. And the tenants have been there, you know? So it's been there, I would say almost two years now, two to three years, it's been about three years. So cool, very cool. Rob, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about your experience with homelessness, if that's okay with you and how it specifically led to your critical perspective of housing. Yeah, so for folks who don't know, I've spent two and a half years on the streets of Miami and 10 months in the New York City homeless shelter. And I used the term transformation. It transformed the way I think about our society, how we live, how we relate to one another, the humanity involved in our work. And I think this conversation has piqued my interest again because I can see that we are a society that works out of silos. But that experience for me gave me the lived experience and to be able to connect that as an African-American growing up in a household on Long Island that my dad purchased in the early 60s, purchased a house for $22,500. But I keep hearing the term equity in this conversation and I wonder how much we're enamored by that work but it really is meaningless. And I'll explain what that means down the road. I watch my family, well, as I recall history, I understand it that my family went to purchase this house out in Freeport Long Island, a seaside community and discrimination reared its early head because when my family traveled from Brooklyn to Long Island and the real estate person saw them, he told them upon arrival that somebody had left a deposit on the house, right? So he thinks they're gonna buy it. So he kind of turned my parents away. About two weeks later, the same Ed is in the paper for the same house. My dad sent his white worker, comrade down to inquire about the house and the real estate investor took, the real estate person took him to the house, showed him the house and asked him if he was interested because there's a few people inquiring would he like to leave a deposit? So you basically caught him, you had him trapped, right? My parents ended up getting this house to make a long story short, but growing up as a kid, my dad worked in a restaurant business, eventually became an owner but he worked as a chef in the early part of my life. I didn't see my dad as a kid because he was working 16 to 18 hours a day because now as I understand it, he got a predatory loan, right? I'm trying to pay off the mortgage. I can remember my dad stressed constantly about the mortgage, the mortgage. It was a topic of conversation at the dinner table on a continual basis. So as I went through this transformation and having parents that believed in the American dream, my father go into his grave and tell you, you work hard, you'll get everything you want. My father worked hard and ended up with nothing, right? And I learned from that, right? So my brother is now living in the house that I grew up in, paid for a mortgage, fully paid for, but on Long Island, if anybody is familiar with it, the taxes, most of the taxes go to the school district. My brother lives in the house that we grew up in that the taxes every year are $11,500 a year. My brother is 63 years of age, his partner is 55. Who goes to school in that house? There's no kids in the house. Why are you paying all those taxes? Cause he bought into the American dream. Now the house is about 70 years old, starts to need repairs, a new roof, $50,000, new siding, $50,000. Did you prepare for this when you decided that you wanted to buy a house or did you get caught up in the moment saying, this is a great idea. I bought into the American dream. I got a house, it's gonna build wealth. I would argue that it might have provided some security for people, but this idea of equity and wealth is a myth. And here's how I attribute that. We went through the financial crisis. Liz articulated her experience, right? And we saw in the foreclosure crisis, how quickly that equity can be snatched away from you because the banks are not gonna lose. What do I mean by that? Hypothetical, you bought a house prior to the financial crisis. That house was selling for $500,000. You go to the bank, you get a 30-year mortgage. Everything is done by 2005. You start paying off your monthly mortgage, whatever the number is. Here comes the economic downturn of 2008. All of a sudden that house value drops to $300,000. Greedy Bank still wants to mortgage on $500,000, right? And then until we started organizing ourselves and pushing back and the government got involved, oh, you know what, let's offer these folks some principle reduction. Let's actually reduce the principle in the house to the actual value of the house, right? And we organize all over the country for principle reduction and it happened, right? But I would argue that a bank can create a financial crisis anytime it wants. And I learned that from a Marxist theorist at the CUNY Grad Center in two simple terms. David Harvey made me understand what use value and exchange value means. A house has a use value to you and me and our families as a place to live in. It has a use value to the financial institution that holds the note and usually controls the value of that house. It has an exchange value to use the family where we think we are building equity, right? But the financial institution who holds the note really controls the equity and the exchange value in that house. They control both sides of that equation. But we're led to believe that we're gonna build some kind of equity. Now, if you have a lot of money and you could buy multiple houses and flip them, you can build some wealth. But that's probably the only way you're gonna do it or you're gonna have it passed down. So I argue with this issue of equity and the wealth that we're gonna extract from a home. I do think, and I think that sort of bridges and I wanna bridge a conversation between Liz. They didn't conversate directly in Karen but things I heard from both of them. So as somebody who's formerly homeless, I lived on the streets for two and a half years and my time on the streets was in Miami under the hot sun. That sun wore my ass out and I knew I was not gonna survive that sun staying there and I had to get back to New York somehow. But I'm now caught in a situation where folks are fighting for 10 cities like Liz explained and in New York, there's a stop the sweeps campaign. I understand the foundation of why you wanna do that because people have rights. But I'm kind of conflicted as somebody who organizes with a human right to a home that says as somebody articulated earlier that everybody needs an affordable decent place to live. I think those two things are mutually exclusive. So I get charged by the community a lot. How come you can't support us stop the sweeps? Well, I have that lived experience. I don't wanna live on the streets and I don't think it makes sense. People are gonna die on the streets if they try to live through these elements. So I think what we have to do and it's part of this conversation is find a way for homeowners, renters, homeless folks to all collaborate. I did see this at one point and I think seeing those on talk about the folks in the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign during the core work of Take Back to Land we're able to bring all of those folks together into a space to have conversations and to build community around it. So I think we have to find a way, right? Everybody has different needs. Everybody's at a different financial situation. The housing is gonna look different, right? And we have to accept that. But I do think that everybody needs an affordable, clean, safe and dignified place to live. And that's what international human rights law does. And I put the universal declaration of human rights article number 25 in the chat and it's just very clearly. So it's not something I learned in school. It's something we need to challenge our governor about. What is our obligation of our government to ensure those rights? And I think that's where it starts and it leads into some of that conversation that Karen was talking about. But I'll also say this, Karen, Liz and Seah, the National Alliance of HUD Tenants has done a good job in the past of reclaiming properties that were subsidized by the federal government and given tenant control and those buildings are succeeding. So there are models out there. What we need to do a better job is is learning from one another, sharing knowledge, right? We're not good at that. And we have to be open about that and we have to create the space to have these conversations. And even when those conversations are difficult we all have to come together and put it on the table and I'm so proud to say chop it up until we come to consensus. Well said, Rob. Thank you. Seah, I wanted to circle back to you and I'd like to know how you imagine all of these disparate groups that you mentioned, the rent stabilized folks, public housing folks, homeless folks, et cetera. What is your vision for bringing everyone together in solidarity and working as one class of people who essentially don't own property? Yeah, I mean, I think it's not easy to do, right? I think some of the things that Rob mentioned speak exactly to the challenges and Karen and Liz as well, right? Like everyone has their own identities and backgrounds that they're bringing to the table and not everyone is starting at the same place and it makes the organizing that we're doing hard. I will tell you what has worked for us in housing just to show in the past and it's very straightforward. It's not magic or rocket science. It's bringing people together in a room to share their experiences, to learn from one another, to talk about where our experience aligned, where are we different and how can we help each other be more powerful together and more than the sum of our parts. The founding assembly of Housing Justice for All we did in Albany and we had tenant groups from all over the state coming together and they were groups organizing with homeless New Yorkers, rent table as tenants and unregulated renters and we talked about what are people going through where they're living, what kinds of like tactics and strategies have you pursued to win things in the past because I think that's really important. Different types of organizing groups use different types of direct action to win the things that they wanna do, different types of like, I don't know, theories of change to win the things that they wanna win and we can learn a lot from each other because we need like a multitude of strategies and a multitude of tactics and a multitude of organizing everywhere in order to win. I don't necessarily think that there's gonna be like one answer and one solution and everything is gonna be like completely organized. It takes a movement, it's not simply one organization in order to shift the balance of power in this state. And I tend to think that like when one person is like in charge of a movement or one organization is in charge of a movement, it's way too easy for the powers that be to buy that organization off and undermine everybody else, you know? So what I would say, what we need to do is we need to make a couple of structural changes like real estate money out of politics is one, more basic rights for everybody to raise the floor for everyone is another. And we need to get, have tenant assemblies, get people in the room and to learn from our experiences the way that we're doing right now. A second thing is just like people are too disengaged, right? Too many people don't feel like tenant organizing will work no matter where they live. They're people are too disempowered. And so like the power of bringing people together to actually win shit is really important. Reaching out to people who actually don't believe in housing justice because not because they don't want it but because they've never experienced it or seen it and have never experienced that organizing could actually work. We need to prove to people that it's worth their time to come to the community meeting. Cause honestly, like some, a lot of people are tired and there's like, I went to the community board meeting. I went to the tenant association meeting, nothing changed. And that apathy is a huge, huge barrier to organizing as a class of people. And, you know, the only way we overcome it is by winning. So there's no, there's the only way out is through. Thank you for that. You mentioned something that I think is really interesting in there, which is if one person or one organization is leading the charge of this movement, it runs the risk of being bought off. And I think it's, there's an interesting kind of tension between grassroots organizing and institutions such as nonprofits and especially philanthropic institutions in this conversation. And I kind of just wanted to open the floor and see what is, what are people's opinions on the role of philanthropy and- Oh, oh, oh. Oh. Let's hear it, Rob. It's a hot button topic for me. And I want to preface this and folks and listen to my words carefully. I am blessed and privileged to be able to work in the social justice world without depending on a salary from an organization. Not every organizer has that kind of blessing. Very few people have that type of blessing, right? So it allows me to offer constructive criticism. And I also have been in a place where I've worked quite a bit internationally and seen organizing done differently and without the influence of philanthropy. So I've seen that it can happen. I think we stand sometimes on a phrase that I'm challenged with, you've got to meet people where they're at is a famous phrase of on the ground organizing here in the US. And I would argue that people are all over the fucking place. How are you going to get anything done? But when I go to Brazil, where they have what they call formation form a sal, right? We bring everybody to a political place and then we move together in formation. It's a lot different. We all have a common goal. And I think that's why movements outside of the US particularly in Brazil can work together. So you'll see the landless workers movement working very closely with the movement of people affected by dams in Brazil because they went through this formation exercise and their political objectives and their social objectives are all aligned. So, but I think what happens here is, and again, I want to be very clear. I understand why not-for-profit organizations take philanthropic dollars, but I do think that those philanthropic dollars sometimes dictates the work. It's not necessarily the work to make sure we push back on rad. It's some other type of work or money that came into Red Hook Brooklyn to do some other work. But maybe, and I'm not accusing Red Hook initiative of anything, but it's one of the social justice groups that I know from Red Hook. They took the check because they have a staff that they got to pay. They got bills they got to pay. And I get that. But I think we have to find a way. We have to find a way to do our organizing differently because I do think philanthropic dollars infects our work. And it infects our work to the degree that some of the things that have surfaced in this conversation happened and we have to figure out ways around it. For me, I've come from my work history was only in the for-profit world. So if I'm gonna do this work for social change, I'm not doing it for money. If I need a job, I'll go back to the for-profit world and make a salary and I'll do this at night. Like I've seen many people in the Philippines or Brazil or Spain do the work. And I think a great example of that will be here this coming week. Some of folks may know this group from Spain called the platform of people affected by mortgages in Spain. The PAR will be in New York next Monday and they'll be here for a week. And I think there's lessons to be learned from that group. So I think one of the things, and we've mentioned this already, is sharing knowledge, right? And I try to do that in a very visual way. I keep a lanyard around my neck and there are plenty of thumb drives on it. And people always ask me for information. And I say, it does nobody any good if it's inside a Rob's head, right? We are open source and we always use this to take back the land. We're open source. Give me an email address and I'll send it to you, right? So it's one of the reasons why I keep these around is a little reminder and to forge a conversation. I want people to ask me, why do you have all those thumb drives around here? Cause somebody might want some knowledge that I have and I'm more than happy to share it, right? So I think society has to change a little bit too. And that's all of us, right? We have to be open minded. And I think with some times, and I've had this debate, David Harvey and I had a wicked debate about six months ago about how much we're complicit in our own problems, right? Because our salvation for things and material things and we create sometimes our own problems and we don't look past that. So I'll stop. I feel myself getting a little preachy and that's not where I wanted to go. Thank you, Rob. Karen. Yeah. So I'll continue. So my thing about nonprofits is number one, number one, there are some good nonprofits and when you think about nonprofits, they were basically non-existent 20, 30 years ago. So there is a spectrum and a learning curve to it. The thing that makes it work for us in Red Hook and Gowanus, cause I'm not only in Red Hook, but I actually helped fund the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice that not only received 217 million dollars for their local public housing to get plumbing, chase walls, electric panels, a comprehensive modernization, but our second demand was around sewage because if you don't have good infrastructure to deliver services and a civilized way of getting rid of waste, then it's for nothing. And then finally a task force where we made a point of agreement with the city of New York and we're literally hiring a facilitator to look over this long process because a rezoning takes quite a few years. So what I wanted to say to Rob was the thing missing with nonprofits is nobody goes back and checks them with an IRB. So one of the things we're doing with public housing civic is the first thing I did through my mentor, Dr. Beverly Watkins, was I took an IRB. I wanted to know and even being a vulnerable population myself, when you read it, it really hits you. Yeah, I'm a vulnerable population. So somebody could come in and it may be a week where people are low on food and you come out with a sandwich and the next thing you know, they're filing you to Albany or to Washington but they really don't get what they're going for. They're just grateful for the allyship and they help. So one of the things we're doing in Red Hook or we do in Red Hook, we have social cohesion across our different nonprofits. So if you go to Red Hook Initiative and you wanna talk about environmental, they know there who the people in the community is that have the expertise around environmental that might be resilient Red Hook. It may be people from Pioneer Works and it might even be Karen, right? So once you start forming that social cohesion, now you can talk about actually creating a community review board that doesn't allow people to just come in your neighborhood because even institutions do it. Institutions run on research and then they get funding and the next thing you know, somebody has a great idea of like Zipcar. I'm just putting that out there like that. But what I'm saying is we have, we got tired of people coming out, stealing out poor. What happened to y'all? Oh, you got lead, you got mold. Can you tell us your story? Can we do a documentary? And at the end of the day, those people go on with their careers, with their research, and they don't even access to be a part of the grant. So we're stopping all of that because that is a penetration. That's what I meant by when I say gas lighting. That's some of the things that I'm talking about when I talk about how society keeps a foot on public housing's neck. Public housing is not cheap in New York City. Okay, public housing is the thread that holds New York City together. And I keep telling people, you play the same compromise of 1877 if you want, I don't think New York City is ready for a reverse migration or the term red. So be careful, because it's don't put, I don't like politics in front of people. And I don't want anybody coming out saying, get in and help me get an apartment or to stabilize my housing at the course of I can't listen or talk to another politician or another way of thinking. We deserve the right to orientate ourselves and give ourselves political education. So again, these are the reasons why, not that I'm trying to stop people from being one party or the other. I just don't think it's fair that we keep getting skewed like a blade of grass. And it's always on my back that I have to carry the additional weight. We want public housing fixed. And we feel we deserve it. And we demand it in South Brooklyn, not just Red Hook. Gowan is in White Corp. We wanna be the model for the rest of the city on how you should be treating public housing. And we're putting localism into effect. So we're talking to our local civic associations, whether that's Park Slope Civic, we're bringing in all of these different team members and people to tell our story, to take them on choice, to tell them what the challenges are around space. We don't even have community space to meet. Many developments, the first thing they do when they wanna get rid of a development or disorientate you is not have a place for people to meet. There are community centers like the one in Gowan is that's been closed for a whole generation. That's not fair, that's not equitable. How do these people get to decide their future when they're being veal pen? You know what a veal pen is, right? In case you don't know, it's where they put a baby lamb in this small 24 inch box cause they don't want him to move one muscle. You know, because they wanna be nice and tender for slaughter. We have to kick open the veal pen that is public housing. Now in the past, maybe not these generations see ya, but looking back, I'm almost 60 years old. I think there were times I remember when there were controversies around politicians going to the churches telling them don't talk about voting today. So yeah, look it up, right here in New York City. So they were doing that with the churches. What do you think they're doing in public housing? That is not democratic to have people coming out community and just talk their agenda while not doing anything for us. And so we started doing something for ourselves. We even have community members because Red Hook is an industrial area that after Hurricane Sandy was willing to come in and help us get rid of mold and all of these different things. And the answer was no, but we're gonna keep pressing until we create a real public-private partnership through Public Housing Civic Association. So folks, if I could just jump in a quick response. One, Karen, I think I'll put my contact information in the chat. We should have a one-on-one conversation. As Derek let off, I'm teaching a class at the new school and we gave them five projects to work on starting off and two of the students taking it and they're running with it as the thesis. And one of those projects was to go on this rezoning and the so-called racial impact study that was done there. They picked it apart cold at week and we got into debate with the creators of that report but those students are working through it. And that's what their thesis is gonna be on. There's a problem with some of these places also. The city wants to rezone it. All the affordable housing is gonna be right next to that canal, which is already a super fund site and the federal government said, we can't clean it up for 25 years. So you're gonna put poor, poor low-income people of color right next to that carcinogen-affected canal, right? So you're repeating processes that have continued constantly and we need to have a discussion about that but there are well-intentioned folks and my students did that through a participatory research project involved in the community. They leave- I remember that study. I definitely remember that study but I have an engineering background and so when I look globally at climate change and we really look at what areas are gonna be habitable going into the next 30, 40 years, a great majority of the population will not be within those same zones. So when my mind, I have to think about the land that we do have and yes, it is toxins there but there are levels to cleanups. And so if it was going to stay industrial they would not have to clean it up to the same degree they would have to clean it up. So for me, this rezoning was already in play but it's been talked about and done for over 10 years. Our thing was to get in and get something for the community, something that they could live with. I was even trying to get, there was one time there was talk about this public value recovery or air transfer right from the public housing to those areas. And my thing is I wouldn't even do that without going to talk to the homeowners. So when you're a leader and you're a leader in communities like New York City you have to be a leader for everyone. You can't go down the line and say, oh, public housing don't know a lot. So I'm gonna just let them think I'm leading them and then I'm gonna use them for a bargaining tool at the table. You know what I'm saying? We need to be in that room so we can watch our states and our territory story at that table because nobody's watching it. Well, I will say this Karen might just a quick direct response. I don't think anybody that I know what that is making an attempt to organize folks in Gowanus are doing it that way. They wanna bring people to the table and have a conversation. We don't wanna speak for people. I know I don't, that's not my intention. I don't speak for homeless people, right? I'm not trying to do that but I understand the issue because I lived it, right? So I can support those people and give them the capacity and make and sort of create spaces for them to have the conversations that are necessary. And I think that's the goal of well intention organizers. But I just put my information in the chat. I mean, I still think we did a really amazing job with the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice to see that diversity of people, affluency come together and all say that they wanted public housing fixed irregardless of whether rezoning goes through or not. They want their- I agree. It was your group that took my students on the tour. So I know a whole about it but now we're connected directly and we can figure out how to move forward together. Thank you. And it's safe to see I would love to have a one-on-one with you. Can I- At this time, sorry, go ahead. I would also like to have a one-on-one. We've been organizing tenants and that are living in high rises and we've been organizing them and trying to, you know, for some reason it's hard because they're not, they're very divided and the landlord kind of divides them and pits them against each other. And that's kind of always been a struggle with trying to organize in those buildings. So yeah, I would love to have an opportunity to talk to you. At this time- I'm gonna talk after the panel. Yeah, we can just keep the room open for you guys. Happy to. At this time, we're going into audience Q and A. No questions have been put in the chat so far. So I wanna once again invite people to add questions to the chat or if you want to just unmute and ask your question, please feel free. I guess in the meantime, Liz, or I'm sorry, Karen, one question I wanted to ask you. Is how do you think those partnerships between public housing tenants and organizers and other organizers, how do you think those can work better? What's missing? Authenticity. Authenticity. I know Rob said I don't have work equity around a lot, but you have to be, you really have to do an accounting first. So numbers were important. We had to make sure that public housing, number one, felt safe and supported in numbers inside of the coalition. So anybody from public housing who wanted to be a part of the coalition was able to join and be a voting member. When it came to organizations, we limited the amount of people who could vote for an organization. And we also had to vet you. You had to, we had by-laws, you know, you have to show up for meetings. And so one of the things I think that really set the Red Hook apart is a blessing from God, really. Robin Moses cut us off so many years ago and what he meant for bad, God turns to good because we've been isolated for so long. I've been in Red Hook since I was 19 years old. I'm 59 this year. I was afraid of Red Hook. I was scared to be there. I was also a fighter, you know? And so when those things combine and when you're in a community and you grow to love the community that you're in, the people who love public housing are the people who live in public houses. They've asked elderly people, why are you paying $2,000 a month and living in public houses? Because that's their familiarity, that's their community. And yet and still, even through our resiliency processes around climate change, we've seen during the pandemic where they came in Red Hook because construction was still an essential work. They tore every single courtyard out. They cut down 457 trees and they took the benches and put them inside the construction zone. So I've been talking about what effect that has on our community. And at first I was talking about the effect that it had on the elderly because the elderly used to be able to come outside and sit under the coolness of a tree and hear children laughter in a little watering station. And now we have none of that. And we have not had that for several years. When you do these big construction and retrofits for buildings, for neighborhoods, it takes a long time and it's disruptive. But then what about the young people during the pandemic who've been inside during construction, trying to do homework? You know, what about our young men? What about the fact that public housing, the rates of vaccine is only at 52% based on our history in the United States as black people who went through the Tuskegee experiment, who went through all kinds of other things medically where we're too afraid. And I think that is one of the biggest things, challenges I have is the fear of the unknown in public housing. I don't have the answer, but I can put together a team with my vision that will create something better than what we have now. But people can be so frightened of change that they're immobilized. We have to mobilize people and we have to mobilize our youth. And that calls for vocational training. That calls for section three, which is a HUD mandate to really be enforced in New York City, where these young people are given jobs and they're using their hands and their brains. The next cure for cancer or a pandemic or coronavirus could come out the project. Is that scary for anyone or is that what we want? We want that. You know, we're losing another generation and we really need to get people activated almost like back in the New Deal time, but this time could you include black people in it? You know, because during the New Deal, black people could work. But if we were able to really galvanize people together around renewable energy, around climate change, around coming up with new designs for open space and for homelessness, even if we only progress 10%, it would be an increase for all. So, yeah, I'll stop there. Thank you. Any questions from our audience or Jonathan? Yeah, it was a meaning to put in. I'm interested in asking everyone just kind of throwing this out there. It seems to me there's an interesting, maybe tension, but more so just disagreement occasionally between certain wings of the housing justice movement where you have on the one hand eviction defense, you have kind of more direct action type interventions. And then on the other hand, you have kind of more sort of legislative approaches to these problems where you attempt to, you know, fix the situation through the law, through policy. So to sort of bounce off of Derek's earlier question about kind of the role of nonprofits in this movement, I'm interested in seeing how everyone on the panel kind of navigates that those two and what they think the kind of ideal combination of the more direct tactics with the legislative systemic tactics would look like. I can start it. So in Red Hook, one of the things we did back in the 90s was a 197A plan. And I'm truly a believer, just like I met a gentleman. I think his name was Tony from Staten Island. And that's where the city had brought back the land after Hurricane Sandy. And he literally told us how that worked. How did he get that to happen? And I was fascinated. So one of the things I want to say is that politicians are like judges. Judges know how to apply the law, but they don't necessarily know every nuance of each law. It is up to the attorneys in the pit to present their case. We as communities need to start presenting our case. Don't go and say, could we, or I want to talk about how about taking, we could have took the last two years during the pandemic and had working groups on Zoom, which we did in Red Hook, and came up with a community plan of action, a long-term plan, short-term plan, long-term when, short-term when. So you know what I'm saying? We have to just be more committed to putting in the time because when we put in the time now, it'll save us a lot of time later on. And so that's the commitment we have in Red Hook where we support each other. If they know that my tenant meeting is gonna be on a Tuesday, the second Tuesday of the month, then our organizing academy for our young people may be on the Monday night so that we can encourage them at that meeting to come to the resident council meeting, you know? And then once we start doing that, we'll start looking at the human capacity and assets to see who fits. I might not fit in every meeting. I may have some kind of post-traumatic stress that really stops me from being in a police meeting. I'm just using that as an example. That's not true, but just saying. We need to have community members and enough of a team so that all the weight is not on one shoulder. The weight has to, a good leader distributes the weight throughout so that we all carry the burden and we all carry the victory. So that's what we're doing in Red Hook. We're delegating, we're organizing, we're educating and we're stepping forward just so people know if I can step forward, you can step forward. And that's it. I think one of the things we think about, and I'm really curious for Liz and Rob's thoughts on this too, is like, how are we turning the types of, so like these eviction defense actions, right? By the time we're doing an eviction defense in a lot of ways, a lot of harm has already had to occur. By the time you have a community coming together to block the marshals from coming to the house, which is a beautiful and powerful thing, that family has already been to housing court multiple times. They've been going through the time of being behind on rent, judges ruled against their case, right? Like a lot of things have already gone wrong by the time the eviction defense happens. And so I think we have to figure out how we hold that tension, right? Like in my ideal world, we're not doing any second eviction defense because no one is going through everything that had to go wrong to get up to that point. So we try really hard not to romanticize the direct action that is a confrontation because that's not actually like the world that people want is that confrontation. Sometimes we need to do those actions to like stop people from losing their homes, but we don't want to. That's like what we want is for people to not go to court in the first place. Liv didn't want to have to go through a multi-year process fighting the bank just to stay in the home that was first to begin with. And so I think we have to like figure out both how we like inspire people to participate in the fight and make sure we know that the fight is worthwhile, but also not romanticizing this moment too much. And I think Rob spoke about this also when he was talking about like the feats, right? And what's happening with the feats. So I think this is like a tension that a lot of organizers hold, right? We're like on the one hand, willing to do what it takes to win. And on the other hand, yeah, I don't know. I think that's it. I think it's also the last thing I was going to say is it's not necessarily like scalable that we can't blockade every single house. And so we just need to be really thoughtful about what we're doing and where and follow the lead of, you know, folks who are participating in the eviction defense too. I mean, it's traumatic for the family to go through that process. Most people don't want to do it. Most people will be like, I think I'd rather just find a new place to live. Yeah, I totally agree with Sia. It's just, it depends on the person and how much they want to fight. We never, we say these are the things that we can do. And so it's always, always up to that person and what they want to do. We help support and we have community behind them in whatever decision they make. So in my particular case, I was walked through the process. I was told, you know, what could happen. And then I was, I made a decision. I didn't want to just stand back and let this happen to me. Maybe if I stand up, it'll help somebody else. But in me, I could not, I didn't want to just back away because this is what I fought for. And if I backed away, what example would I be leaving for my children? That it's okay just to walk away when somebody says you have to go. And because the bank says, you know, I have these papers on you, so you gotta go. I own this rather than me. So for me, it was a decision that I had to make for myself and for my children. And my children went through it just as much as I did. And we talked about it prior to actually me going through this. And we talked about the steps. We talked about what could happen. So it wasn't just me. My family also went through it with me. They came up, they stood behind me. They stood at the rallies with me. So that was the thing that kind of made it so real for me because I had community behind me. And it wasn't just me standing there. It was the community standing there with me. Could I ask a quick question? Cause I don't know a lot about mortgages, anything. But, and maybe somebody can answer this, but like if a bank forecloses on you, right? And then they sell the house later on. Shouldn't you be getting the difference? Because I saw a program. I saw something where it said a lot of people aren't getting like, you know, after the foreclosure, the owner could still get a substantial amount of money based on what the bank, how to bank disposed of the property. Right. So I'm only asking that because I'm always looking for a solution for people in the future. I'm sorry that you went through that. Cause that would have been horrible mentally and emotionally to constantly feel like somebody's gonna put you out of your home, especially like during a snowstorm in the middle of winter and everything. And I'm sorry you went through that. But like auto banks or the government keeping that money when people don't get it, even what happened to the people? If we lost a million people in the United States through the pandemic, I would say 10,000 were homeowners. What happens to those type of monies when it's not collected? And is there a way that we can tap into that? And then finally, I want to say, I'm tired of me, us folks running back and forth every other year begging for money. We are citizens. We are builders and creators of this country. Every single organization from DOT to Homeland Security to Department of Justice should have in their budget, our budget shouldn't just come from HUD, housing and urban development. And then we got to fight everybody for that plus fight everybody for federal highway money when you ran the highways throughout communities. It should be dedicated money for public spaces so that I don't have to be sitting here arguing against something that someone else is doing to empower someone else. But I still feel like we're missing the fact that black folks in New York City are still a priority and not all of us are immigrants. Some of us are just bill pinned in our own country. And so, keep in mind when you're talking about immigrants, we are migrants and refugees in our own country. And a lot of times when these conversations happen, we help, we talk about it with you guys. And then at the end of the day, when we think the deal is sealed, it comes to Dixie Crats and we get cut out the deal. So that's what I was trying to infer. I'm inferring all the way back to 1877 that we're tired of the political games being played with black Americans here in this country, especially the ones living in New York City public housing, which is also segregated. So you know exactly where we are through your data books. We're in Redhook, Guarnes and White Cove and we demand that we get our units fixed and that we get some equity. And that's it. And the story. Thank you so much, Karen. Fantastic, like much to think about there. So I'd love to hear, Rob, I'd love to hear your take on this question. Cause I mean, I said the sort of tension between the kind of day-to-day work of, for instance, eviction defense, but also I mean, more broadly kind of tenant organizing, you know, on the ground things that are kind of more localized, you know, organized because specific building versus, you know, pushing for systemic change, oftentimes through law and policy. I mean, I'm just interested. How do you, do you see those two things as mutually exclusive or how do you think they could be kind of wedded, so to speak? So me personally, I never did. And again, I like to talk about the way I'm able to work from a privileged position and work with policy makers, work with students, work with community-based organizations. Not everybody can do that. And I'll start out my work in Rochester, New York. I used to promote myself as a practitioner of direct action and civil disobedience because I believe that the only way we achieved social change in this country was through those actions, right? History proved that. And Karen, I'll just argue that we should go back to you should start at 1619 when we stole land in this country and we were bought here against our will. So, you know, just letting, you know, for the record as they say in the court rules, but I think an interesting question you brought up Karen is, well, before that, let me finish with Jonathan. I do think there's a tension there, right? Some people fantasize about the direct action and how much it, but it's a tactic at all in the end. You know, when, what we did in, and I'll use more when I talk to Rochester, I don't want to go deep into Liz's situation. I know it, but, you know, I'll talk about Catherine Lennon because it was very public. You know, that was some popular and political education. We went in there and we educated the community. What was happening? We had a conversation. And when that white woman, 70-year-old white woman got arrested by the police when she said, this is not America when you physically remove somebody from the house like that and she got arrested, those pictures went wild. And then the community had buy-in. So much like Liz explained, we went through the same process with Catherine. What do you want to do? The decision is yours. We're here to support you. Catherine decided she wanted a home back. Her and her husband, this was their dream. She had 11 children. She was the matriarch of this family after her husband passed. She wanted a home back. Happy Mother's Day, Liz, if you remember, Catherine Lennon in 2011, we did a very public move in and moved her back into that house. And, you know, the pictures went viral of the community bringing a refrigerator to men with a refrigerator on their back. Folks with a couch, folks coming to supply that house, the community buying, bringing people together to support this family. But the decision was strictly, you know, it was strictly Catherine's, right? We were there to support Catherine. You got to make this decision. We had all the legal support in the world, everything you need. We have those tools, but the decision is strictly yours and your family. We're just here to support. They're tough. But, you know, by the same token, that's not the end all the be all. Like the work that Cia talked a lot about, you know, go into Albany, you have to get in and confront policymakers. And I think the other thing we have to do, which I was never enamored with, is get the right people into elected office, right? You can have all types of people in Albany, but if they're not the right people, they're never gonna make the decisions that you need made or that the community is demanding that they make. So we've also, I talked about the local city level in New York, there's been some changes. But, you know, I can name names and, you know, Cia will know these names that organizers that we worked with, you know, Marcella Martinez, you know, a Latina from Sunset Bar is now in political office. You know, we've been in the trenches together with Marcella, Jabari, Brisford and others like that. So we have to understand our role in electoral politics, even though somebody like Rob is saying he can't stomach electoral politics, but we do have to make those political links because if you wanna deconstruct the system, you have to be inside of the system to see how it was constructed, right? So I think it's important to understand those processes, right? And so the importance of electoral politics, but it all comes back to me to popular and political education. We have to educate our communities and we have to bring humanity back into our communities. We have to push away the class divide that exists here so strongly that is entrenched in our communities, almost like rust, I like to say. You know, you paint over the rust and you think you educated people, all of a sudden here it comes again, it starts to surface again. It's like the mold, right Karen? It just, oh, they came in and they did some remediation of the mold, but then, you know, two weeks later, you're back on the phone, yo, NYCHA, what's up? The shit is back, you know? So I think the same thing, you know, when you talk about bringing people together and bringing humanity, right? It's not an easy process. It's a struggle, you know, but, and I don't know if everything's gonna change while Karen, Liz, Cya, myself are alive, but we are working to create the toolbox for the younger generation to carry on the work, to make things better for the folks who come behind us because we have certain lived experiences and certain work experiences that we know we started this process, but we may not be able to complete it, but make sure we leave clear instructions on how the work needs to follow through, right? And then finally I'll say, I do think this, Karen, I don't know how you feel about it. I consider myself an elder. I know people like to hear my voice, but there's times I need to step back, right? And it's not, it's not me you need to hear. You need to hear from these folks, right? So anytime the Indian media now comes up to me and wants to, you know, wants a quote or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's about the folks in, you know, the Guwanis houses, right? You want me to go get Beverly Corbin? You know, I don't feel really well or some folks like that, I don't wanna say, yeah, go get one of them, but I'm not saying a word about it. You need to talk to the people directly affected. So I think there are ways to go about it, but Jonathan, those tensions exist. And sometimes we have to take a step back as individuals and think about it, right? So I've moved away, you know, I try to support as much as I can, folks doing the direct action, because I believe in it, but I'm too old to be out there in the streets, man, raising hell and, you know, kicking shit down and, you know, confronting police. I specialized in it 10, 15 years ago, right? And I'd be more than happy to do it, but I'm getting too old, I can't do it. That's real, right? But then how can I leave tools for others to pick up that work where I left off, right? And that's how I think now, right? So, you know, instead of being a police negotiator, like many people have labeled me, now how can I train people to negotiate with the police and those direct actions? Well, how can I say this is how you do a direct action without putting people at risk? There's always some risk involved. You never know how the opposite side is gonna react, but, you know, you need to think through all of these things and have those conversations within your community and with the people that you're working with. Thank you, Rob. Very insightful answer. So unfortunately, we don't have time for Danielle's question in the chat regarding Rad. But it's addressed to Karen. So, I mean, perhaps Karen wouldn't mind if I put you guys in touch after the panel. Okay, I'll be sure to do that. Okay, so I wanted to wrap up with, you know, a little note of hope. I was wondering if we could just go around really quick and just say, you know, 30 seconds on, you know, what gives you hope about the future? What do you think is the brightest light? Kind of, you know, showing the better future to come. And hard mode, you can't say young people. So whoever wants to start that. You say elder. I have no problem being late. I'll just say, I'm very hopeful I see a little change. I saw after the George Floyd killing how folks went into the streets and folks aligned, right? Forces that you didn't expect to align and really make their voices heard. And then I saw comradeship from around the world, somebody who works internationally, the messages of joy and hope or people doing solidarity actions around the world left me inspired and saying the world is woken up. They realized that this quote unquote democracy is not all it promotes itself to be. They saw the problems front and center and they're in solidarity with the people going through the struggle. Thank you. So what gives me hope? What came to my mind is faith is the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. So faith without works is dead. What gives me hope works? I'm doing the work. My community is doing the work. People like Rob and Sia and Liz are doing the work. You're doing the work by educating your classroom. One of the things I love about Columbia is how engaged you are with communities. I do a lot of different studios and talks with students and though I'm at Harvard, don't tell anybody. I really love Columbia. So those are the things that give me hope, the fact that we can still agree to disagree and that I still see evolution. I'm a 1960s baby and I see a lot of changes and I'm looking, I have hope that we're gonna see more. That's great, thank you. Sia or Liz? Liz, you go. Well, I see hope in just in the future and I see hope when I look at my kids and see their attitude to change and when they stand up for themselves. I see hope in the work that I do with the Citywide Tenant Union and I see hope in the faces of the individuals who learn that they do have rights and they stand up and fight till the end and win. So in those wins, give me hope for greater wins in the future and just building consensus and building better, building more, it gives me hope and more opportunity. This meeting has given me hope because I hear the stories and I hear this is a good work that we're doing and yeah, there's more to be done but I'm in it for the long haul, so that gives me hope. Thank you and Sia? Yeah, I agree with a lot of what's been said. I think doing the work and seeing the movement grow is what makes me hopeful. Even though there's a lot that we can critique about how we all work together and a lot that we wish was differently about how we're all living, the movement is bigger than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago and that's a good thing. And yeah, I'm hopeful about that. That's great. Okay, we will wrap it up there only one minute over. I would like to thank the audience who's here and the audience who had to drop out a little bit early. Thank you all for watching and for listening. I would like to thank, I mean, Jonathan and I would like to thank Emily for helping to put this event together. We'd also like to thank Matthew Shore and Victoria Lynn, my partners in program council for helping to organize this event. And we'd also like to thank Sabina for making the flyer for this event. And most of all, we'd like to thank our panelists, Karen, Liz, Sia, Rob, that's been fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you, talk to y'all soon. We're bringing us together. Have a good night, everybody. Thank you, good night, everyone. Thank you so much. Good night and thank you. Thank you, Liz. Thank you for sharing your story.