Housing Justice Saturday!

This past Saturday was jam packed with a lot of exciting housing justice work! Saturday morning I had the opportunity to meet with residents of the Peeples town community to talk about the housing crisis. There had been talk about the possibility of working on a community wide initiative to address the issue of foreclosures, evictions, lack of affordable housing, and vacant homes.

We purposed moving forward with a community wide listening project in late January early February. A listening project is a different way to engage with a community. Instead of telling folks what they need or what you can offer, a listening project assumes that folks that live in the community have the best ideas about what they need. Listening projects are a way of finding out what a community would like to see change.

The idea was very well received with multiple residents volunteering yo help do interviews door to door for the listening project. Super excited to move forward on that project next year!


All day the Atlanta Friends Meeting House hosted Occupy Our Homes Atlanta's year end member retreat, at which AFSC had a seat at the table. The retreat is an opportunity to reflect on the last year of work, look at the goals that were set last year, evaluate what was accomplished and what areas still need work. There was also space to set new goals for 2014, one of which is the listening project in Peeples town!

Rob Call put together this pretty amazing 2013 recap video, check it out:






To top off the night we had a holiday party at the Atlanta Friends Meeting House with delicious food, lots of folks, and music. It's important to create space to reflect and celebrate our work and each other. It's hard work, which is why so many call it struggle, which makes it even more important to lift up our victories.

BIG thanks to the Atlanta Friends Meeting House!