How You Can Help Residents Take on Displacement and Lack of Food in South Atlanta

Pittsburgh Residents Hold Their Signs

American Friends Service Committee, working through Occupy Our Homes Atlanta, has been engaging in some amazing work around the Turner Field Area communities. As some of you may know last year we worked with dozens of Peoplestown residents to facilitate a listening project. Our findings were that affordable housing was at a crisis level, low income housing units were approacing unliveable conditions, and there was a major lack of access to fresh food that stretch well beyond Peoplestown.

With the Beltline project moving in and the Atlanta Braves moving out the communities around Turner Field have caught the eye of developers in a big way. We've already seen a huge spike in rental prices. Development isn't a bad thing, in fact folks want to see their communities developed; folks want development that benefits those that have lived in the community for decades. This get to a core belief of AFSC's Atlanta Economic Justice Program; that communities should be controled by those that live in them.  We are working with residents in Poeplestown, Mechanicsville, Summerhill, and Pittsburgh to launch housing justice/anti displacement campaigns, support community gardens, and insure that real affordable hosuign and community contro, of land is part of any benefits package that comes out of the Turner Field Agreements.

 We have some quick needs for resources to cover specific costs. I hope you will consider taking a look and investing what you can into the efforts of these amazing residents standing up against tremendous odds.

One of the Many Signs Already in the Community

We have these new yard signs that read, “Stand Together, Stop Displacement, We Matter”. They look great and they provide a visible housing justice presence in the community. We have a lot of ground to cover and we’re about out of our initial order. These signs aren't cheap! In fact they cost $8 a piece! So we hope, with your help, to raise at least enough to order 100 more ASAP! Can you help us raise $880? Your dollars will help us build the door to door housing justice visibility we need in the community!

http://www.gofundme.com/qmx4qg 

Tommy Moore Prepares to Plant

Tommy Moore has been growing food all over the struggling Pittsburgh community, located just south of downtown Atlanta. Pittsburgh lost 86% of its wealth during the financial crash. Half of the homes are still vacant and gunshots can be heard every night. It's a virtual food desert. Tommy needs $200. To buy new seeds and replace tools. Will you help me have his back?

http://www.gofundme.com/qnk2cc4   

Lastly, WE NEED CANVASSERS! We are doing three canvasses a week and need more volunteers to knock on doors.

Tuesday and Thursday: 5-7

Saturday 12-2pp

We always meet AT 1101 Hank Aaron Drive, SW (Brick Building)30 minutes early to do a brief canvassing training and go over talking points. Please come if you can!

Remain, Reclaim, and Rebuild!

The collaboration between Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America and Occupy Our Homes Atlanta (OOHA), and American Friends Service Committee which led to last year's popular bus tour of OOHA's activities in the Pittsburgh neighborhood and the proposed Falcon's stadium, continued this year with an April 5 tour of OOHA and local residents' recent work in four core Atlanta neighborhoods: Pittsburgh, Vine City, English Ave, and Peoplestown.

The tour began at the Rick McDevitt Center in the Peoplestown community where OOHA and AFSC plan to launch a community wide housing justice campaign later this year. Residents and OOHA members introduce the tour. Then, the bus carried participants through the neighborhoods to stops that focused on individual housing fights that brought major victories or inspired other landmark housing fights across the country. At each stop resident fighter who led each campaign talked about why they fought, struggles of the campaign, and what work they’ve been inspired to continue since.

The tour showcased the diversity of various housing justice campaigns that OOHA has been able to win with their organizing models. From renter fights, to foreclosure resistance, even reclaiming vacant homes for homeless people it's clear that OOHA is nimble enough to look at the issue of housing from dramatically different angles.

The tour will ended with an informal dinner at Emmaus House, a community center in Peoplestown that has provided social services and has been a catalyst for community activism since the urban renewal days of the 1960s.

Keeping Pittsburgh Beautiful

The Pittsburgh community is arguably one of the hardest hit communities from the economic crisis in the Atlanta metro area. The historic African American community very intentionally targeted for some of the cities worst predatory loans from the late 90's to 2008. The result; the community was essentially stripped of it's wealth and left half empty with one of the highest unemployment rates in the city.

Today about half of the homes in Pittsburgh are vacant, many of them are beyond repair. There a few remaining businesses and jobs are scarce. The empty lots in Pittsburgh have proven to tempting outsiders who are looking for a place to dump trash, tires, and other junk. These piles continue to lower the esteem and aesthetic of the community.

American Friends Service Committee has partnered with Occupy Our Homes Atlanta and residents of Pittsburgh to facilitate mutual aid clean up days and establish "no dumping" zones. This week we just finished up our fourth clean up project, and while this community has a long way to go, it's been gratifying to engage in an activity that has immediate results.









Our hope moving forward is to organize a block by block skills bank and begin to match community skills with community needs. In this fashion we hope build a stronger culture of mutual aid in Pittsburgh.

AFSC Partners In Mutual Aid Project In Pittsburgh Community

American Friends Service Committee has partnered with Occupy Our Homes Atlanta to provide volunteers and supplies in the effort to experiment with mutual aid projects.

We plan to work with residents to identify streets that have an abundance of trash, many times vacant homes are used as unauthorized dumping spots for folks inside and outside the community. Once we have chosen our next clean-up site we will work with volunteers and community members to go door to door and invite the folks on the street to join us for a mutual aid project.

After trash is picked up we facilitate a brief meeting on the concept of mutual aid and try to identify skills folks may have to share with their neighbors. One hope is that other mutual aid projects will come out of these simple clean ups.

The goal is two clean-ups per months, with means 24 streets this year. I thinks it's going to be a great way to get a deeper understanding of the Pittsburgh community and build stronger relationships the the neighborhood.

If you're interested in helping out in our mutual aid project by investing your time or donation clean-up supplies please call or email me:)

Tim Franzen
tfranzen@afsc.org
404-414-5521

Single Mother of 11, Ripped Off, Now Faces Homelessness

Occupy Our Homes ATL, the Pittsburgh Community, and American Friends Service Committee call on our city to find a solution that keeps Tacco Cullin’s loving family together. We believe that Atlanta and its residents can make this happen.

Tacco Collins reached out last week in a desperate situation. She was living in a substandard three-bedroom house with no electricity and had just run out of food to feed her family.

Tacco signed a rental agreement with her landlord in February of 2011. Before she moved in the landlord made a promise to fix the flooring, replace the water heater, fix the shower, and paint the interior, none of which ever happened.

 In July of 2011 her electrical box exploded and the landlord refused to fix it, leaving her with no power. She decided to withhold rent until it was fixed, and instead of fixing it the landlord tried to evict her. After Tacco took her landlord to court she discovered that he didn’t actually own the house at all, it belonged to an investor in White Plains, New York.

What we have now is a short period of time to find permanent housing for the family or they face homelessness, and there are serious challenges.

Atlanta is the only major city in the US with no public housing, we have a moratorium on section 8 vouchers, and it seems that no shelter can take a family of Tacco’s size. Atlanta’s only solution seems to be to funnel the family into yet another underfunded inadequate system. To add insult to injury there are literally hundreds of large boarded up homes in Tacco’s community that have been sitting unused for years.

One thing that’s clear to anyone who spends time with this family is that they love and need each other. The unique bond between the children and their mother is tender and truly moving. This family needs to remain together. What they lack in capital, they certainly more than make up in devotion to each other.

We are asking all that can to contribute to helping Tacco and her 11 children a stable place to live.

Link to Wepay:

https://www.wepay.com/donations/keep-tacco-collins-single-mother-of-11-from-becoming-homeless

At AFSC we believe that housing is a human right. The United States is the richest country in the world, we spent billions to fund a global war on terror,yet we don't have the safely net to catch struggling families in crisis in our own backyard. Tacco is a full time mother who can't take on work, we call on the community to step up and help us find a sustainable solution.

Link to CBS 46 Coverage:
http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/18933547/woman-said-she-and-her-children-are-homeless

Tim Franzen

American Friends Service Committee