“We defend the right of the nation to make sure its borders are secure, but we also defend the right of people to be treated honestly, justly, and fairly as children of God.”  NPR interview with  Father Bruce Lewandowski in Patheos here.
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Housing advocates like Durham CAN (Congregations, Associations and Neighborhoods) have pushed city and county leaders for years to use downtown land for affordable housing.
 
About seven months ago, commissioners voted to make affordable housing part of the East Main Street properties’ redevelopment plan. Then came retail.
Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article232438554.html#storylink=cpy

Keisha Krumm speaks at a news conference at City Hall in 2015 at which Nationstar Mortgage announced it would contribute $30.5 million to help Sherman Park homeowners recover from the foreclosure crisis. Photo courtesy of Common Ground.
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Milwaukee is a city that does not strengthen the hand of the poor. It seems, instead, to be satisfied with kind gestures of charity toward the symptoms of unfairness. Pope Pius XI said, “Charity will never be true charity unless it takes justice into account…. Let no one attempt with small gifts of charity to exempt themselves from the great duties imposed by justice.”

My over eight years in Milwaukee as Common Ground’s Executive Director and Lead Organizer has been dedicated to building justice with and for those left behind in this city. Common Ground has created controversy and tension, including pushing big banks and billionaires to recalculate their civic interest in broader terms. I am proud that we have had the moral courage to demand more than just charity for neighborhoods, education, health care, and housing.    Keisha Krumm's Full Op Ed in Urban Milwaukee here.
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Keisha Krumm has been organizing over 17 years with the IAF, including 8.5 years as the Lead Organizer for Common Ground, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She can be reached kmkrumm@gmail.com
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Developers and community groups are monitoring these parcels closely. To show activists the projects under development or soon to be, the Washington Interfaith Network ran several bus tours this year. Tour guides noted potential conflicts as the city seeks to reap new tax revenue while requiring developers to include socially desirable, if less profitable, features.

“At some point, you realize there’s just a machine that’s running,” said the Rev. Frankey Grayton, pastor of Edgewood Baptist Church in Washington and a prominent activist with WIN. “The development is happening at an alarming rate.”  Read the rest of the story in the NY Times here.
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From the Washington Post:
One person who recognizes this disparity is Mike Gecan, senior organizer at Metro Industrial Areas Foundation based in Chicago. In something of a unique social experiment, Gecan is attempting to address obstacles faced by populations who are disadvantaged by residing in far-off areas of the map.  Opinion piece here.
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EBR Metro Council approves first industrial tax break since adopting ITEP-related guidelines.  Advocate story here.
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"THIS IS A HISTORIC DAY FOR STATE EMPLOYEES AND ALL NEVADANS, AS COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS WILL MEAN A VOICE ON THE JOB TO MAKE MEANINGFUL CHANGES." ​

​Common Dreams story by Jake Johnson  here.

Angry seniors today raise hell against a mayor who a year ago made them a promise to build $500 million in new affordable senior housing, then turned his back and flew to Iowa to sell his brand of progressivism on the national market.

​We echo the frustration of the men and women of East Brooklyn Congregations and Metro Industrial Areas Foundation as today, at the end of their ropes, they call for Mayor de Blasio to “step up or step down."

NY Daily News Editorial
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Volkswagen was wooed to Chattanooga in 2008 with a $554 million subsidy package from the state and local governments.
It was the largest taxpayer handout ever given to a foreign-owned automaker up to that moment, and remains the largest subsidy deal in Tennessee history. The deal came free of any job or investment requirements.
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“The only commitment that was made to the state was to keep the plant nonunion. It wasn’t to be safe or pay well or provide a great work environment,” said maintenance worker Gary Swafford. “It’s flabbergasting.”

Full story in Labor Notes here.
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"Franklin D. Roosevelt is reported to have said about the need for a specific policy initiative, "Okay, you've convinced me. Now go out there and organize and create a constituency to make me do it." I fear that too many progressives are still caught up in the "convincing," when what we need now is the constituency-and people who are willing to think hard about how to create, sustain, and energize that constituency."   More from still timely piece in Boston Review.
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