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Michael Gecan is retiring as Co-Director of the Industrial Areas Foundation this month. All accolades coming his way will be richly deserved. His career has been a model of how to build and sustain broad based power organizations. Mike has been an organization builder, innovator, risk taker, and thought leader for over four decades.
While best known for his work with East Brooklyn Congregations (and the sparkling success of Nehemiah Housing in NYC), his mentoring of talented leaders and organizers, his strategic brilliance applied to multiple political fights over decades, his talent for expression through the written word, his (cold) anger, humor and patience put him in the top rung of change agents in the USA and abroad. See DF's page devoted to Michael Gecan's Books. |
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Inspectors in protective suits enter an apartment complex as the City of Omaha moves to inspect and potentially shut down the squalid Yale Park Apartments at 34th and Lake Streets, which is home to as many as 500 Myanmar refugees, on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018.
The outcomes for former Yale Park tenants give us a look at living conditions in low-income housing. They moved into apartments with living conditions similar to those they had been forced out of because unsafe housing is pervasive in our low-income housing market. Omaha does not enforce the minimum housing standard without a complaint. Many times, tenants are afraid to file complaints for fear of retribution or eviction. They may not have the extra cash on hand to move. No one is held accountable.
The failure of Omaha’s complaint-based system of code enforcement is evident in a new website, wedontslum.com. Organizations that work with tenants, whose expertise has not been sought by the mayor and City Council, are collecting and uploading photographs from Omaha rental properties with substandard living conditions to show the widespread and devastating nature of the problem. Story from Omaha World-Herald. Comments are closed.
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DF BOOKS Page: 
Reflecting with Scripture on Community Organizing
Effective Organizing for Congregational Renewal
Using the Tools of Effective Organizing to Build Your Local Union's Strengths in the Post-Janus Era
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