Housing

Check Out My Brooklyn! - A Great New Film About Gentrification
April 11, 2013
The NESRI housing team is excited about an excellent new documentary on gentrification. And, it’s not just us. The audience members at screenings, and the students in classrooms we have spoken with about the film, have been really engaged and think the film is a big hit! The film... Keep Reading »
Defend Our Human Rights Defenders
April 2, 2013
In the course of a single week in late February, three human rights activists in three cities across the country were in court facing criminal offences arising from their human rights work. The NESRI housing team attended all three court hearings. In New York, Michael Premo, a housing rights... Keep Reading »
Housing is a Human Right’'s Michael Premo, a tireless artist-activist, in danger of being criminalized: solidarity action needed
February 26, 2013
Brooklyn-based Michael Premo is an artist, activist and organizer, with whom many of us at NESRI work. He has tirelessly given his time to fighting for human rights for many years. I joined NESRI's Housing Program in 2010, at which point Michael was deeply engaged in the 2-year consensus-... Keep Reading »
Peaceful protestors demanding hospital services for local community criminalized by University of Chicago
February 25, 2013
On January 27th, 2013, fifty Southside Chicago community leaders and young people paid a visit to the University of Chicago campus to peacefully demand that the institution ensure its 700 million dollar medical center expansion include provisions for local residents. The protesters planned... Keep Reading »
For a People’s Recovery with Human Rights - NESRI Statement on Hurricane Sandy
November 6, 2012
Hurricane Sandy has wrought the kind of disaster that reminds us of the critical role of government in supporting people and delivering essential public services such as transportation and utilities. During a crisis that appears natural and random, we expect all levels of government to act... Keep Reading »
Rappin’ with the Rapporteur: A Public Event on the Financialization of Housing
October 30, 2012
On October 26, 2012 UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Raquel Rolnik returned to New York City, the starting point of her official U.S. fact-finding mission in October 2009.  The event, co-sponsored by the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and the Center for... Keep Reading »
The Lessons of South Africa’s Largest Poor People’s Movement Resonate at Home
October 18, 2012
Two youth leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African Shackwellers Movement, the largest poor people’s movement in post-apartheid South Africa, paid a visit to Chicago to share their struggle for land and housing, as part of a month-long tour throughout the United States.  In... Keep Reading »
Faced with Forced Evictions, An Alabama Community Proposes a Plan for Restoring Dignity and Accountability
October 17, 2012
For some 8,000 residents of the town of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, and their neighbors just south in the small fishing villages such as Coden and Mon Louis Island, life has revolved around the Gulf of Mexico and its bounty for over 300 years. Since the modern chemical and oil polluters and large-... Keep Reading »
First U.S. Presidential Debate Stuck in the Logic of Finance, Fails to Address Housing Need
October 5, 2012
The first debate of the 2012 presidential election season was truly disheartening.  Both parties’ candidates failed to address the severe human rights crisis that has been greatly fueled by the federal government’s policies in housing.   Each candidate has proposed he... Keep Reading »
U.S. Housing Situation a "Human Rights Crisis" on Aljazeera
September 4, 2012
NESRI Director Cathy Albisa joined Take Back the Land founder Max Rameau and Cornell Law Professor Robert Hockett for a discussion of the U.S. Housing Crisis on Aljazeera.       Four years ago the US government spent hundreds of billions of dollars in... Keep Reading »