Housing is a human right: Massive march about to hit Rochester, NY

Housing is a Human Right: Massive Housing March Comes to Rochester, NY

Here is a look at the large Housing is a Human Right march that is coming to Rochester, NY, and is look to fight to protect people being unjustly forced out of their homes.

Submitted by Eviction Free Zone on October 6, 2012

On October 16th Metro Justice will march to City Hall in a “Housing is a Human Right March”. We hope that you will join us in co-sponsoring this march!

With hundreds of people homeless every night, in a city that has enough vacant properties to house them all, we know that our communities are in crisis! When thousands of homes have been foreclosed upon by massive banks in our city, we know that housing must be a human right.

Adequate access to housing is the cornerstone on which we build a thriving and vi
brant community. At Metro Justice, we’ve taken that seriously and our Housing is a Human Right Campaign is growing. Our campaign makes two requests of the city that we intend to make very clear at our march on October 16th:

1. As a consequence of their awful foreclosure record across New York State and nationally, the City of Rochester should divest all public funds from JP Morgan Chase.

2. Due to the widespread fraud in mortgage foreclosures by big banks, the City of Rochester should halt police participation in evictions by those banks for one year.

We believe these requests are important steps for our city to begin to acknowledge the human right to housing. We know however, that there are many other actions that the city can take to ensure access to quality housing for all.

This has been a part of the growing housing movement that has hit Rochester, and the rest of the country. Under banners like Take Back the Land, Occupy Our Homes, Anti-Eviction Campaign, and others, the necessity of housing has brought about direct action to meet people's needs. In this way the movement is built of of the only logical response to the housing crisis: to save our neighborhoods. We are coming together to say that housing should no longer be simply a commodity to be bought and sold so that a crust at the top of the financial pyramid can become even wealthier. Instead, we are building a mass movement that has the ability to say that we will no longer support a housing model where people are being put out of their homes in mass and lets people sleep on the sidewalk when there are more than enough empty homes to go around. We need to create the kind of public movement they can no longer ignore, and we are calling for everyone to come out and tell the city and the country that we believe that if housing is a necessity to live then it should also be a right for everyone!

We hope that you will consider joining us in our Housing is a Human Right March on October 16th and that you can bring the important perspectives that you offer to this growing movement. This is a chance for all groups and individuals who believe we need to challenge the banks for kicking people out of their homes, and to bring ideas for what this change can look like!

We will be gathering first at Washington Square Park and then marching to City Hall, where we will have a rally in support of the idea that housing should be for everyone. After that some of us will head into City Hall to pack the place and show them what community power really looks like.

This march was originally called for by the Metro Justice Housing Committee and Take Back the Land Rochester, and now a large coalition have come together to make this a massive event! Rochester Red & Black, part of the In Our Hearts network, along with Band of Rebels, SEIU Local 200, Working Families Party, Pride at Work, International Socialist Organization, Monroe County Green Party, and dozens of other organizations have signed on!

You can't evict a movement, and we aren't going away.

Comments

Spikymike

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on October 7, 2012

The sentiments expressed in this seem admireable and if this demonstration were to encourage people to build a movement of practical resistance to evictions, whether over non-payment of mortgages or rents, then that would be worthwhile, but the 'requests to City Hall' ie those in authority over us, (not even expressed in the language of 'demands') for some pretty limited reforms of limited effect, even if they were conceded which seems unlikely, suggest that this march is more likely to just cause demoralisation for anyone getting involved outside of the self-interested groups promoting it - but prove me wrong.

Eviction Free Zone

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Eviction Free Zone on October 7, 2012

The ideas of these demands are for there to be a policy and non-profit support to the direct action movement, and many people in the Housing Committee that developed this are also in Take Back the Land (myself included). The goal of the march is not simply to push forward the moratorium piece, but to also just unite people around a larger housing movement that attempts to gain class power by uniting neighborhoods in solidarity. The foundation of this is still direct action, yet the moratorium piece would create a rift in the eviction process and is a good "public" demand that people can talk about.

klas batalo

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by klas batalo on October 8, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP10Prk-7NI

This video is very good, and has a lot of red and black flags. :D

Eviction Free Zone

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Eviction Free Zone on October 15, 2012

This is tomorrow everybody! So if you can make it out that would be great, and if not share the event info around and then join the conversation as to how to spread the movement nationally! There are Take Back the Land and Occupy Our Homes groups working in dozens of cities, so we should begin connecting them and working together!

syndicalist

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on October 15, 2012

Solidarity and good luck from Nu Joisey!

Eviction Free Zone

12 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Eviction Free Zone on October 23, 2012

Here is a follow up article talking about how it went. Pretty successful all around!

http://libcom.org/news/no-more-foreclosures-rochesters-housing-movement-hits-streets-23102012