Fighting for Home, One Neighborhood at a Time
#WeMakeThisCity Anniversary Series: Part 4
Community organizations from all across the country came together last year to launch #WeMakeThisCity — a campaign for infrastructure and public goods that increase community wealth, health and justice. With one year of campaigning behind us, we have a lot to celebrate!
This post is part four of a series about the vital work of #WeMakeThisCity organizers across the country. Their hard-fought wins prove that by building power locally, we can strengthen our cities and create a just future, together. Each part of the series highlights the work in a different city.
In Colorado, Neighbors Organize Neighbors to Win Housing Rights for All
Shaping housing policy is an uphill battle in Colorado. For nearly 40 years, the state has had a law on the books that stops people from passing rent control ordinances in their cities and towns — which makes what housing organizers are accomplishing all the more astounding.
A few years ago, United for a New Economy, also known as UNE, embarked on a listening campaign Westminster — a gentrifying suburb near Denver — to figure out how to support people in danger of losing their homes. UNE builds community power to create vibrant, strong communities where all community members have a voice in the decisions that impact them, including affordable housing policy.
People Power Is the Key
UNE knocked on over 500 doors, asking people about the issues they were facing and how they envisioned organizing for a brighter future. A team of fifty local leaders stepped forward from that door-knocking campaign.
When these community leaders looked at what they all had in common, a few themes arose: high rents and sudden increases in rents and fees, landlords ignoring inhabitable conditions and then evicting people for filing habitability complaints, and a lack of legal protection.
Through 2017, the team attended Westminster city council meetings, County Commissioner meetings, and meetings with state legislators to create a set of policy solutions aimed at addressing displacement.
In a few short years, Westminster community members have moved mountains.
They improved living conditions by convincing the city to triple the number of housing inspectors, so that renters could have their claims investigated quickly and competently.
They also protected themselves and their neighbors from unfair evictions by collaborating with officials from the city, county, and six other surrounding local governments to fund legal aid clinics offering free legal representation for renters in Westminster and the neighboring counties.
But there are limitations to what local leaders can accomplish — State law makes it impossible for local leaders to effectively respond to the forces of gentrification. Under current laws, municipalities do not have the freedom to pass their own rent regulations and tenant protections.
UNE is working in coalition with other local groups, including 9to5 Colorado and the Colorado Cross Disability Coalition, to educate and mobilize their state legislators around housing justice. Members of the coalition have met with legislators many times in the last several years to share their stories.
In 2018, their hard work paid off. Newly elected State Senator Julie Gonzalez agreed to champion a piece of legislation to give cities and counties back the authority to enact rent control, protect workforce housing, and create inclusionary zoning. The bill came closer to passage than any previously similar effort, creating an opportunity for people from all across the state to testify before their legislators and build support that will be necessary to pass these reforms in the future.
Many legislators now know that affordable housing is the priority concern for Coloradans. The coalition made it clear to them that this is a crisis — over 56 percent of Coloradans can not afford housing costs, whether rented or owned.
This year, UNE is focused on building greater solidarity with organizations and local electeds across Colorado, because they intend to be back in the halls of the statehouse this year, fighting for housing rights for all.
Here at the Partnership for Working Families, we’re celebrating the hard work and vision of UNE and their members in Westminster.
Their victories are a testament to the future we can build when #WeMakeThisCity.
This campaign is about fighting for community-controlled, publicly owned institutions, structures, and services, while standing up against corporate giveaway and privatization plans. This includes the ability to afford housing in the communities we love, transportation systems that connect us to work, schools and services, access to clean water and energy, and so much more. Public infrastructure connects us all and should serve the needs of the people, not the pockets of corporations.
Could your friends and neighbors benefit from a #WeMakeThisCity initiative in your town? Reach out and join us!
United for a New Economy (UNE) envisions vibrant, strong communities where ALL community members have a voice in the decisions that impact them, access to economic security; which includes affordable housing and good jobs and the ability to live free of racism and fear.
Partnership for Working Families is a national network of 20 affiliate organizations driving a progressive agenda to harness the power of cities for change in our regions, and leverage that up to the state and national level. Our powerful coalitions of community groups, labor unions, faith networks and environmental organizations are building governing tables with a grassroots base of power to advance a vision of a just, sustainable, equitable and democratic communities.
