USA-Canada Alliance of Inhabitants Launched
Launching the USACAI at the whole of USSF
In the context of historic levels of homelessness, displacement, forced evictions, and foreclosures, some 100 housing activists from many parts of the USA and Canada voted unanimously to create the USA-Canada Alliance of Inhabitants (USACAI). They had come to a June 24 session at the US Social Forum entitled How to Claim the Right to Housing and the City: Take Over, Take Back, and Take It to the World .
Multicolors Inhabitants toward Dakar
At the close of the session, participants passed the following resolution:
Be it resolved to establish today the US-Canada Alliance of Inhabitants--and to charge the Provisional Steering Committee to create a permanent structure to link and advance our efforts to claim our right to housing and land in the territories now called the USA and Canada--as part of the global movement to exercise this claim and as part of the International Alliance of Inhabitants.
The resolution was crafted after discussion of presentations by Cheri Honkala of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC), Rob Robinson of Take Back the Land, and Cesare Ottolini, Coordinator of the International Alliance of Inhabitants. The original resolution was amended to include Canada in the organization and to underscore the right of First Nation tribes to reclaim their native lands.
In the weeks prior to the session, some 25 grass roots organizations responded to a call to create a Provisional Steering Committee. Representatives met for the first time at the social forum to begin planning the further development of the USACAI. They had responded to a call for a united struggle to claim the right to housing by creating a means to support each other’s struggles; share knowledge and skills; enhance communication and collaboration; and join the global movement for housing rights. They now will take on the challenge to create a structure and strategy to accomplish these goals and their overarching purpose: claiming the universal human right to housing and the land.
Immediate tasks facing the Provisional Steering Committee include planning for participation in Zero Evictions Days in October and February’s World Assembly of Inhabitants in Dakar. They will also focus on membership development and the necessary administrative work of fundraising, communications, and coordination.
Representatives of groups interested in affiliating with the USACAI should contact Mary Bricker-Jenkins, Interim Convener, at mbricker@temple.edu .