In response to an extensive organizing campaign by VOICE Arlington, including testimony by 30 Serrano Apartment tenants and VOICE leaders at a December meeting, Arlington County officials are overhauling its oversight of affordable housing and building owner accountability.  

County changes now include:

1) Increased inspections, starting with 1,200 units in six aging, multifamily properties subsidized by the county. 

2) Changes to the County's Affordable Housing Investment Fund process that require companies seeking county financing to identify building needs and provide a plan for repairs. 

3) Examination of how the County can better support tenants in affordable-housing units.  This followed testimony by tenant leaders about years of problems with insects, mold, leaks and crime. 

Together, these changes represent a “major body of work” for the County in 2022, according to Vice-Chair Katie Cristol.

In top photo, Rev. Ashley Goff of Arlington Presbyterian Church at GilliamPlace testifies at the Arlington County Board Meeting [Credit: Arlington County video].  Right photos feature dirty, moldy plumbing in Serrano Apartments [Credit: Elder Julio Basurto via ARL Now].

Arlington County Board Meeting, December 14, 2021 [video, start at 2:33:00]

A Flurry of Activity at the Serrano Apartments After Residents Decry Conditions, ARL Now [pdf]

Over 100 Metro IAF public housing leaders and allies from the Melrose and Courtlandt houses and the surrounding community gathered to celebrate the installation of affordable community Wi-Fi at the Melrose houses.  Thanks to Metro IAF’s partnership with Bloc Power and People’s Choice Communications, all 1,244 families who live in the Melrose and Courtlandt Houses can now get internet at no cost if they sign up for the Federal Emergency Broadband Benefit, as well as a laptop for only $11.

“Internet access is no longer a luxury, it's a right and a necessity,” said Fr. Sean McGillicuddy, Pastor of Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church and a leader with Metro IAF.  “Hundreds of my parishioners live in the Melrose and Courtlandt houses, and I’m thrilled that we have been able to work with key partners like BlocPower, PCC, and Representative Torres to help them and their neighbors get access to high-quality internet they can afford.”

“When school was closed because of the pandemic, many children in our community couldn’t get to their classes because the internet was too expensive or the signal wasn’t good enough,” said Angela Medina, a Melrose resident working with Metro IAF, PCC, and BlocPower to reach out and educate her neighbors about the program. “I’m proud to help ensure no one ever has to go through that again, and I am excited about the new lower price for Internet access, which will help so many people to afford things like food, medicine and other necessities.”

Thanks to the work of Metro IAF and partners, the same service is available to an additional 400 families in other low-income and supportive housing buildings in the Bronx. Metro IAF is working to sign up everyone who is eligible, begin installation in two more New York City Housing Authority developments, and find other opportunities to expand this network to people living in other low and moderate-income housing. 

[In photo from left: Angela Medina, Fr. Sean McGillicuddy, Rep. Ritchie Torres, Bernard Smith]

Hundreds of Bronx NYCHA Residents Get Free Wi-Fi, $11 Laptops - and Program is Expanding, Pix11 [pdf]

New York City Broadband Housing Initiative Gets First Completed Project, Broadband Breakfast [pdf]

Community-Owned WiFi Completed in Two Bronx NYCHA developments, Amsterdam News [pdf]

A Bigger and Stronger Network/“Una Red Más Grande y Más Fuerte, Bronx Free Press [pdf English] [pdf Español]

Wi-Fi Installed for Residents at 2 NYCHA Complexes in the Bronx, News 12 The Bronx

Washington Post Profiles Nehemiah Strategy as 'Revitalization Without Gentrification'

This summer, United Power for Action & Justice (UPAJ) secured $27.6 Million in commitments and land towards the building of 2,000 Nehemiah Homes on vacant lots controlled by the city in severely blighted areas on the city's south and west sides as part of its Reclaiming Chicago campaign.  In a press conference with Mayor Lightfoot, Illinois Senate President Harmon and other local officials and allies, UPAJ announced the following advances:

1) Chicago Mayor Lightfoot's commitment of the first 250 city-owned vacant lots (the first of 1,000) in North Lawndale and $5.3 million in TIF funds for site remediation from the city of Chicago;

2) $12.25 million from private investors (e.g. banks, wealthy individuals, and family foundations) towards a 0%, 5-year revolving construction loan fund to build homes at scale. UPAJ's goal is to secure $25 million in funding to allow for the construction of 100 Nehemiah homes at a time.

3) $10 million line item in the Illinois State Budget for grant funds for homebuyer subsidies. This is enough to assist approximately 300 new homebuyers in purchasing 300 new constructed homes.

UPAJ's Reclaiming Chicago campaign is modeled on the Metro IAF Nehemiah Housing strategy which has built more than 6,500 homes for first-time home-buyers, creating over $2 Billion in wealth and with a foreclosure rate of less than 1% in New York, Jersey City, Baltimore, Chicago, Prince George's County, Philadelphia, Memphis and Washington DC.  This strategy was recently profiled by the Washington Post:

[Excerpt]

Washington Interfaith Network’s CARE Campaign (Corporate Accountability for Racial Equity), has resulted in the introduction by Pepco/Exelon of the $36 million Racial Equity Capital Fund. The fund will provide needed capital to help minority-owned businesses create jobs and expand in under-resourced communities served by Exelon’s utilities.

This is part of a larger agreement Washington Interfaith Network(WIN) negotiated with Pepco to increase access to local careers and raise wages of frontline workers. That project is already underway with commitments for 100 additional careers a year from D.C. communities with high unemployment. Wages are increased for all front line contractors to the prevailing wage, resulting in several job categories making nearly double what they were previously earning.

[Image: David Velazquez, Exelon Executive Vice President, on Twitter.]

Exelon Announces $36 Million Equity Fund to Support Minority-Owned Business Growth, Exelon Corporation [pdf]

We are sorry to announce that Msgr. John Powis passed away yesterday after a long illness.  Msgr. Powis was a founding leader of EBC when he served as pastor of Presentation Parish in Oceanhill-Brownsville.  He then moved to Bushwick, where he led St. Barbara's Parish for many years.  Msgr. Powis was part of a small team of priests that led the negotiations with the late Bishop Francis J. Mugavero as EBC began its Nehemiah Plan in 1982 and 1983.  He was a relentless champion of the people of East Brooklyn and an unwavering partner to all the clergy and lay leaders of EBC and Metro IAF.  He loved the New York Mets, loved being a parish priest, loved Brooklyn, and loved EBC. 

His spirit and toughness inspired us all.

Mike Gecan, IAF Senior Organizer & Dr. David K. Brawley, EBC Co-Chair

Msgr. John Powis, Champion of Brooklyn’s Downtrodden, Dies at 87, NY Times [pdf]

[Photo Credit: Linda Rosier, NY Times]

Arizona Interfaith Network and their education coalition partners have halted the lowest so-called “flat tax” ever enacted by a state.  By demanding a referendum on Senate Bill 1828, the coalition stopped the destructive reworking of Arizona’s tax code that would have reduced revenue by over $1 billion annually, putting future generations of Arizonans at risk. Instead the tax cut proposal will be referred to the 2022 ballot.

National anti-tax groups see Arizona’s tax legislation as a path to replicate, as evidenced by op-eds by the likes of Grover Norquist touting Arizona as a “national model”. This puts AIN’s fight into a larger context of citizens demanding responsible stewardship and preservation of state budgets that should be put to work for the good of their state, even in the face of well-funded outside interest groups.

The utter lack of political will to invest in future generations has got to stop.

Rev. Jeff Procter Murphy, a leader with Valley Interfaith Project, said at the press conference, “This has got to stop – this utter lack of political will to invest in future generations has got to stop. For too long we have neglected our responsibility to future generations. …

"They’ve decided to radically restructure our tax code to reward the very wealthy on the backs of everyone else.  They did so on the narrowest of margins, and they thought we wouldn’t notice.  This is an affront to the voters of our state.  It’s an insult to our teachers, and it’s a direct attack on the very people that all of us, people of faith, are instructed to protect:  children, the vulnerable, those who live on the margins and who have suffered the most in this pandemic.”

[In photo, Rev. Jeff Procter Murphy; photo credit InvestInAZ Campaign video] 

Education Advocates File Signatures to Force Vote on Ducey’s Tax Cuts in 2022, Arizona Mirror [pdf]

School Advocates Turn in Petitions to Overturn Arizona's $1 Billion Tax Cut, The Arizona Republic [pdf]

Petitions Turned in, Apparently Will Force Public Vote on Arizona Tax Cut, Arizona Daily Star [pdf]

Foes of Massive Arizona Tax Cuts File to Block Them, Associated Press [pdf]

Tax Cut Likely to Go to Voters, Arizona Capitol Times [pdf]

“The historical truth is that no single person—no matter how
gifted—has led complex social change on her own.”

-- BUILD leader Rev. Glenna Huber, Episcopal Church of the Epiphany

[Excerpt]

The pandemic made clear what we’ve previously known but rarely embodied: American cultural individualism is not sustainable. For people of faith, this individualism is not supported by scripture. Ever since the beginning, the Divine is recorded as creating with an eye toward relationships, and humans create in relationship with each other as well as their Creator....

This myth of individualism has even infected the way we talk about the social movements of the past. We love to tell stories of unilateral decisions by prophets “speaking truth to power.” We imagine Rosa Parks refusing to get out of her seat as a single, solitary event. We tell stories of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. looking to the heavens for a dramatic word. We imagine Harriet Tubman driving the underground railroad all by herself. These stories are not so much untrue as incomplete. They neglect the way that individuals were shaped by the institutions of their time and how that shaping gave rise to their courage. They ignore the teams of people whose collective efforts produced individual actions and leveraged those actions for larger change. The historical truth is that no single person—no matter how gifted—led complex social change on her own.

[In photo at podium Rector Glenna Huber (center) and Pastor Andrew Connors (right) stand with former BUILD cochair Bishop Douglas Miles, who died last month.]

Leveraging the Power of Relational Organizing, Christian Century

Residents of a 50-unit mobile home park in Wake Forest, NC organized through ONE Wake to secure $375,000 in relocation expenses from the Town of Wake Forest and developer Middleburg Communities. As a result, each household in the park will receive roughly $12,500. 

Six months ago, residents of the mobile home park received notice that their park would be closed to make way for the development of a 275-unit upscale single family home development. Since then, resident leaders have organized their power for a series of actions, including a July, 2021 press conference with over 200 people that brought developer Middleburg Communities to the negotiating table. 

On September 21, over 50 residents and ONE Wake leaders rallied outside of the Wake Forest Town Hall and successfully urged their Town Commissioners to vote yes on rezoning conditions that hold the developer accountable for compensating residents for their displacement. 

This campaign was one in a series of mobile home park campaigns organized by IAF affiliates in North Carolina to respond to the pressure from major developers, global investment firms, and hedge funds that have begun to purchase and flip parks all across the state. 

Wake Forest Approves New Homes, with More Money to Move Mobile Home Park Residents, Raleigh News & Observer [pdf]

IAF organizations across the country developed strategies to bring vaccines to the communities that were hardest hit by COVID-19 and had the least access to the vaccine. From registration events to vaccination clinics paired with neighborhood walks, IAF leaders showed that getting shots in arms requires organizing.

In one of the early campaigns, One LA-IAF leaders in Los Angeles organized the effort to vaccinate close to 900 senior citizens and essential workers in the hard-hit South LA community around St. Brigid Catholic Church.

"The issue is vaccine access," said Jim Mangia, President and CEO of St. John's Well Child and Family Center in an interview with ABC National News. "Most people in South LA have not had access to the vaccine. There's not hesitancy - people have questions of course, but people want to get vaccinated. The issue is that there was nowhere for them to go."

Nowhere to go, that is, until One LA leaders began organizing. After months of advocating for a more equitable vaccination campaign targeting hard-hit neighborhoods, One LA leaders secured a partnership with Supervisor Holly Mitchell and medical partner St. John's Well Child & Family Center to bring the vaccines to the neighborhood around St. Brigid Catholic Church.

"Unfortunately, it is one of the least vaccinated areas in Los Angeles," said Fr. Kenneth Keke, Pastor of St. Brigid Catholic Church. "One in five residents have had Covid-19, and only 1 in 18 have been vaccinated. We are going to change that. We don't want anybody left behind."

Over the course of four days, One LA leaders went door to door, passed out flyers and called 4,000 households. The targeted approach shielded the vaccine supply from out-of-the-area "vaccine chasers," but more importantly reached people who otherwise wouldn't be able to access the vaccine at all.

Meaghan Myrtle, a 90 year old resident of the neighborhood, had been trying for months to secure an appointment. Ms. Myrtle had no access to transportation or the internet. "This church called me back. Nobody else called me back."

[Photo credits: Top, One LA-IAF Vaccine event, Rafael Paz; Right top, Together New Orleans neighborhood outreach event, Bobbi-Jeanne Misick, New Orleans Public Radio, Right bottom, Fr. Kenneth Keke, St. Brigid Catholic Church, Los Angeles, NBC News]

One LA-IAF:

Group Gives Help to Vaccine Candidates, NBC 4 Los Angeles [video]

Fight for Vaccine Equity, ABC News National [video]

A Los Angeles Pilot Program Will Vaccinate Hundreds Within 2-Mile Radius of a Catholic Church, Religion News Service [pdf]

Hundreds of Vaccine Doses Administered in South LA After Volunteers Go Door to Door to Drive Up Interest, ABC7 Los Angeles [pdf]

Churches in LA's Working-Class Neighborhoods Urge: 'Bring the Vaccine to the People', Religion News Service [pdf]

Together Louisiana / Together New Orleans:

Together Louisiana Going Door-to-Door to Sway Residents to Get Vaccinated, WAFB 9 [pdf]

The Latest Phase of Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout Is Slow, Deliberate and on the Ground, New Orleans Public Radio [pdf]

Dallas Area Interfaith:

Many Faith Leaders in North Texas Embracing their Role in Vaccine Push, Dallas Morning News [pdf]

Some Churches Host Covid-19 Vaccination Clinics, Others Await, NBC-DFW [pdf]

The Metropolitan Organization Houston:

Changing Minds on the Vaccine, One by One, Houston Chronicle [pdf]  

Coalition Brings Vaccines to Beaumont Residents in At-Risk Areas, Beaumont Enterprise [pdf]

Organizations Team Up in Beaumont to Spread Word About Importance of Getting Covid Vaccine, FOX News [pdf]

Jornada de Vacunación en Ciudad con Gran Población Hispana, Telemundo [en español]

Putting Our Faith & Commitment to Democracy in Action, Southeast Texas Faith & Community Leaders

Valley Interfaith Project:

'It's an Act of Love': Volunteers Go Door-to-Door in Maryvale to Encourage Vaccination, Arizona Republic [pdf]

Invitan a la Comunidad a Vacunarse Contra el Coronavirus este 5 de Mayo en el Condado Maricopa, Univision [Video]

It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that Bishop Douglas Miles, IAF Co-Chair and BUILD Co-Chair Emeritus, passed away August 3, 2021 after complications from heart surgery. 

Bishop was a giant of a man, pastor, leader and friend. For more than 50 years, Bishop Douglas Miles (in photo from left, marching with Pastor Prentice at right) has been on the front-lines of every major social change in Baltimore and every major fight led by IAF. 

As longstanding Metro IAF and BUILD Leader Carol Reckling said, “It’s almost unfathomable to grasp Bishop’s reach. One way or another he impacted every one of us."

We were blessed with one of the greatest. We are all part of his legacy. We miss him dearly and are reminded of the words from God to the prophet that Bishop often closed out actions with, "Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us? And the voice of the prophet responded, 'Here am I, send me.’”

Let us continue to answer the call and fight the good fight. As we grieve his loss, may his incredible prophetic voice, brilliant wisdom, deep laughter, and shared memory guide us.

Please hold his dear wife Rose Miles, sons Pastor Dante and Harvey Miles, his entire family, Koinonia Baptist Church and BUILD in your prayers.

Bishop Douglas Miles, Who Advocated for Baltimore's Impoverished Residents and Co-Headed BUILD, Dies, Baltimore Sun [pdf]