2025 Housing Justice Resources & Follow Ups

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Thank you to everyone who attended and helped to organize the 2025 Housing Justice Summit! This page will be updated to highlight key lessons, opportunities, resources and potential next steps that emerged from the Summit. Notice something is missing? Please feel welcome to send us an email at hrca@theglobalswitchboard.org.

Keynote: Tracy Rosenthal

Tracy Rosenthal is a co-founder of LA Tenants Union and co-author of Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis.

  • View the recording of Tracy's keynote address here.
  • "Rights are what we make and what we take!"
  • "The capitalist system isn't designed to provide the best quality housing to the most tenants. It's designed to maximize landlords' profits by extracting the most rent."

Organizing for Tenants Rights

Pittsburgh groups doing this work
  • Pittsburgh Union of Regional Renters (Contact pghurr@gmail.com)
  • Pittsburgh Tenants Organizing Committee (Contact pittsburghtenants@gmail.com)
  • OnePA (Contact matt@onepa.org)
  • Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table, Tenants Bill of Rights & Anti-retaliation Campaigns (Contact Dave@LUnited.org or info@pittsburghunited.org)
  • Pitt Renters First Committee (Students) - complete the interest form or contact Emilia EJM163@pitt.edu
Key Takeaways
  • Relationships are the foundation of our organizing movements. Take time to get to know your neighbors.


Social Housing

Pittsburgh groups doing this work
Resources

Governance & Policy

Key Takeaways
  • The system is delivering the kinds of outcomes it's designed to deliver. If we want change, we need to change the system itself.
  • Collaboration and cooperation among all levels of government (the Mayor, County Exec., and other electeds) is key.
  • The centrality of housing to well-being is important to stress — it affects everyone. When we address housing, we are addressing a whole range of issues that matter to our communities.
  • Related: many human rights issues are interdependent, and we need an approach that recognizes that and that approaches issues in an intersectional way. (Housing, transit, wages, public health, education, etc.)
  • We need political power. PUSH Buffalo is an example. If we want to change the system to address core human needs and human rights, we have to have political power, and for that, we need to elect people who are going to make the changes we need to see.
Ways to Get Involved

Movement Building

Key Takeaways
  • There are many opportunities to plug into meaningful work to advance human rights and housing justice in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. We don't always need to start a new initiative: take time to learn who is doing the work and to understand where help and support are needed.
  • Relationships are key. We must get to know each other and build trust if we are going to organize together effectively.

Upcoming events

  • Tuesday, April 15th, Know Your Rights for Students in Off-Campus Housing, Pitt Renters First Committee, 6-8pm, William Pitt Union, Nordy's Place (Open to all students)
  • Friday, April 25th, Spray Paint Workshop & Panel Discussion: Freedom of Expression and Free Walls: Imagining Spaces for Dialogue and Belonging in Pittsburgh, Hemispheric Conversations Urban Art Project, 5-6pm -spray paint workshop, 6-8pm - panel discussion with reception catered by El Colibri, Irma Freeman Center for the Imagination, 5006 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15224
  • Wednesday, April 30th, Film Screening & Conversation: BEYOND THE BRIDGE: A Solution to Homelessness, August Wilson African American Cultural Center, film at 7pm (doors at 6:30pm). RSVP here (tickets are free!)
  • Wednesday, May 7th, Penn Plaza Mass Eviction 10th Anniversary Action Planning, 3pm on Zoom. Email madeline@theglobalswitchboard.org for the link and to get involved.
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