Housing Justice Pittsburgh

Building community power to fight displacement and promote our "Right to the City."

Together with housing justice advocates around the region, we're working to bring together housing policy advocacy and some ideas and themes emerging from housing justice work over two housing summits (2016 and 2018) and Racial Justice Summit panels (2017, 2019) in Pittsburgh. We are working to push policy makers to prioritize human rights in housing policy and to stop the displacement of low-income residents.

Housing Justice Goals & Strategies

• Build Collective Power: Build and support tenants’ union organizing being led by the Landless People’s Alliance; build our connections to national and global movements (such as Homes for All and the National Human Rights Cities Alliance).
• Support the Affirmatively Forwarding Fair Housing Task Force Recommendations: Support the follow-up to the AFFH Task Force. Now that the task force work is concluded, it is up to us to make sure our politicians follow through on the Affordable Housing Task Force Recommendations.
• Promote a city/county/state tenant bill of rights. See Washington DC as Model). Our discussions led to a proposed change in how we frame this to make it a “housing bill of rights”—this would broaden the base to include rights for homeowners (many of whom are essentially renting their homes from a bank) and recognizing the legitimate rights of landlords.
• Shift Discourses: Housing is a human right, and homes and communities are not commodities! We need politicians and the public to see housing as a human right. Our homes should not be treated as real estate, and our communities should not be treated as commodities:
  • Communities Over Commodities: People-Driven Alternatives To an Unjust Housing System
  • UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing--Letter to US Government On Housing Financialization as Human Rights Violations
  • #MaketheShift #HousingisaHumanRight!
• Democratize Policy Process to ensure Community Participation and Consultation: Reform existing practices to ensure robust and transparent social impact assessments and meaningful community participation in planning and development. Residents must be consulted at the start of new development proposals.
  • We need to oppose the recent decision to limit participation in development and planning processes to Registered Community Organizations
• Build Community Resources: Promote and develop community land trusts and housing cooperatives to establish collective control over access to housing. *More information at: Homes for All

Past Meeting Notes [[:File:

Links & Resources

• Pittsburgh Housing Summit Page: Resources and program from our 2016 and 2018 Housing Summits