People's meeting on housing

Written by SPRU 
Act Up in Sask
Friday, 14 October 2011

The Social Policy Research Unit, Faculty of Social Work will be bringing in Mary Bricker-Jenkins, long-time advocate for the poor, to lead a public discussion about the lack of affordable housing, evictions and homelessness and what can be done. Dr Bricker-Jenkins is professor emerita, School of Social Work, Temple University, PA. In 2003 she was named Pennsylvania State Social Worker of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) for her efforts to eliminate poverty.

She was the driving force behind the formation of the Economic Human Rights Pennsylvania Campaign (EHR-PA), a ground-level movement organized to tackle poverty by integrating economic human rights standards into state laws. The group was founded under the premise that the US, by virtue of covenants it signed with the United Nations and the Organization of American States, is in violation of mandates requiring countries to guarantee their citizens access to such basic human rights as housing, education and health. Bricker-Jenkins is a member of the Poor People’s Economic Human Right Campaign; the International Alliance of Habitants (IAI); the Assembly to End Poverty; and currently is the convener of the USA-Canada Alliance of Inhabitants (USACAI), a network of community-based groups and organizations working to claim the right to housing, land, and the city.

This event will take place on Friday, Nov. 4th at the Knox Met Church from 10 am until 3 pm. More info will follow. Everyone welcome.

Websites:

USACAI
http://community.habitants.org/usacai/author/usacai/
IAI
http://www.habitants.org/
Assembly to End Poverty
http://www.end-poverty.org/
Video: ending with the shame and blame about poverty
http://www.habitants.org/urban_popular_university/inhabitants_memory/ending_with_the_shame_and_blame_about_poverty