This class is an introduction to the National Union of the Homeless (NUH) – an organization led by homeless individuals and families, which at its height had over 25,000-30,000 members in over 25 cities, and led coordinated campaigns to takeover empty HUD housing and demand it be turned over to homeless families to live in. The instructors were all active leaders in the NUH and its affiliated student organization, Empty the Shelters. The course will cover the context for the rise of the NUH, the history of the movement, lessons from its successes and failures, and the organizing approach it helped to define – “the poor organizing the poor,” as well as case studies from current poor organizing the poor efforts of today.
Instructors
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Willie Baptist
Willie Baptist is a formerly homeless father of three who came out of the Watts uprisings and the Black Student Movement. He has 50 years of experience educating and organizing amongst the poor and dispossessed including working as a lead organizer with the United Steelworkers, as an educator and organizer with … Read More ›
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Savina Martin
Savina Martin is a lifelong activist and organizer from Massachusetts. She is an Army Veteran, and over the years has mobilized and organized around the war on drugs affecting homeless men, women and veterans in Boston and San Diego, CA. In 1993, she helped to coordinate resources to refurbish an … Read More ›
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Kristin Nicely-Colangelo
Kristin Colangelo is a formally homeless mother of three. She has organized poor and homeless families for the past 20 years. She is the Membership Director, the National Secretary and one of the regional organizers of the National Union of the Homeless. She is the coordinator of the University of the … Read More ›
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Phil Wider
Phil Wider has been an organizer and political educator in the U.S. movement to end poverty for the last three decades. His entry point to the U.S. survival movement was through the Philadelphia/Delaware Valley Union of the Homeless, where he was an organizer and educator with its educational arm … Read More ›
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Anthony Prince
Anthony Prince is the General Counsel for the California Homeless Union/Statewide Organizing Council, an attorney in the state of California and the Co-Chair of the California Poor People’s Campaign. He was a founding and leading member of the National Union of the Homeless and its Chicago/Gary Indiana local chapter in … Read More ›
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Nijmie Dzurinko
Nijmie Zakkiyyah Dzurinko is an organizer and movement strategist of over 20 years from Pennsylvania. She is co-founder of Put People First! PA, a working class statewide base building human rights organization, and is a chair of the Pennsylvania Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Read More ›