Causa Justa Just Cause | Publications Archive - Page 2 of 3

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Slumlord Fined Record $800,000 For Deplorable Housing Conditions

By Lucia Kimble Rat and cockroach infestations, lack of sanitation, bedbugs, leaks and mold – for many working- class tenants in San Francisco, these problems are daily occurrences that compromise their health and present uninhabitable conditions, especially when they are
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Rise of Tenants Reporting Harassment

By Ted Gullicksen and Maria Zamudio Tenants living in some of San Francisco’s quickly disappearing sources for affordable housing – rent controlled units – face a particular situation when property owners wish to evict them for profit. One of the
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Our Work Continues With Resilience and Courage

By Cinthya Muñoz Immigrant Rights Organizer & Maria Poblet, Executive Director October 1 was a historic moment for all who were awaiting Governor Brown’s decision on the Trust Act. Historic in that the sitting so-called “progressive” governor of California vetoed
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Dream Act Victory: What Does The Deferred Action Application Mean For You?

By Francisco Ugarte, Senior Immigration Attorney, Dolores Street Community Services On June 15, 2012, the Obama administration made history by announcing one of the most significant and favorable changes to immigration law in more than a decade – Deferred Action
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Foreclosures Still Hurting Our Communities

National Housing Crisis Continues By Robbie Clark Gail Leeks’ family is fighting to keep a home that’s been in their family for two generations. Gail’s mother, Marjorie Gibson passed away after a battle with cancer. After Majorie passed away, Wells
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Dreaming to Win: Immigrants Justice for All

By Maria Zamudio Photo: David Lumb | August 17/animalnewyork.com The disappointment and devastation felt in 2010 when the federal DREAM Act did not pass in the Senate was huge. Not only because of the amount of work that went into
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An Invigorated Housing Movement: Illegal Foreclosures, evictions spark anger and energy

Robbie Clark The Occupy protests that began last fall inspired a new politically active generation. Long time organizers and activists have been invigorated and together these groups have joined together around fights for housing and economic justice. This surge of
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The Facts About the Budget

The Facts About The Oakland Budget
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Wealthy Corporations and Individuals: Pay Your Fair Share!

Vanessa Moses Each year, the state of California and local municipalities play the budget game – trying to work out how to fund services and pay growing debts with shrinking revenue. Those of us who have been watching and experiencing
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My Opinion: The State of the City? Might be on the Rise…

Opinion Piece:Esperanza Tervalon-Daumont, Executive Director, Oakland Rising On Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012 Mayor Jean Quan, gave her first State of the City speech entitled “Oakland is on the Rise” to an audience of Oakland’s community, labor, business, athletic, musical and
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Is There A Future For Community Development

Raven Willoughby Over the last 50 years, redevelopment agencies (RDA) in the state of California have worked diligently on promoting economic and community development in areas once deemed “undesirable.” About 400 RDAs across the state have provided funding for many
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Governor Brown Slashes Affordable Housing Funds

Gloria Bruce, Deputy Director, East Bay Housing Organizations With the dissolution of redevelopment on February 1, we have lost the largest state source for affordable housing. Unless we can be particularly creative in identifying new funding sources and changing political
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Tenant Stands Up To Landlord’s Harassment And Wins

Patricia Zamora Robert Frison first signed up to be a member of Causa Justa :: Just Cause after coming to the Oakland tenant rights clinic for help with his housing problem in late 2010. He had been experiencing harassment issues
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Occupy the Neighborhood: How Counties Can Use Land Banks and Eminent Domain

Ellen Brown, Truthout | News Analysis An electronic database called MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) has created defects in the chain of title to over half the homes in America. Counties have been cheated out of millions of dollars in
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H is for Housing, Not Harassment: San Francisco Tenants Need Protections

Maria Zamundio While tenants in San Francisco have protection against unjust or unlawful eviction, there is currently nothing to protect these same tenants from being harassed by property owners, managers, master-tenants, bank representatives, or real estate agents. Situations where tenants
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Grandmother Annie B Attaway next to her daughter Carmelita Thurman. Photo: Courtesy Attaway family

Help Me Keep My Home Of 40 Years

February 21st 2012 To Whom It May Concern: It is with great regret and a burdened heart that I write this letter asking for your support to keep my home. I am Mrs Annie B. Attaway, and I have lived
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Carlos Parkins and Annie Mora stand up for housing rights at rally in Oakland. Photo: CJJC archives

10 Years Of Eviction Protection In Oakland

By Robbie Clark It has been 10 years since the Just Cause Eviction ordinance, Measure EE, was passed in Oakland. Did you know that since then, there hasn’t been any legislation to protect tenants’ rights passed in the City of
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What’s Next for the 99%: Mass Sit-In Set for April 24

Wells Fargo is scheduled to hold its annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday April 24th but we have decided to make that difficult for them. Community organizations, unions, groups from Occupy San Francisco and Occupy Oakland, and everyday community members who
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Photo: courtesy Lucasfilm/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

Movie Review: Red Tails – Blacks And Military Service

Laurene S. Francois They huddled together, arms in arms, and their voices reverberated like a choir, “Nothing is difficult, everything is a challenge. Through adversity, to the stars, from the last plane, to the last bullet, to the last minute,
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Book Review: Playbook for Progressives

Jaron Brown Reviews book by Eric Mann “The tradition of transformative organizing always finds the paths of hope. In dark times, what do we do? We organize.” Eric Mann’s new book Playbook for Progressives is one of the most anticipated
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November 2, 2011 General Strike in Oakland. Photo: R.M. Arrieta

Occupy and The 99 Percent

By Alma Blackwell interviewed by Adam Gold Over the past six months, a new wave of activism has washed across the United States and the world, mobilizing thousands of people to camp out in city squares, protest financial institutions and
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Tax Measure Compromise a Victory for Progressives: What it Means

By Paul Hogarth, reprinted courtesy of BeyondChron After spending months attacking and belittling the Millionaire’s Tax (which polls showed had far greater support than his own Tax Measure), Governor Jerry Brown struck a compromise March 14 with its backers –
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Former Pacific Steel workers at their March For Dignity in Berkeley. Photo: Brooke Anderson

Immigrant Workers March For Dignity And Justice

R.M. Arrieta “They talk about undocumented workers taking jobs but I’d like to know what would happen if for one day, all the undocumented laborers would stop working.” — Former Pacific Steel worker More than 200 workers fired after an
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HB56 Erodes Civil And Human Rights

Ingrid Chapman, Organizer, Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice and Alia Trindle, Catalyst Project Containing a host of 30 discriminatory provisions, this new Jim Crow law makes Alabama unlivable for undocumented immigrants. Because the law is so extensive and extreme, Alabama
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Californians Benefiting From Federal Health Care Law

Richard Figueroa, Director, Health & Human Services, The California Endowment Thanks to the great work of many community organizations around the state, Californians are beginning to understand that staying healthy is not only a matter of routine visits to the
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Oakland residents speak out at City Council hearing. Photo: Brooke Anderson

A victory for Oakland: Good jobs on the horizon for the Army Base project

Kate O’Hara, Revive Oakland Campaign Director, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy On February 7, the Oakland City Council unanimously approved a Good Jobs and Community Benefits plan for the massive redevelopment of the Oakland Army Base project. This
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Are Unionized Shops Targets of Silent Raids?

“…without the full picture and supporting documentation, it would seem… employers who are bearing the brunt of these audits are [those] … involved in collective bargaining agreements with labor unions. That is bad for business, workers and the American people.”
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African-Americans and Latinos Unite to Repeal Alabama’s Anti-Immigrant Law

Ingrid Chapman, Organizer, Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice and Alia Trindle, Catalyst Project Throughout Alabama, people are coming together – across differences in race, nationality, immigration status, gender, and political party affiliation — to fight for the repeal of Alabama’s
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Maria Poblet: On Feminist Internationalism, Economic Justice, and the Movement of the 99%

Address to the Association of Women’s Rights in Development Istanbul, Turkey, April 19, 2012 It’s an honor to be here, among such powerful women and women’s organizations, from all over the world, gathered in such a beautiful city. Looking around
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Maria Poblet: 99% Power vs. Wells Fargo

Ah, spring. Tulips, chocolate bunnies, and…. capitalist conspiracy. Each spring the shareholders of every major bank get together to make their strategic plans for the year. Bank of America will meet in Charlotte, NC. Wells Fargo’s meeting is at their
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Victories From Our Tenant Rights Clinic

Immigrant Family Fights Landlord Harassment By Patricia Zamora Gilberto and Elvia Nuñez were being harassed and accused by their landlord of being “illegal.” The landlord made harassing phone calls to them at all hours of the day including very early
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Housing protest. Photo: Chi Mei Tam for CJJC

Defend the Public Sector and Democracy

From Wisconsin and North Carolina to Tunisia and Egypt! Grassroots Global Justice Alliance Solidarity Statement Grassroots Global Justice would like to support the record number of protestors coming out to defend collective bargaining rights and the public sector in Wisconsin.
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Domestic workers march for rights. Photo: National Domestic Workers Alliance

Undervalued & Invisible

Domestic Workers Organize to Win Respect and Recognition By Andrea Cristina Mercado, Mujeres Unidas y Activas and Ai-Jen Poo, National Domestic Worker Alliance Domestic workers – who care for some of the most important elements of our lives like
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$1.2 Trillion:

The Real U.S. National Security Budget No One Wants You to Know About By Chris Hellman, National Priorities Project What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked
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Housing Justice is Climate Justice

By Colin Miller, Urban Habitat Climate change has become almost universally recognized as the single greatest threat to life. No substantive action has been taken at the international (United Nations) or federal level to deal with the growing crisis. On
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Don’t Miss the Bus!

POWER and MORE Public Transit Coalition win 12,000 free MUNI passes for SF youth By Alicia Garza On a recent rainy afternoon in San Francisco’s Mission District, members from People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) and the MORE Public
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Voting Is Still A Civil Rights Issue

By Sanyika Bryant Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) has recently come up in the news again. Failed Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata is trying once again to pit Black and Asian communities against each other. He is claiming that Ranked Choice Voting
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CJJC Unfolds First Universidad Assata Shakura

By Maria Zamudio In January Causa Justa::Just Cause’s (CJJC) member leaders and staff began our first three-month political and organizational learning process, the Universidad Assata Shakur. This is a way for member leaders from San Francisco and Oakland to deeply
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Neighbors Helping Neighbors

By Sheon Slaughter My name is Sheon Slaughter and I am a Causa Justa::Just Cause member. I have lived in North Oakland at 32nd Street and Telegraph Avenue for four years and while I love my neighborhood, there are some
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Building Skills and Leadership

By Billy Trice Jr. I’ve been a member of Causa Justa::Just Cause since 2000. I first got involved in the work to get a Just Cause Eviction Ordinance passed in Oakland. This ordinance, called Measure EE was going to require
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