Announcing a 55-leader Strong Learning Delegation to Barcelona

The delegation aims to deepen our understanding of tenant power and housing movements in Barcelona, focusing on how activists resist corporate landlords and fight for affordable social housing. Tenant unions are essential building blocks for both the advancement of social housing as well as a high-functioning participatory democracy. By learning from Barcelona's successes and challenges, delegates will bring back insights to strengthen housing justice work in the U.S. Our goal is to distill the key strategies from progressive movements in Spain and others who will be participating in the convening, build deep solidarity with these movements, align our actions for greater impact, and widely share the lessons learned.

Our delegation will focus on three key areas of innovation:

• Emerging Organizing Models: How are movements creating new, participatory institutions and coalitions that cross community, labor, political party and class lines to build inclusive democracies, advance environmental justice, and integrate arts and cultural strategies? What do impactful labor-community partnerships look like? How has the role of political parties and organizations in Europe impacted emerging, integrated organizing movements?
• Policy Innovation: What public policies successfully shift power from elites to tenants, such as accessible social housing,legislatively empowered tenant unions, or regulated housing? How are these movement-led ideas won and implemented?
• Resistance to Authoritarianism and the Far Right: How do movements effectively combine organizing strategy, security measures, and risk-taking in the face of authoritarian threats? How do they confront violent repression, from extralegal killings to imprisonment?

Objectives

1. Learn from the PAH Movement and other international tenant movements: Participate in the PAH's November 2024 international housing conference to explore campaign strategies, legal frameworks, and direct action tactics against corporate landlords.
2. Gain Inspiration, Insight and Practical Skills: Attend workshops, meetings, and field trips focused on high impact tenant organizing at scale, social housing models, and resistance strategies to equip delegates with a range of actionable tools.
3. Expand Movement Networks: Forge connections with housing justice leaders, tenant unions, cooperative housing developers, and policymakers.
4. Resistance to Authoritarianism and the Far Right: How do movements effectively combine organizing strategy, security measures, and risk-taking in the face of authoritarian threats? How do they confront violent repression, from extralegal killings to imprisonment?

Proposed Activities and Events

• PAH Conference (November 15-17, 2024): Participate in two tracks of workshops, with a focus on direct action, legal strategy, narrative development, and expanding the activist base.
• Meetings with Political Leaders:
  • Ada Colau, former Mayor of Barcelona and speaker of Barcelona en Comú.
  • Janet Sanz, former Vice Mayor of Urban Planning and Ecology, Barcelona City Council.
  • Jessica Albiach, Speaker of Catalunya en Comú at the Catalan Parliament, and potential future Vice President and Housing Minister of Catalonia.
• Field Trips to Housing Projects:
  • La Borda: A cooperative housing project.
  • Can Batlló: A self-organized cooperative housing development.
  • APROP Glòries: Industrialized ship containers used for public rental housing.
  • Mass Madera: Industrialized construction of public rental housing.
  • WikiHousing: An innovative model of net-zero social housing for young people.
• Engagement with Housing and Research Experts:
  • Jaime Palomera, CEO of Hidra and former speaker of the Barcelona Tenant Union.
  • Carles Donat, Co-director of the Housing Observatory of Barcelona.
  • Carme Ascarazo, Speaker of the Barcelona Tenant Union.
  • Javier Gil, Speaker of the Madrid Tenant Union.
• Workshops and Meetings: Sessions with labor unions, tenant unions and organizations, cooperative housing developers, and social housing experts to learn about organizing strategies and financing and governance models.

Expected Outcomes

In addition to leaders and partners from The Action Lab and Housing Justice For All, the group of delegates includes 55 senior organizers and leaders from the following 17 NY and national organizations:

1. CAAV: Organizing Asian Communities,
2. Citizen Action of New York,
3. Center for Popular Democracy,
4. City-Wide Tenant Union of Rochester,
5. Climate and Community Project,
6. Democratic Socialists of America, New York City Chapter
7. DRUM - Desis Rising Up and Moving,
8. For The Many,
9. Make The Road NY,
10. Met Council on Housing,
11. Neighbors Together,
12. New York Communities for Change,
13. Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition,
14. New York Working Families Party,
15. New York State Tenants & Neighbors,
16. Urban Democracy Lab, and
17. Other New York tenant organizing groups.

Participants also include educators from CUNY School of Law, City College of New York, NYU School of Law, Wagner School of Public Service and Gallatin. These organizations are strategic partners and/or members of The Action Lab and Housing Justice for All. We are already in a shared political project together and have the relationships necessary and existing infrastructure to ensure the delegation leads to lasting results.

Delegates will return with practical knowledge, ideas and inspiration on organizing and campaign strategies, including direct action, legal strategies, narrative and communications, and how to build and broaden democratic structures for housing. They will seek ways to build lasting international alliances and shared language together with other movements, and explore new models for building tenant power.

These insights will inform housing justice work and spark new campaigns at the state and federal levels in the U.S., particularly in organizing against corporate landlords, advocating for affordable housing policies, and shifting the balance of power to tenants.

Sharing and Disseminating our Learning

Delegates will share their learnings through a public report-back, a private internal report-back to their organization and a series of written reports—likely in partnership with the Forge Organizing Magazine—once back in the United States. We anticipate producing a series of compelling, broadly-shareable final products that synthesize our experiences and learnings, such as zines prepared in collaboration with graphic artists or short videos conveying highlights of the trips and selected points of inspiration.

By disseminating these insights, we will build momentum for anti-authoritarian movements across the U.S., while building practical skills, strategies and connections to move housing justice forward.