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As ACORN Members have been doing since 1970:
Our members work on the issues that matter to low and moderate-income families in their communities, homes, and workplaces
Our chapters around the world have been
getting out, getting active, getting heard, and winning some major victories!
find out how below!
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Covid19 awareness. flyers being distributed house to house in Dharavi.
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The OnEstEnsemble association organized on December 18, 2021, its large citizen assembly of the inhabitants of the neighborhoods where it is located. 50 people from neighborhood associations, local committees: active leaders, supporters, association leaders, neighborhood leaders, and block leaders were represented. The purpose of this assembly was to share with the participant's information on the progress and results obtained by the Association in 2021 and to define the campaign tracks for 2022. Also, it was intended to reward with scrolls, the leaders who have distinguished themselves the most during the year.
Read More Here
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ACORN CANADA
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Have you heard about NB ACORN’s Renters at Risk report?
Download the report here :
English
French
The report uncovers the extent to which tenants fear eviction and how that fear has created a problematic power imbalance between landlords and tenants in the province. It also reaffirms what the End the NB Housing Crisis Campaign is already calling for: Rent Control, Eviction Protections and rewriting the Residential Tenancies Act.
Highlights and shout outs:
- Everyone who took the time to fill out the survey, thank you!
- Our amazing members in Moncton did an in person press conference and spoke about the report. Cristina Francoeur, Vanessa Jones, and Peter Jongeneelen, and some reporters, were out braving the rain that fell yesterday.
- Peter and Lore Ingersoll gave great interviews on the CBC morning shows in Fredericton and Moncton. Not easy to do, and they both did exceptionally well!
- Our NB Co-Chair Jill Farrar did awesome work speaking with the press yesterday.
- Newer members and people surveyed also spoke to the media, so great work to them as well.
The facts don’t lie. NB renters are at risk of displacement until the Higgs government stops dithering and implements actual tenant protections. Higgs and company are learning quickly that half measures on tenants’ rights are not going to slow down NB ACORN and our allies.
If you have not done so already, please share the online action for the End the NB Housing Crisis Campaign. Please share it with as many people you know who are not already members of ACORN.
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Birmingham: 🎉 WIN! EVICTION RESISTED.
🚩" Our member Adrian was living in a damaged flat and fell behind on payments during the pandemic. His landlord tried to kick him out before he had a chance to get a council flat."
✊ The Chapter showed up on the day and resisted the eviction, stopped the bailiffs and the landlord, and gave Adrian time to find a new home!
👉 Direct action works
For More Information Click Here
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Manchester:
Real Estates Group Ltd - It’s time to pay up‼️
"Shortly after moving into a flat of Real Estates Groups, our member Avery found mould on their mattress. A contractor soon found extractor fans that didn’t work and a leak seeping through the skirting boards. Avery was told they’d get back in touch, but five months on and our member hadn't heard a thing."
As months of inaction from Real Estates Group passed, mushrooms grew on walls, mould ruined clothes, and the member had to abandon their room and sleep on the sofa to escape their mouldy bed! Worst of all though, in November there was a flood that forced Avery to stay in a hotel. Our member then had to spend at least 50 hours cleaning up the damage left behind.
Real Estates Group accepted that the issue the member had raised in July was not resolved, and offered to return the rent in November if Avery wanted to leave the flat early. Yet this offer doesn't do justice to the disgraceful conditions the member has had to live in, not to mention the impact this has had on Avery’s mental and physical well-being. So our member has the full backing of their union in calling for proper compensation.
With their union behind them, yesterday the chapter paid the director of Real Estate Group a visit to share these demands. Shamefully though, our member wasn’t given their time to speak.
🚨 Real Estates Group Ltd 🚨:
It’s time to listen to your tenant!
We demand our member Avery is compensated for:
1. Rent from June to November
2. A weeks hotel stay due to flooding
3. Bedding damaged by mouldy mattress
4. Half of the flat being in unusable condition
5. Time spent cleaning, plus cleaning materials
6. The costs of items damaged by mould and damp
Alone it’s easy for those with money, resources and power to ignore us, but when we come together with our strength in numbers we can make our voice heard - loud and clear!
Newcastle:
"Here’s a thread of our biggest wins and campaigns of 2021 – if you needed another reason to join us!"
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It’s been another difficult year for many people, exacerbated by COVID, and many are still facing precarious housing situations, but we are still fighting and organising our communities, from individual successes to systemic change!
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We joined comrades from all over the NE as part of a mass protest, with other demonstrations being held all over the country, to demand REAL change to combat the climate emergency, as our elected officials sat around a table doing nothing.
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Thomas's case -- One of our biggest wins of the year, we fought on behalf of our member Thomas, who received £5,000 in compensation from his landlord following our tireless campaign!
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Hassockfield -- Opposing the immoral and arbitrary detention of women at the Hassockfield detention Center, in Consett, Durham. This centre repurposes Medomsley Detention Centre, notorious for the abuse of young in the 1960s, 70s and 80s as uncovered in Operation Seabrook. We demand homes not Prisons!
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Our Durham members have been tirelessly fighting to save the Apollo Bingo Hall from being turned into unwanted, expensive and ugly student flats!
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Kill the Bill -- Being a part of the mass movement opposing the regressive , fascistic PCSC bill, which threatens our civil liberties, including the right to peacefully protest.
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2022 is already shaping up to be a pivotal year on many fronts, not least with the best opportunity in years to win serious changes for renters through the Rental Reform Bill, so there's no better time to get stuck in with ACORN
Oxford:
"Incredible display of people power by our fellow members in Bristol. As a union, we have the collective strength to demand and win dignified housing for all!"
Brighton:
"I was saved by ACORN when I had nowhere else to turn to."
Local Member Carlotta was issued a Section 21 which expired on 12th December. She is disabled and wheelchair-bound, and being on DSS was finding it almost impossible to find a new home.
Carlotta had some rent arrears but had almost paid it all back by the time she got the Section 21. But Carlotta's landlord refused to negotiate with her, and the letting agent said they couldn't do anything to change his mind. 😡
But the chapter was not going to stand for this. ACORN Brighton members marched on Leaders (the estate agent) to let them know that evicting a vulnerable tenant in the middle of a COVID spike in winter is unacceptable.
✊ "And we won! Our members pushed Leaders to get the landlord on the phone there and then, and 2 days later the landlord withdrew the Section 21! Our members also negotiated down the rent repayment plan to an amount that was affordable for Carlotta. "
🚩 In a city where landlords hold all the cards and have so little incentive not to maximise profits at the cost of tenants, ACORN is taking a stand and keeping people in their homes!
Carlotta said: "The fact I’m disabled with progressive MS and that moving with three cats was impossible I was feeling hopeless with my search spending more and more on property’s that rejected me. Then with ACORN's help they saved me from my despair partly by being able to explain a lot of the things that made no sense to me and that I do have rights to live in my home."
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CATU is working toward launching a caucus for people of colour!
If you are a union member who is a POC and would like to be involved in the groupchat to set it up, email catuireland@gmail.com.
Membership of a caucus means, for example, having a rep on the CATU's National Committee. CATU acknowledges the burdens that many of our racialised members face and the establishment of a caucus for POC seeks to meaningfully address this.
More info: https://catuireland.org/caucuses
CATU’s LGBTQ+ Caucus have unanimously voted to join the Trans Writers’ Union boycott of the Irish Times. The IT’s treatment of trans issues is inhumane and directly contributes to a culture in which trans people, and trans youth in particular, experience homelessness and housing precarity at shockingly disproportionate rates, as well as other forms of discrimination and violence in public space and their our communities. CATU will not stand for this.
"We call on our national committee, as well as all local branches, to join us in extending our solidarity to this boycott until its demands have been met."
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Mohammad, Roobeena and their family have been renting their current house for 6 years, and have lived in the wider North Dublin area for 12. Their children are 3, 4, and 7 years old and have grown up in the local area.
Mohammad cannot work anymore following a road traffic accident in 2018.
In June 2021, the family received an eviction notice from their new landlord and their estate agents wanting to sell the house.
Due to the difficulty of finding housing at the moment, and in particular for families and disabled people, Mohammad joined CATU looking for support.
Through the backing of neighbours and CATU supporters, Mohammad and Roobeena are asking for another 6 months from the letting agent and landlord in their current accommodation to allow them to find a long-term alternative. Please sign this petition and join at catuireland.org/join to demand the same and stop a family being pushed into homelessness this winter.
Support The Campaign Here
#NoWinterEvictions |
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France
Radio campus] Members of the Muslim Women's Union record a podcast to tell their struggles ✊🏾
📣 Amel, Taous, Bilkis and Yasmina spent an hour on the air on DégenréE, the feminist show to disturb!
👉🏼 The opportunity for them to tell their struggles for Grenoble municipal swimming pools, their feminist commitments, their anger but also their joy in fighting together!
🔥 Find the podcast in story or on radiorageuses.net
A big thank you to @campusgrenoble for giving us the floor. Our allies are our strength and we won't let go 💪🏽💜
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Online Event
Province-Wide Organizing Meeting
SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 2022 AT 2 PM CST
Join us for a Province-wide organizing meeting on our housing campaigns!
Connect with members from other chapters and plan actions for affordable housing in your city!
Join us online at https://bit.ly/ACORNBC
Questions? Want to connect with members in your city? Email us at bcacorn@acorncanada.org
Sign to send an email to demand action for affordable housing: https://acorncanada.org/.../demand-healthy-and-affordable..
Online Event
Newton ACORN Community Meeting
SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 2022 AT 3 PM CST
Join us online for our big Newton ACORN meeting and chapter election!
We are discussing the local Stand up for Surrey campaign and planning actions on the province-wide housing campaigns.
Read more about the Stand Up for Surrey campaign here: https://acorncanada.org/take-action/stand-surrey-housing
Questions? Want to get involved? Email us at bcorg2@acorncanada.org
In-Person Event
Doorknocking training: Building the union
SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 2022 AT 5 AM – 10 AM CST
ACORN Bristol office, 20 Church Road, Lawrence Hill, BS5 9JA
We are the union in the community!
ACORN built itself from a few members in Bristol to a national organisation of thousands of members by knocking on one door at a time and speaking with people in our community about what matters to them.
To be part of building that momentum and help grow the union, join us for this in-person doorknocking training, and come out on the doors! This session will be focused on building support in the community for our campaign to Unlock Our Toilets.
𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙚: 𝙊𝙪𝙧 𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨, and although our 𝙩𝙤𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙞𝙧 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡e, we do have permission for members to use an accessible toilet in a restaurant next door.
In-Person Event
Unlock Our Toilets: Campaign outreach
SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 2022 AT 5 AM – 8 AM CST
The Bearpit and the Harbourside Fountains
Momentum is building behind our campaign to Unlock Our Toilets! To win we need support from as many people as possible across Bristol. That's why we will once again be hitting the streets, talking to people about the campaign, gathering testimony, and collecting signatures on our petition.
This should be a fun day out and a great way to start building support for this important issue - many people have strong feelings about the lack of access to toilets in our city! So we should gain lots of support. Come and get involved!
🧻 ✊🧻 ✊
#UnlockOurToilets
In-Person Event
Unlock Our Toilets: Campaign phone banking
TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2022 AT 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM CST
ACORN Bristol office, 20 Church Road, Lawrence Hill, BS5 9JA
We’ll be calling members to tell them about our campaign to Unlock Our Toilets, and explaining why we think reopening Bristol’s public toilets is essential for people’s dignity, and the freedom to enjoy a day out.
As ever, it’s also a chance to speak to your fellow members, hear what ideas they have for future campaigns, and to build solidarity one phone call at a time.
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ACORN protestors and tenants gathered on Thursday to protest the demoviction at 142 Nepean Street in Ottawa.
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Tenants' union claims Brighton council has 'let down renters'
A spokesman from ACORN said that the report's finding were "unsurprising" and that "exploitative landlords have gone unchallenged for too long".
He said: "Brighton and Hove City Council has failed miserably and let down renters who deserve better.
"We are pleased to have recently forced a commitment from the council to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to rogue landlords and to create a public database of law-breaking landlords, but this progress needs to be followed through and backed up by firm and meaningful action on these promises if we are to fix the housing crisis in our city.”
<< Read the full feature piece here >>
Thousands of council house tenants in Newcastle set to be hit with 'inhumane' rent hike
<< Read the full feature piece here >>
"Renters’ union Acorn has slammed the move as “absolutely criminal” at a time when there are warnings of a nationwide cost of living crisis caused by rocketing bills, with the council being urged to rethink its plans.
The Labour-run local authority said the price hike was needed to fund health and safety upgrades in its housing stock and that it was “fully committed” to supporting people that are struggling to make ends meet.
Read the Full Piece Here
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