Resisting and Healing from Violence in Our Housing System

The Law Center supports healing from legacies of violence that pervade our housing systems. We do this by partnering with visionary organizations led by poor, houseless, Indigenous, Black and other POC communities usually excluded from power. Informed by those relationships, we envision policy changes and develop legal tools that allow diverse communities (including non-traditional families) to stay rooted in place.

Wood Street Commons Community (https://woodstreetcommons.org/; check out their Instagram too)

Wood Street Commons provides vital sanctuaries of housing and healing for Oakland’s houseless population. It empowers houseless residents to lead, organize, and create dignified solutions for the housing crisis. 

By Erika Sato

In December of 2023, I signed up to co-fill a new operations role with my coworker Ari. The role was called “Care Bear,” and although the specifics still needed to be figured out, it generally involved having an eye toward accessibility at the Law Center. I was motivated to take on this role because I had been having conversations with coworkers about how our culture at the Law Center is very productivity-oriented and that sometimes leads to judgment and shame toward ourselves and each other. After making the connection with ableism, I wanted to explore what an alternative approach might look like.

As Ari and I would soon learn, the scope of the role could be taken in a lot of different directions. We did a staff survey to find out what staff needs might be going unmet related to our physical workspaces, our job expectations, and our social environment. We hosted discussions and trainings on disability justice,[1] access as care and love,[2] executive dysfunction,[3] and fatphobia.[4] We also started to take a look at our external-facing resources and what might be done to ensure as many people as possible could understand and use them. 

At the same time, I was beginning a personal learning journey to better understand my relationship with ableism and disability. I began to educate myself on the history and goals of the disability justice movement, and to better understand how disability justice is integral to our liberation and our fights for justice along race, class, and gender lines. I learned about the ten principles of disability justice, as proposed by disability justice-based movement building and performance project Sins Invalid: (1) intersectionality, (2) leadership of those most impacted, (3) anti-capitalist politic, (4) commitment to cross-movement organizing, (5) recognizing wholeness of people outside their productivity, (6) sustainability and pacing ourselves, (7) commitment to cross-movement solidarity, (8) interdependence, (9) collective access, and (10) collective liberation.[5]

But as much as we learn through study, I believe that the deepest learning happens through our lived experiences. I reflected on my own struggles as I pondered the idea that most people are or will become disabled in their lifetimes. Am I disabled? I didn’t think so. Although I have struggled at times with various mental and physical health issues, it felt inappropriate to claim that identity when so many people live with disabilities that affect their lives and how they are able to move through our society in much deeper, more persistent ways. I had never been systematically excluded from anything due to my access needs. Even so, I was beginning to understand how disability justice offers really helpful frameworks for better understanding our own lives and relating to our bodies.

By Mike Diago from The Bittman Project

Podcast, Next Economy Living from LIFT Economy

A favorite grounding practice at the Law Center is reading! Below is a list of a few of our favorite books and articles from last year. These writings inspired us, brought us to tears, taught us a little bit about ourselves, and so much more! 

Our Favorite Sci-Fi Reads:

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather (Recommended by Erika)

Featuring a group of nuns traveling through space in a giant living spaceship animal, this short little book and its sequel have everything I would look for in a work of speculative fiction: a sapphic love story, anti-imperialist sentiments, creative sci-fi creatures, collective decision-making, spiritual-ethical conundrums, commentary on religious establishment, women in science, deep friendship among women, and journeys through space.

Por Jesús Cruz Reyes  Economía Solidaria

During my 20 years in the legal profession, I’ve had an ever growing feeling that the work of lawyers is disrupting something that should not be disrupted. I don’t believe it can be expressed in words, but I see it expressed everywhere. Perhaps I can offer a picture: 

Last year, I found myself quite captivated by a goose sitting on her eggs. I was struck with how, inside of an egg, liquid was slowly turning into a live gosling. I was struck by how the mother goose herself came into being in the same way, as part of an unbroken chain of millions of years of life creating and nurturing life. 

Whether you view this as divine unfolding or simply as biological facts, this is a flow, a pattern, and a force that we likely all agree should not be disrupted. A goose does not design and assemble her gosling. Rather, she lets life come into being, under her gentle and protective warmth.

As 2024 comes to a close, we’re reflecting on how to stay centered in this time of great uncertainty and pain. One way we center ourselves is by intentionally re-committing to the movement for resilient communities everywhere. Our commitment is rooted in our indispensable community of co-dreamers, supporters, partners, clients, comrades, and family. That includes you! 

Here’s our 2024 Annual Report which includes reflections from the year. Some highlights include:

• our work with Poor Magazine to denounce the criminalization of homelessness;
• our series of events on The Future of Work: Nourishing Life Giving Labor; and
• our policy campaigns to ban land grabs, abolish “family zoning,” and create a legal model for worker cooperatives owned and controlled by people in prison. 

There’s also a bunch of pictures of us and our comrades being awesome, badass, joyful, and/or silly together. We hope you take a look!

As we prepare for 2025, we are finding hope and motivation in our work of building economies of care and cooperation.  

If you’re able to support us, please contribute here. Every dollar helps to sustain our work in 2025 and beyond!

By: Trebor Scholz, Anne-Pauline De Cler, Michelle Lee, Morshed Mannan, Stefano Tortorici Co-op News

There are worker cooperatives in prisons all over the world, including in Ethiopia, South Africa, Iran, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Italy, and more. Folks incarcerated in California want them, too. At the Law Center, our vision is a future without prisons. To move toward that future, we want to help our partners in prison to create an ecosystem of “prison cooperatives,” i.e. worker cooperatives owned by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. That's why we're working with Earth Equity and others to make prison cooperatives possible.

By Mohit Mookim, Alejandra Cruz, and Tia Taruc-Myers

In 2024, the Law Center emerged with a new and expanded team of land justice legal workers. As four new staff attorneys were onboarded in mid-2023 — all of whom are passionate about land return work — our team created space to collectively and individually reflect on our land work through a six-month discussion series titled “Becoming the Land.” In that space, and in our regular “Land Eagles” meetings (where we surface strategic and high-level questions about our land work), one theme consistently emerged: the relationship between law and decolonization.

The Law Center strives towards decolonization. We use law to support movements for decolonization, moving with deep respect. But we also aspire to decolonize law itself. How do you decolonize law? Isn't "law" as we know it inextricably linked with colonization? Good questions...

On Sunday August 25th, 2024, the Law Center invited our closest Land and Housing Justice clients, collaborators, partners, and friends to join us for an afternoon of art making at the 510 Firehouse, located in Oakland’s Chinatown.

When we were deciding what to screen print, Law Center Staff Attorney Veryl Pow shared that Sarah Augustine — co- founder and Executive Director of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery — told him about a prayer she says every morning, “Thank you creator for the land, our body,” which is inspired by a prayer from the Nez Perce tribe. Members of the Law Centers Land Stewardship Circle agreed “The Land Our Body” was a value our community shared that we could screen print. Sarah Cauich holds up a screen print while Sandra De Leon (Somos Tierra) is to her left setting up for another round of printing.

Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-1-24, which directs California state agencies and departments to begin clearing unhoused people living on state property. The order comes at a time when similar policies are rising across the country, despite evidence that these approaches do not work to end people’s homelessness. Bay Area mayors, including Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, have enthusiastically embraced the governor's order as a “step forward in the right direction.”

We, at the Sustainable Economies Law Center, condemn Sheng Thao’s recent enthusiastic response to Governor Newsom’s cruel and unconscionable Executive Order N-1-24, from July 25, 2024, justifying the escalated and aggressive sweep of our unhoused Oakland neighbors in the wake of the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson decision by the Supreme Court. At the Law Center, our work focuses on building an inclusive and democratic grassroots social ecosystem by supporting land and housing justice and solidarity economy movements.

On May 23, the Law Center held a labor-focused community appreciation event at Kinfolx Cafe in Occupied Huchiun (aka Downtown Oakland) where we invited some of our collaborators to come enjoy each others’ company for an evening. Our guests of honor that night were poverty scholar teachers from Poor Magazine, a poor people–led/Indigenous people–led, grassroots, non-profit arts organization dedicated to providing revolutionary media access, art, education, and advocacy to silenced youth, adults, and elders in poverty across Mama Earth.  The Law Center has been supporting Poor with legal advice on land and housing. Some of us have also attended Poor Magazine’s twice-annual People Skool seminar, which is coming up on August 24 and 25 (find out more here). That day, we invited folks at Poor to share their scholarship around labor.  We deeply appreciate them for sharing it.