Community organizing
Organizing is about building collective power in our community. Armed with facts, stories, and skills, we can empower our neighbors, friends, families, and allies to take action around shared goals.
More on This Episode:
Change doesn’t happen overnight. In order to address the root causes of our housing and homelessness crisis, we need to work together and demand real solutions.
Many of us are familiar with taking action through volunteering, which differs from community organizing in a few key ways. Organizing is about working together to change the underlying systems and conditions that create a social problem, rather than providing immediate relief and assistance to people.
Organizing and volunteering are different but not mutually exclusive, and many people find it helpful to do both. The key things to keep in mind about community organizing are that we can’t do it alone, we need a plan, and we need to bring in as many people as possible and meet them where they are.
Key terms and facts
As soon as you enter the world of political advocacy, you’re bound to encounter plenty of terms and acronyms. Some of them may sound familiar and some may not. Either way, you should familiarize yourself with a few key terms that are likely to come up frequently in conversations about our housing and homelessness crisis.