The National Union of the Homeless
By Solidarity Economy Association. Illustration: Rory Robertson-Shaw
In the United States in the 1980s, there was a dramatic increase in homelessness, nearly doubling between 1984 and 1987. The hope and utopianism of the '60s was over - you didn't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blew, and it was towards the greed and inequality of ‘80s neoliberalism. President Ronald Reagan, following a similar package of reforms to Margaret Thatcher in the UK, cut housing and social services. Many residents of social housing found themselves pushed out and made homeless whilst unemployment skyrocketed.
In 1983, on the East Coast in Philadelphia, Chris Sprowal, Tex Howard, and Franklin Smith – who had been homeless and unemployed for over a year – came together in a dilapidated building to form the Committee for Dignity and Fairness for the Homeless. Recruiting at an astonishing rate, by 1984 they had the resources to launch their first project, "Dignity Housing". This was the first shelter in US history founded and managed by the unhoused. This solidarity economy infrastructure provided shelter, education, and job training, meeting people's needs directly and, perhaps more importantly, acting as a springboard for further action.
In 1985, the Philadelphia/Delaware Valley Union of the Homeless was formed, emerging from Dignity Housing. The union followed the "Johnnie Tilmon model" of organising, named after the renowned black benefits rights activist. This model emphasised that those experiencing poverty must lead the movement to end poverty.
The union rapidly expanded nationwide, with leaders travelling to various cities across the States to establish new local chapters. The union soon began to achieve significant victories. In Pennsylvania, they secured the right for residents to use shelters as voting addresses, allowing homeless individuals to vote and receive benefits payments. Additionally, after several public "bathe-ins," they won 24-hour access to public showers and shelters. In Tucson, activists successfully sued the police for harassment, reducing the mistreatment of homeless people by the police force. At this stage, the organisation had 25 local unions and 35,000 members in cities nationwide.
It was in 1990, however, that the union would carry out its most famous and daring action. Meeting with the government's head of housing in 1989, the union was promised that 10,000 housing units would be available to people experiencing homelessness within a year. When the year passed, and this promise was not kept, the union coordinated takeovers of vacant properties across US cities in New York, Minneapolis, Detroit, Los Angeles and Tucson. The tactic proved highly successful. In Minneapolis, where 15 buildings were occupied, the government allocated millions to a homeless-run housing project, and they received $2 million in Oakland to build another Dignity Housing facility.
However, the union began to decline in the early 1990s due to several factors: the devastation of crack addiction, the co-optation of leadership into non-profits and government positions, gentrification, and the arrest and imprisonment of critical organisers following direct actions – all contributed to its downfall.
Still, the National Union of the Homeless has important lessons for us today, perhaps most notably that those experiencing oppression should be the central protagonists in their struggle. They know what they need best and are most interested in making it happen. Charities, political parties and government agencies may all offer things, but this is all based on sand and could change at any moment. Ultimately, real power comes from people taking direct control of their lives by coming together and collectively enforcing what they need, whatever those in power say.
How would homelessness in the UK look if we had a National Union of the Homeless here? We know that homelessness is a political choice – according to the BBC and Shelter, there are nearly 700,000 houses in England standing empty, whilst 317,430 households are facing homelessness. This is part of a broader trend. Worldwide, 8 men own the same wealth as the poorest half of humanity (3.5 billion people), whilst millions die each year due to lack of clean water, hunger and curable diseases. If we had the political will, we could provide everyone with a home and a comfortable life – so why don't we? Ultimately, it is because politics is a balance between competing class forces, and as the National Union of the Homeless said, "You only get what you are organised to take." Maybe it's time we started to take back what is ours.
The National Union of the Homeless had 5 ingredients for organising
1) Teams of organisers identifying and organising around issues on which people are prepared to act.
2) The basis of the organisation is survival.
3) Mutual support networks with wide-ranging organisations of poor people and allies.
4) Internal and external lines of communication.
5) Nationally connected and educated leaders trained in political and consciousness-raising strategy able to unite diverse but related struggles.
