Philadelphia Housing Action: Covid-19 Pandemic and Negotiating our Survival

Authors

  • Sterling Johnson ..

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1285/i20356609v16i1p115

Keywords:

Covid-19, housing, homelessness, United States, abolition

Abstract

Philadelphia Housing Action is a group of experienced housing organizers formed at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the U.S. government made funds available for emergency housing, the city government refused to use it all while continuing to sweep homeless encampments from place to place. In response, Philadelphia Housing Action embarked on a housing takeover campaign to help homeless mothers on the streets using unused vacant public property. To keep the houses, they held space, with a massive encampment in the middle of the city demanding that the houses be delivered to them and for the city to secure safe housing for these vulnerable Black and Latino families.

Author Biography

Sterling Johnson, ..

Sterling Johnson researches in the areas of Black geographies, anti-colonialism, feminist geography, carceral and abolition geographies. Their research is concerned with laws and morality and issues of social justice and liberation. Since 2012, Sterling has been an activist and advocate for housing and harm reduction focusing on the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region (Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington D.C.). They have a law degree from the University of California Hastings College of Law (San Francisco) and a Masters in Geography from George Washington University (Washington D.C.). See https://liberalarts.temple.edu/content/sterling-johnson.

References

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Published

12-04-2023

Issue

Vol. 16, No. 1 (2023). Special Issue on: "Housing Crisis and Social Mobilization in times of COVID19"

Section

Short Story

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