On January 25th, 2013, we held “Welcome to Class Warfare,” our first training on the background of the foreclosure crisis, both locally and nationally. Our intent with the training was/is to build our own understanding of the U.S. housing situation and that of our allies, and to shore up our talking points for canvasses, street conversations, and actions.
The room was packed and the need for more trainings like this was evident. Brooke from our group and and Anthony Panarese from ACCE spoke on Oakland’s political economy, Darwin Bond-Graham and Eve from our group spoke on “Weapons of Wealth Extraction,” followed by a brainstorming session.
Here’s some great information that came out of the training (and from the speakers):
Agenda and Slides (.pdf)
Darwin’s Presentation Slides (.pdf)
Foreclosures in Oakland: Calogero.us In-Depth Foreclosure Map (article links to big interactive .pdf):
Urban Strategies Council’s superb work on predatory buying: Who Owns Your Neighborhood?
Background articles by Darwin:
(read this one if you don’t read anything else on the topic) “First the Bubble. Then the Short. Now the Long.”
“Why the Housing Recovery Is Inequitable”:
We’ll be posting video soon, as well as times and places for more trainings.
Foreclosure Defense Group 