Sisters, Brothers, and Kin,
May 2021 marks the 15th month of this pandemic! It has been a challenging time for all of us, particularly those long disadvantaged by the deep inequities which have been produced and reproduced throughout American history. The East Side Freedom Library has tried to be more than a repository of books and resources which tell the stories of institutional injustice and the struggles against it; we have tried to be an incubator for the production of knowledge and community activism which can inform new chapters of our common history. Nowhere has this been more important to us than in our work for Housing Justice.
Before the Pandemic, we were making great progress convening our neighbors to share their stories about housing experiences and issues. We were working towards the articulation of a vision that had been built from the ground up. This process had involved film screenings (“Jim Crow of the North,” “Sold Out,” and “Detroit 48202”), informative panels (“The Labor Movement and the Fight for Housing Equity”), breakout conversations, and an East Side Housing Summit in November 2019. We had assembled a coalition that included such East Side organizations as Dayton’s Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services, MICAH, ABC Realty, Payne-Phalen District Council, Home Ownership Center, Cookie Cart, and others. Watch this great seven minute video that TPT-2 produced about our work: Building a Housing Movement on the East Side.
The Pandemic disrupted our momentum, but an AARP Community Challenge grant, which we received in August 2020, enabled us to reinvigorate this project. We have revived the coalition as a working group and we have convened a Community Advisory Council which reflects the range of relationships to housing – landlords, home owners, renters, and the unhoused. Here is a nine minute video which the AARP made about our work. In December, with the assistance of the Million Artist Movement, we convened an online Housing Summit which emphasized pathways to empathy among our neighbors. You can see a video of it here. Most recently, our Housing Justice team has focused on the planned Hillcrest Development, seeking to expand and deepen community voice in the shaping of the project. You can see videos of our community discussions here and here.
It has been a challenge for ESFL to gather the funds to support this work. We have recently submitted grant proposals, but our possible benefactors challenge us to raise matching funds from individual donors. Just in time, GiveMN is sponsoring a new round of individual giving via their Spring Forward MN campaign, May 1-11. We are encouraged. And we are reaching out to you.
Please help if you are able with a gift during the Spring Forward MN campaign. All gifts received here will be dedicated to that matching requirement. Thank you for your support of the East Side Freedom Library!
Donations can be made to our platform on the GiveMN site or directly to our website.
We’re sure you know us well enough to know that we are not pausing our great (online) programming while we are participating in this fundraising effort. Please see our events calendar for information on our upcoming programs. And don’t forget that you can access most of our past programs on our YouTube channel.
Love and Solidarity,
Beth Cleary and Peter Rachleff