Happy Friday, and shana tova to all who celebrate!
I wanted to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who attended our annual Faith & Justice Breakfast last Wednesday. It was exhilarating to share space with amazing supporters of our faith and justice work for the first time since 2019.
I hope the breakfast inspired you to action. For those of you who could not attend, or would like a refresher, in typical EBHO fashion our breakfast ended in a Call to Action. This year’s call to action is to help us campaign for affordable housing at the ballot, send an email supporting tenant protections for Alameda County’s unincorporated areas, and to join EBHO and our Faith & Justice Committee.
The theme of this year’s Faith & Justice Breakfast was Woven Together: Intersectionality & Housing Justice.
At the breakfast, we had a table activity for attendees to describe how they’ve encountered intersectionality in their work advocating for safe and affordable homes. Here are some of the responses:
- “The Black mothers in Oakland who occupied a house raised visibility of the intersection of race, gender, class with homelessness.”
- “Rainbow community center having housing programs b/c LGBTQI+ youth disproportionately impacted by homelessness because of family conflict related to identities.”
- “Ageism. Sexism, and disability. All 3 applied when I moved into where I am now. The landlord put me off for a month, at great cost to me, then rented to me to avoid legal disability.”
- “My friend Erlene died in a nursing home of COVID related pneumonia – her family was living in poverty and couldn’t keep her at home. She suffered from increased exposure to the virus.”
- “Faith communities are at the intersection of action, vision, leadership, resources, and can be organized to be a powerful force for solutions to our housing and justice problems.”
We loved reading your responses, and the Faith & Justice committee will continue to do more based on the ideas you’ve brought up. Want to get involved? Email me at ronnie@ebho.org.
— Ronnie Boyd, Community, Faith & Justice Organizer
