While Reno had several notable Occupy movements as well as a summer of protests to Stop the Sweeps in 2021, which included an occupation element on a small patch of grass outside City Hall, activists in other cities have combined some of these methods, and added on others to protest displacement and rampant gentrification.
This includes the RiseUpTown movement in Chicago, which had activists and the unhoused camp on the site of a hospital parking lot slated to be turned into luxury apartments, stopping construction for nearly two weeks. Participants took part in workshops, held free concerts and learned about local history. They also called on stringent guarantees for having affordable units for all new apartment buildings, and affordable housing as a right. Police disbanded the protest in late August, but not before more of the protest demands made it into local narratives.
In Oakland, in 2020, another notable movement Moms 4 Housing had local mothers occupying a vacant house to negotiate its sale back to the community. After media attention, and the help of elected officials, the real estate investment company with a history of buying up foreclosed-upon houses was pressured to resell the property.
The Oakland Community Land Trust used a mix of public and private funds to purchase the house and then leased it back to the moms, as transitional housing for moms with kids.
It says its mission is “to expand and preserve housing and economic development opportunities for Black, Latinx, Asian, other communities of color, and low-income residents of Oakland. In practice, we acquire housing, land, and other critical community-serving real estate and steward them in trust to ensure that they remain affordable forever. We create innovative shared-equity ownership structures that balance the needs of individuals and families to build wealth with the long-term goal of permanently preserving affordability. “
On its own website Moms 4 Housing explains: “There are four times as many empty homes in Oakland as there are people without homes. No one should be homeless when homes are sitting empty. Housing is a human right. The Moms for Housing are uniting mothers, neighbors and friends to reclaim housing for the Oakland community from the big banks and real estate speculators. Moms for Housing is a collective of homeless and marginally housed mothers. Before we found each other, we felt alone in this struggle… We are coming together with the ultimate goal of reclaiming housing for the community from speculators and profiteers. We are mothers, we are workers, we are human beings, and we deserve housing. Our children deserve housing. Housing is a human right.”