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It
is my prayer that no other family has to experience the pain, the
hopelessness and fear of becoming homeless without a resource center
they could go to receive support from the city which they call home,
said Martha Davis of the Michigan Organizing Project (MOP) before
a hushed Chamber of Commerce meeting with Kalamazoo City Manager
Pat DiGiovani and Mayor Robert Jones.
Davis
described how city officials cut off the water to her home when
her landlord didn't pay the bill. City inspectors arrived three
days later to condemn her house because of the health threat caused
by the water shutoff. Police then arrived to move them out.
Davis and her two sons spent several days living under the steps
of their former home until MOP organized a press conference at City
Hall and took over 100 people to a City Commission meeting to demand
that the city fund the construction of 1,000 new units of affordable
housing.
Two days after MOP
stormed the meeting, the water in Davis s home was turned back
on and she received cash assistance from two agencies to move to
a new apartment. The City Commission also recently held a special
working session to discuss new anti-poverty initiatives for the
2004 budget which includes a budget for a housing trust fund.
The demand for 1,000 new units of housing is part of the MOP Housing
Justice Campaign, launched in January after months of house meetings
and individual meetings with homeless and low-income people.
Housing is the number
one need in Kalamazoo , where over 4,000 families pay more than
50 percent of their income for rent with over 2,000 families on
the Section 8 voucher. The Section 8 waiting list was closed in
April 2001. Over 16,000 Kalamazoo residents live in poverty according
to the 2000 census.
MOP is building support for the construction of 1,000 housing units
by organizing churches, community groups, and low-income people.
Five churches and two homeless service centers are part of the Housing
Justice Campaign.
"We are asking
the city to make affordable housing a major priority. We think that
this is clearly the best policy the city can adopt - if the city
wants to improve the lives of its citizens and improve the quality
of community life, said Rev. Rick Stravers, director of one of
Open Door/Next Door in a residential shelter. local homeless shelters.
Leaders from Ministry with Community, a local homeless day shelter,
meet every week to plan further actions and to rehearse telling
their own stories to public officials. A Ministry member Burney
McKnight recently told the city commission, Some of us are homeless
and we can really be of service to the community, if someone would
give us an opportunity to have a home.
MOP is also planning a "People's Housing Summit" an October
accountability meeting at an inner-city church where the mayor and
city commissioners will be asked directly to commit support and
funding for 1000 housing units. Kalamazoo City elections are also
being held this fall and commission candidates are also targets
of the Housing Justice Campaign.
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