There are two primary roles for volunteers Activity Assistants and Food Servers.  Please list your availability below and we will be in touch with more information.  Contact Elias at 928-380-8091 for more information.

2013 Citizen Award Winner: People’s Durham, from left to right, Ray Eurquhart, Kaye S. Lee, Bonnie Toomer, Sendolo Diaminah, Elias Brangman, Bernadette Toomer, for working with low-income residents living in Lincoln Apartments, Durham, Jan. 16, 2013.

By Vernal Coleman

Most of its windows are covered with plywood, its parking lots empty. At Lincoln Apartments, most of the 200 low-income families who lived here have left since October, when the foundation that owned the property told residents the upkeep was too expensive. They had to go.

About a dozen tenants remain, say officials from the Durham Housing Authority, which bought the complex in southeast-central Durham last month. They are still waiting for help in transitioning to affordable housing. And were it not for the organizers at People’s Durham, some residents say they would have been forced out weeks ago.

“I didn’t have anywhere to go,” says Barbara Garrett, who still lives at Lincoln, where, for the last five years, she has rented a two-bedroom unit for $340 a month. “We didn’t have any info on what we could do, and it didn’t seem like anyone from the government was going to help us. I could have been homeless.”

Read the rest of the article here…

Here’s what INDY reporter Lisa Sorg, who covered much of the campaign as it unfolded had to say about our work:

“People’s Durham tackles affordable housing, social justice and educational issues facing underserved minority communities. For too long, they have been excluded from Durham’s cultural and culinary renaissance. Yet these communities, with their deep roots and personal histories in the city, contribute as much to Durham’s essence as the urban hipsters and the entrepreneurial class.”

More information about this year’s winners can be found here.

People’s Durham receives the 2013 Citizen’s Award from Independent Weekly

By Adriana Penley
Staff Writer

On Feb. 2, the organization People’s Durham received the Indy Citizen award because of the previous work they performed to help Lincoln Apartment residents in the fall of 2012.

The leaders of the organization are Senalolo Diaminah and Bryan Proffitt, a Hillside history teacher. Hillside English Teacher Holly Jordan, also a member of the organization, helped write a nomination letter.

People’s Durham, along with a few Hillside students such as Cameron Hall and Gaby Grant, went “door knocking.” The purpose of the door knocking was to register Lincoln residents to vote and to ask question about their abrupt eviction notices.

Both Mr. Proffitt and Ms. Jordan said they believe that if they didn’t help fight this social injustice that many of the residents of the Lincoln Apartments would be homeless as a result of being given such late notice.

“It feels good that we as a whole helped get their eviction dates pushed back,” Hall said.

People’s Durham was successful in helping residents find affordable housing through discussions with city council members.

“The biggest benefit of receiving the Indy Citizen Award is that it has raised public awareness of the crisis of affordable housing,” Mr. Proffitt said.

He also stated that People’s Durham will be working on a “free lunch program” for the residents of MacDougal Terrace. Students are welcome to participate, along with teachers and people of the community.

People’s Durham is also working on organizing teachers to fight for educational justice.

Early meeting in the Lincoln anti-eviction campaign

This October Durham’s critical affordable housing shortage once again made front page news.  The most recent episode, a crisis precipitated by the closure of one of the few remaining apartment complexes serving very low-income tenants.

On September 28^th every resident in the 150-unit Lincoln Apartment complex received written 30-day notice that the property owners, the Lincoln Foundation, planned to close the complex.  By mid-October over 150 people were faced with homelessness after Halloween.

People’s Durham organizer Sendolo Diaminah, a tenant organizer in the nearby public housing community McDougald Terrace, was alerted to the situation a few days after tenants received their 30-day notice.  He quickly started holding regular meetings with residents, both to educate people about their rights as tenants and to encourage people to organize and harness the power of collective action.

Raising the profile of affordable housing in local media

On November 1^st residents got word that their efforts had paid off.  Larry Suitt, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Lincoln Foundation, the non-profit who owned the complex, agreed not to file eviction proceedings against people who were unable to move out.  He also hinted that the property had a prospective buyer, possibly meaning people could stay in their homes long-term.

Unfortunately, for many however anxieties continued to run high because so many questions remain unanswered.  One positive development is that Housing for New Hope, a local affordable housing organization that provides transitional housing for recently homeless families, is teaming with Steve Schewel and the City’s Rapid Rehousing Program to help relocate the residents who can and want to move.

This city program is ideal because it tracks residents and comes with two to six months of attached social services to ensure that people end up in a quality, stable housing situation.  Because of those services, however, it is also a very costly program.  The City only has enough to fund relocation for approximately 10 families at this time.  While many community and faith leaders have stepped forward to pledge help raising additional funds it’s going to take at least $25,000 and there’s no guarantee that everyone will find a place.

Residents kept pressure on local officials throughout the campaign

Recognizing this, some resident-leaders are hoping to also raise funds to help make needed repairs and to help people get caught up on their rent and utility bills.  It’s as of yet unclear whether a new owner will emerge before the new year, but leaders of the tenant organization remain hopeful.  Neither a new owner nor a successful relocation of every family will solve the city’s ongoing affordable housing shortage, but the leadership and tenant organization being built in Southeast Central Durham have the potential to influence the city’s plans for the future of the neighborhood in a way that positively impacts working class and poor families.

Some fundraising efforts are already underway but if you or someone you know has time, money, skills, or labor you are willing to offer to support these efforts please contact peoplesdurhamnc@gmail.com or call 919-429-9825.  We will be sure to you guide you to the appropriate channels.

For more on our work at Lincoln see these articles:

• Trick or Treating for Dignity and Respect
• Lincoln Residents Have City Reps Running Scared, But Why?
• They Stole My Joy
• Waiting for the Levees to Break:  The Crisis of Affordable Housing in Durham

Almost two years ago People’s Durham began organizing in McDougald Terrace (“the Mac”), Durham’s largest and oldest public housing project. Over this time we have organized against unfair evictions, helped paint apartments, mobilized voters, and thrown an election-day party with more than a hundred residents. Most important of all, we have built strong relationships with leaders.

This winter our organizing is taking a major step forward. Four of our members are running together as a slate for officer positions on the Mac’s resident council. This is big news because the resident council officers are the official representative of residents with the Durham Housing Authority (DHA). Federal public housing regulations require DHA to recognize, fund, and work with the resident council.

The leadership of resident council is particularly important right now because DHA will soon begin a planning process for the demolition and re-development of the Mac and the surrounding community. The planning is funded through a federal Choice Neighborhood Initiative (CNI) grant, which requires resident and community participation. Of course, what that representation means and is able to fight for depends on how informed and organized the residents are.

Over the next few months People’s Durham will be supporting our members in developing their platform and vision and carrying out an election campaign like the Mac has never seen before. Keep an eye on our website for updates on this work and be sure to check out the next newsletter for statements from the candidates themselves!

Our Members, Our Candidates!

Theresa Wilson, President

Fanny Burnett, Vice-President

Venus Murray, Treasurer

Tina Overby, Assistant Treasurer

]]> http://peoplesdurham.org/2012/11/30/resident-council-elections-in-the-mac/feed/ 0 http://peoplesdurham.org/2012/11/30/voting-for-our-neighborhood-community-organizing-voter-engagement/ http://peoplesdurham.org/2012/11/30/voting-for-our-neighborhood-community-organizing-voter-engagement/#comments Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:24:20 +0000 dandydust http://peoplesdurham.wordpress.com/?p=775

Jade and David discuss doorknocking strategy

By Aiden Graham

This election cycle, People’s Durham took on our most ambitious voter engagement program yet.  With the help of a group called Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD) we developed a plan to canvass Precinct 13, one of the areas of most concentrated poverty in historical Black Durham and home to our tenant organizing projects in McDougald Terrace and Lincoln Apartments.  Through the process we built lasting relationships and learned a ton about electoral work, organizing and the community.

Over the course of three weeks we held five canvass days.  More than 30 volunteers participated, both project members and supporters, many coming out multiple times.  Together we knocked on nearly 1,000 doors, leaving literature about voting and our current campaigns at each house.

Star doublechecks her information

To help all this happen BOLD got us access to technology that gave us information on all the registered voters in the neighborhood.  We could look up how likely it was that someone would vote to target our efforts and generate contact lists and maps to use on our canvass days.  They also connected us to a group called Wellstone Action who held a training for our canvassers on how to run a voter engagement program that’s linked to long-term grassroots organizing.

In practice our GOTV work helped bolster our neighborhood organizing even more than we’d anticipated.  On one day we surveyed residents at Lincoln Apartments to see who had no place to go after their pending October 31^st move-out deadline as part of our ongoing anti-eviction efforts.  This helped us counteract the City’s consistent attempts to downplay the situation, to continue to educate residents about their rights as tenants, and to build a contact list that will help facilitate a smoother relocation for those who want to move and continued tenant organization among those residents who either can’t move or want to stay.  In McDougald Terrace, the public housing community a few blocks down the hill, our GOTV work helped one of our current members promote her campaign for Resident Council president.

Debriefing after a day of canvassing at Lincoln

We also informed everyone that we spoke with about the Durham Housing Authority’s plans to redevelop of McDougald Terrace and the surrounding neighborhood.  Building political power in Precinct 13 through organizations of tenants and homeowners is the best hope we have in making sure the redevelopment serves the needs of the people who live there. Accordingly, regardless of which campaign we were working on, our constant theme was to vote express your commitment to the future of the neighborhood, rather than endorsing a particular candidate.

It feels safe to say that this work took on dimensions we never could have expected.  We are poised to engage the beginning phases of the redevelopment planning process in a much better position due to this work.  In the process we hopefully also helped shift the debate around the role of elections and electoral work in struggles for justice.

By Bryan Proffitt

Young people in African-American and Latino communities walk around with targets on their backs.  They are the most likely to draw the suspicion and harassment of the police.  They are the most likely to struggle with unemployment and poverty.  They are the most likely to drop out or be kicked out of schools.  And, most tragically, they are also the most likely to face violence, often at the hands of one another.

Luckily, however, they are the most likely to take a stand.

On Friday, October 26^th, over 200 students, staff, and parents from Hillside High took that stand by participating in the “Stop the Violence, Swarm the Vote,” march to honor the victims of violence and take positive action to improve our communities.  Along the way to early voting, we held a vigil in remembrance of the victims of violence.  The energy was high.  The feet were lively.  And the faces of all told the story: we are tired of living in a world stacked against us and we’re anxious to change it.

A few weeks earlier, in response to an increase in fights at school, a new student activist club supported by People’s Durham staff (and since named Each One Teach One) organized a forum to discuss the role of violence in our communities and how young people could take the lead in ending it.  The timing of this event also coincided, unfortunately but aptly, with the murder of a Hillside senior.  The school community was devastated and looking for answers.

By connecting positive political action with our desire to end violence, the students and staff are making it clear that we don’t think violence happens in a vacuum.  Young people, all over the world, struggle with complicated emotions and conflict resolution.  But young people who see violence, lack of opportunity, drugs, racism, poverty, homophobia, and sexual harassment and assault in their lives struggle more.  If we are going to end the violence that destroys our schools and communities and lives, we have to end the systems that create it.

We know that holding marches, building altars and having vigils, and voting will not change the system by themselves.  But these three actions, taken together on one day, point the way towards change.  We look forward to the day when 17-year-old Black boys aren’t murdered in the streets and all young people can feel safe and sure that they live in a world that cherishes them and wants to them to live up to their fullest potential.  And until we live in that world, we’ll keep swarming.

Bryan Proffitt is a staff member for People’s Durham and a history teacher at Hillside High School. 

See the leaflet we handed out at the march here.

Media Coverage:

Lincoln residents were supposed to be out of their apartments this Halloween (after being given only 30 days to move out). But there are over 150 people who haven’t found a place to stay and many who don’t want to leave. So the community gathered two nights ago for a Halloween block party. Elders in wigs danced to Marvin Gaye and hip hop, little kids in robot costumes scavenged for lollipops, and residents packed two tables with buns and soda while they waited for the grill to get hot. If anyone was driving by last night, they wouldn’t have realized that the people dancing were facing homelessness; that they’ve been treated like they don’t matter. People driving by would have seen the Lincoln that still exists: a community of mothers, grandmothers, kids, fathers, and workers who want safe and stable homes for themselves and their families.

While the grill was heating up, two cars full of Lincoln residents took a drive to trick or treat. They weren’t seeking candy, instead these residents were traveling to the home of Mr. Larry Suitt, the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Lincoln Hospital Foundation (which owns Lincoln Apartments). The residents’ demands were that Mr. Suitt ask the other board members not to start eviction proceedings and give them at least until the end of the year to keep looking for places to live.

Mr. & Mrs. Suitt return from dinner to find Lincoln residents on their doorstep

Mr. Suitt lives in Treyburn, a wealthy community nearly 30 minutes away from Lincoln, where glowing mansions stretch across winding streets called Covington Lane and Vintage Hill Drive (prices for homes there start at over $200,000). There is a country club and a reservoir, and people travel between each others homes by golf cart. This neighborhood is not only geographically distant from Lincoln–it is economically and culturally far away as well.

But residents weren’t afraid. When our cars arrived at Mr. Suitt’s house, everyone marched to the front door, ready to explain what they wanted. At first, it appeared no one was home. Residents knocked and knocked, then got ready to leave a note and travel back to the party. But just as we were walking away, a silver BMW pulled into the driveway: Mr. and Mrs. Suitt’s car. Mrs. Suitt joked that she better know us, since our cars were blocking her driveway.  They had just gone out to dinner.

A plea to delay eviction proceedings

Ms. Barbara, Ms. Sherri, and other leaders at Lincoln quickly introduced themselves to Mr. and Mrs. Suitt. They explained who they were and why they were there. They wanted more time to find another place to stay and to save money to put towards moving expenses and a security deposit. They asked Mr. Suitt to please let them stay through the end of the year and to use his power to delay eviction proceedings.

At first, Mr. Suitt was vague in his response. He said he’d look into it, then he’d think about, then he said, “I’ll see what I can do.” Meanwhile, Mrs. Suitt went into the house and brought out the Halloween candy she had bought for trick-or-treaters. But residents didn’t only want her candy–they wanted dignity and respect and to be treated with kindness and understanding. Mr. Suitt’s tone grew hard when he accused the residents of not paying their rent and made it seem like it was their fault that the Lincoln Apartments had to close. Residents explained that Leila James, the Southern Real Estate representative who works at Lincoln, has been refusing to take their rent money for months because she knew the apartments were closing. Then Mr. Suitt tried to divide the residents, claiming maybe they were the “good” ones, but their neighbors were a problem. Through all of this, residents and People’s Durham members who were there supporting them remained firm–would Mr. Suitt come to Lincoln Apartments to meet with residents? No, he absolutely would not. Could they meet him at his office? No, they could not. Would he stop the eviction proceedings? He’d “see what I can do.” Could they call him tomorrow for the final word on his decision? Yes, Mr. Suitt said finally, at 5 pm he would take the residents’ call.
By the end of the visit, Mr. Suitt agreed to a sit-down meeting with residents, but only if Keith Chadwell, Durham’s Deputy City Manager, was present as well (which is lucky since Chadwell promised to meet again with residents within 48 hours after their successful march to his office on Monday).

Ms. Barbara chimes in during the debrief

The Lincoln folks felt victorious as they debriefed under the full moon beaming down into the cul-de-sac, even though many of Mr. Suitt’s accusations had stung. With freezing fingers they drove back to Lincoln to eat burgers and bbq chicken, and to dance late into the night. They also drove back armed with a recording of their entire trick-or-treat conversation–just in case Mr. Suitt tries to back out of his promise to listen to their concerns.

UPDATE:  On Thursday night Mr. Suitt did speak by phone with a representative from People’s Durham.  He said he was impressed with the dedication and resolve residents demonstrated by coming to speak with him at his home on Halloween night.  He also said that as long as residents can demonstrate a commitment to paying their rent he thought it reasonable to delay eviction proceedings until the beginning of the year.  While the battle may not yet be won this is a definite victory!

We are, however, continuing to call on city officials and faith communities to pool their resources and provide assistance where needed.  Many residents have already poured money into application fees, storage units, and moving expenses and may have trouble making ends meet.  Nonetheless this week is ending with a definite cause for celebration!  At the very least 50+families have avoided homelessness for the holiday season.

Bernadette Currie asks to see Rick Hester at NIS Monday

By Aiden Graham

This Monday residents from Lincoln Apartments took a stand.  A delegation went down to the city’s  Neighborhood Improvement Services office in hopes of getting an inspection report listing the code violations that were reported to the owners of the apartment complex earlier this fall.  Despite conflicting claims about the reason for the Lincoln Foundation’s financial troubles, in many ways these code violations were the final straw.  Because the Foundation couldn’t afford to fix them they sent all the tenants in their 150-unit complex a 30-day eviction notice on September 28.

After one of the several meetings among the residents to organize resistance to the closure, NIS representative Rick Hester had promised Bernadette Currie a copy of the report.  Yet when residents showed up at NIS a week or so later with a handful of community supporters and a reporter and photographer from The Indy, that story changed, and not for the first time.  For more than three weeks Lincoln residents and members of the press have been trying to access these reports.  Three weeks may not seem like an unreasonable amount of time to navigate local government bureaucracy, but when you only have 30 days to find a new place to live, it’s more time than anyone should have to wait.

Mr. Hester’s new claim when we arrived Monday was that, actually, no report existed listing all of the violations found at the complex.  He could only provide a report on a single apartment to the tenant who lived there.  He also claimed access to the code violations would make no difference to the residents’ plight because the “real” reason tenants were being evicted was that they never pay their rent.  This runs counter to the original claim by the owners (but reflects a story that residents have heard again since that morning).  Claiming the reason they’re being evicted is because they don’t pay rent conveniently puts the blame back onto the residents and shifts attention away from the decades that the city has neglected to the building and maintaining public and affordable housing.

Residents plead their case to Mr. Hester

As we plead our case some of the residents claimed that they would rather pool their resources and attempt the repairs themselves rather than be put out of their homes. Their move-out date loomed, potentially rendering folks homeless.  Attempts to get the Durham Housing Authority to take over the property so that people could stay have also proved fruitless, mostly because DHA and other potential buyers claim the repairs are too costly.  Without evidence to support or contradict those claims, however, residents’ hopes of finding someone to buy Lincoln Apartments looked increasingly slim.

Mr. Hester flipped through papers, his face red and hands shaking, checking to see if any of the other residents present lived in apartments that had been inspected. He was visibly flustered and sputtered conflicting claims. He told advocates there in support of the residents that we had no right to speak since we don’t live at Lincoln.  He eventually left the room with one of the tenants, allegedly to give her the inspection report for her apartment. But he said anyone else who wanted to access a report would have to contact the city attorney.

The remaining representative from NIS asked everyone to leave the conference room because they had another meeting scheduled there that was about to start. As we made our way back to the lobby we were somewhat surprised to find a police officer waiting at the front desk.  After lingering a few moments waiting for the last people in our party that surprise turned to shock as another SEVEN police officers filed out of the elevator.  By the time K Shyrl and Sendolo rejoined our group, still without a copy of the inspection report for her apartment, there were EIGHT cops there to escort a group of TEN out of an office. We were leaving peacefully and voluntarily, right after they had asked us to. Yet, EIGHT cops were necessary to watch us? What were these city representatives so afraid of that they had to call in such a show of force?  Was it our claim for justice?  Or was it simply that terrifying to be around a group of African American poor folks, even with the media present?

The city’s show of force

We went straight to the City Attorney’s office. And, of course, the person we needed to speak with had just left.  Residents then had to choose between coming back an hour later to meet with him or holding the press conference and march they’d previously scheduled for later in the day.  Folks chose to march.

(Note: NIS released the inspection report to reporter Lisa Sorg from The Indy the next day. Read her take on the incident and the inspection report here)