From November 10-12, Pittsburgh residents and community leaders will gather at the University of Pittsburgh with scholars, students, and housing rights advocates from around the U.S. and the world to learn about the causes of the affordable housing crisis and to better understand how communities can work to address it. We write to invite you to participate in this event and to help us reach out to others in the community.
Rising rents and low, stagnant wages have deepened the affordable housing crisis affecting Pittsburgh and other cities around the world. The Housing Summit will approach the causes and solutions to the housing crisis from both local and global perspectives. Local organizations, educators, community leaders and the public at large are invited to join in this discussion.
Cultural events, public lectures, workshops and panels will facilitate learning and networking among participants, and will advance new thinking and community organization that can help residents claim their human right to housing and to people-centered urban development.
Dr. Mindy Fullilove, whose book, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It, is based on research in the Hill District, will help kick off the Summit with a book launch and celebration at the Hill House on Wednesday November 9. This will be followed by her keynote address November 10th, "Where is home? How housing instability affects us all." Friday evening November 11 will feature a panel on "Big Money and Local Lives: Globalization and the Affordable Housing Crisis," with leading international scholar-practitioners. Saturday's opening panel on activist strategies for "Taking back the Land" will help lead off workshops and a closing panel on lessons and strategies for building broad-based movements for housing justice.
The Summit is organized with major financial contributions from the University of Pittsburgh Global Studies Center and the Northside Coalition for Fair Housing. Co-sponsoring organizations are: Casa San Jose, Hill District Consensus Group, Pittsburgh Home for All Coalition, Human Rights City Alliance, United Steelworkers and other University of Pittsburgh Departments and Programs
Registration for the Summit is free and open through November 1, 2016 at http://housingsummitpgh.org. For more information and resources, including a detailed schedule of events, please visit http://housingsummitpgh.org or contact us at housingsummit [at] pitt.edu or : (412) 321-5527
Your participation is valuable and important. Please join us as we come together to tackle a critical challenge for our city! We hope you'll reach out to your networks, and you can find updated fliers and other outreach materials on our website.