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Where We Stand

Real Change works against policies and laws which target poor and homeless people.  We have made a pro-active commitment to “Live the values of cross class organizing and put them into action at every level of the organization.”

From 2007-2010, Real Change deepened our commitment to cross-class grassroots organizing and this commitment was rewarded with significant success in the face of steep opposition.  These successes include:

-A sustained 2008-2009 campaign to humanize city policy regarding sweeps of homeless encampments. This cross-class and relational organizing campaign consisted of quarterly encampments at City Hall and highly visible civil disobedience that brought homeless people and their more affluent allies together in a powerful community-building protest strategy and played a key role in the launch and subsequent support of Nickelsville. Under the new Mayor, broad reform of these policies has taken place. This work resulted in a 2008 “Leading the Movement for Social Change” award from labor allies Washington State Jobs with Justice.

-An initiative campaign (I-100) to prevent the City from building a new municipal jail succeeded in changing the framing of Seattle’s proposed new jail from being inevitable and merely a matter of neighborhood siting to a vigorous community-wide discussion of poverty, race, class, and incarceration. Our coalition building and activism injected the issue into the 2009 elections as a key issue where winning candidates McGinn, Holmes, and Constantine all had strong anti-jail positions and all planning for the new facility has been stopped.

-Leadership of a successful 2010 coalition to defeat proposed aggressive panhandling legislation that increased arbitrary police power over visible poor and undermined due process rights. Real Change received the 2010 Seattle Human Rights Award for this work.