The Michigan General Defense Committee has prioritized struggles around housing and homelessness. Each of our chapters in Washtenaw County, Lansing, and Detroit have ongoing participation in organizing campaigns to address the lack of affordable housing, to fight back against evictions and horrible conditions, as well as running and assisting with survival programs to address the consequences of this rotten system. As anti-capitalists we believe that everyone deserves safe housing outside the control of landlords. We don’t think people or corporations should be able to get rich by buying up property and then ransoming it back to us. Ultimately we think working class and oppressed people should repossess the homes we need and the landlords should go get a real job.
Washtenaw GDC has been around the longest and has a great track record as defenders of survival and dignity for houseless people. GDC has supported Washtenaw Camp Outreach (WCO) by committing organizers, volunteers, mobilization, and funds since its founding at the onset of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. WCO organizes direct support for the unhoused community through regular outreach to encampments and biweekly community BBQs, as well as supporting the Daytime Warming Center and the Weather Amnesty programs in the winter. WCO has held protests and marches against camp sweeps and the construction of luxury student housing in Ann Arbor while hundreds of people spend their nights unsheltered.
In 2022, members of WCO and GDC opened Solidarity House, a house of hospitality in Ypsilanti, which has become a hub for Washtenaw Camp Outreach and other local community organizations — including the Ypsilanti Tenants Union, which is a citywide-tenants union that GDC members organized in 2022. Solidarity House provides temporary shelter for people experiencing homelessness, as well as community meals, showers, laundry, a free clothing store, and an outdoor food pantry. GDC renovated the historic barn behind the house and opened Solidarity Hall to use as an organizing and meeting space for several organizations in the area. The hall is a collective and de-commodified piece of liberated territory used for recovery meetings, homeless peer support groups, political and tenant orgs and various community and neighborhood organizing groups.
Lansing GDC members initiated the Lansing Housing Solidarity (LHS) project recently and have been involved in tenant organizing. Most recently LHS has been working to help Autumn Ridge tenants organize around the horrible living conditions. Local government has neglected to hold up any code standards which has allowed landlords in Lansing to continue to extract rent while the apartments and houses fall apart, are infested with bugs and rodents, and have appliances including heat and water that don’t work. There is very little housing that is at all affordable here and residents feel trapped. If they speak out or organize they face eviction. LHS helps tenants to understand their rights, connect them to resources, organizes court solidarity, and ultimately will organize eviction defense. LHS has also done protests at slumlords homes in the burbs to call them out for the deplorable conditions.
Detroit GDC members have been working alongside other activists to support Detroit Eviction Defense, Moratorium Now, and the newly formed Detroit Tenants Association. There is an overwhelming amount of housing work to be done in the city and a long, storied legacy of activists from varied political backgrounds who come together to resist. Detroit Tenants Association works to connect the various tenant’s associations across the city. Their current campaign is getting Right to Renew passed in the city. Members of Detroit GDC have been working alongside Moratorium Now!, an organization that has been supporting tenants fight back against slumlords that prey on vulnerable people including, but not limited to, non-native English speakers, immigrants, and the poor, working class. Members of Detroit Eviction Defense have been facing off against Cass Community Social Services and Reverend Faith Fowler in the retaliatory eviction of Taura Brown. For 2 years, Taura faced off against one of the most powerful nonprofits in the city – resisting her eviction first through court proceedings, and when the courts failed her, through a home defense. Months of watching for the dumpster finally came to a head on April 4th, as home defenders faced off against city bailiffs & their lackeys, who choked and grabbed at them as the police watched on and in many cases, encouraged the lackeys to “finish the job”. Ultimately Taura was evicted, but the home defense demonstrated the brutality of evictions and warned those in power that “this is what you can expect to face when you try to evict someone”. DED also provides court support and advice to tenants facing evictions who come to the weekly meetings.
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