Report from Anti-Gentrification Action At Bartram’s Garden

Submission

A couple weeks ago, a friend sent me a flyer for a “work” party at Bartram’s Garden. Anarchists have been agitating around stopping gentrification of that area for a while after that zine came out…I forgot the name. Generally, one of the cooler things about anarchists in Philly is that we have a pretty long history of actually fighting gentrification through sabotage as opposed to just complaining about it on a megaphone. The flyer advised us to mask up, bring tools, that phones were bad and to bring trusted friends. It also advised for folks to keep off the internet and big threads. I was excited to have been sent a flyer for an action that seemed a bit more devious especially since all the leftist stuff going on in the city is very uninteresting to me. Yelling at buildings is very boring and doesn’t seem like a good way to adequately address gentrification in my view. As a Black radical, it is pretty disappointing that most of the Black organizations in the city are uninterested in attacking in ways that actually combat gentrification, materially.

Anyway, I sent the flyer to a few homies. Some were able to make it. Some weren’t. Anyway, myself and a comrade rolled down there a lil after the time it was supposed to start. We scoped it out. We weren’t sure exactly where everyone was meeting but after hearing cutting sounds, we went over. The action was pretty cool. People were just cutting this big ass fence that the developers had set up in Bartrams. Everyone was kinda just doing their own thing. My homie and I didn’t bring adequate tools to cut so we ended up just carring the fencing and throwing some of it into the river along with other attendees. The action was very chill and it was good to see a few familiar faces. We both had some shit to do early the next day so we peaced out a bit early after leaving a few tags. There wasn’t really much else to do though other than cut the fence…and I wish the action maybe had another goal or something. Despite this, it was pretty cool.

Either way, actions like this are cool because they are pretty low level and a good entry point for people that are interested in learning how to be more confident in doing attack with their own hands as opposed to asking some politician for help. I hope that this energy can continue into the summer. I’d love to get invited to more night demos or work parties. And I’d definitely bring my friends.

I guess I’m sorta a movement oriented person (which puts me at odds with a lot of insurrectos in the city) so I just wonder how a more aboveground anti-gentrification movement could interface with these more underground attacks in Philly. Is that something worth pursuing? What would it materially look like? I’d like to see attacks grow and I wonder how much of that means trying to interface and impose our will on the more leftist anti-gentrification forces in the city. Despite this, most of them are pretty liberal and against violence but maybe there are some openings. Who knows? It was refreshing though to take part in something that wasn’t liberal. I’ve love to get more invitations in the future.

More anarchy
More destruction
Fuck the Gentry

-a new afrikan anarchist in Philly

Fuck Cellicon Valley Graffiti!

Submission


Some graffiti against the Cellicon Valley development for those Sexy Elves and Fairies out there in the Sex Forest. Let’s make the space more fun and cute while we defend the land. 😉 Fuck Cellicon Valley! Developers and Gentrifiers Get The Fuck Out!

“Fuck a Cellicon Valley” Zine Launch and Social

from Iffy Books

February 19 @ 3:30 pm5:30 pm

Flyer with a drawing of various cartoon animals sitting around a campfire under the stars. The text reads as follows: "Fuck a Cellicon Valley" Zine Launch and Social February 19 3:30 PM Iffy Books, N. 11th St. #2I Zines, snacks, socializing, & info on the development at Bartram's Garden

Join us Sunday, February 19th at 3:30 p.m. to celebrate the launch of “Fuck a Cellicon Valley,” a zine about a development plan that would displace residents and destroy wild space in the area around Bartam’s North and Bartam’s South. We’ll have snacks and free zines!

Read the zine
Print the zine

Here’s an excerpt:

After we heard rumors about UPenn developing the land around Bartram’s North we did some research and discovered an evil plot. In 2013 a group of economists, developers, city planners, and other villians came up with the Lower Schuylkill Master Plan, a 143 page document envisioning a “21st century industrial district” in Southwest Philly along the Schuykill river corridor. The report details massive development projects to be carried out over 20-25 years. Reading the report in 2023 provided us with some answers and many many questions.

The Master Plan is worth looking over carefully if you are someone who cares about environmental destruction and gentrification. You can find it online at https://www.design.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/LSMP_Small.pdf

The plan breaks up the development projects into three sections. The first is a Logistics Hub, connected to the Philadelphia Airport, whose recent expansion destroyed wetlands to build a cargo facility. We’ve already seen how this has gone down for the FDR meadows. The second is the Energy Corridor in South Philly, where they are currently focused on remediating decades of industrial pollution from oil infrastructure. The remediation is predicted to take years, then they’re going build factories.

The third zone, the Innovation District, is the focus of this zine. Because it is closest to us, because it threatens the places we live in and love. In writing this zine, we hope that other people will look into the master plan and oppose gentrification as they see it manifest in their contexts.

The Innovation District consists of the Pennovation Center and the areas near Bartram’s North and Bartram’s South including some wild lands and spaces. We spend a lot of time in those spaces and despite what developers think, there is already vibrant activity, innovation, and life, we don’t want to see the area get paved over and built up.




The Lower Schuylkill Biotech Campus is part of what people at the University of Pennsylvania are calling “Cellicon Valley”. It’s an attempt to brand Philly as the next hi-tech hotspot for pharmaceutical companies and research institutions. Like Silicon Valley, Cellicon Valley is a bad and annoying idea that should never come to fruition. It’s literally a scheme to capture, commodify, and sell us ways to live, by destroying and locking us out of the ways we live.

ISO Fence4Fence

Submission

with valentine’s approaching, i need a date – will you show your interest? i always make the first move – so take the broken fences at bartrams north as your cue. half is done – now do your part and we can kiss under the FUCK CELLICON VALLEY graffitti down the road. NO BORDERS. NO FENCES.

our desire fuels an end to all development.

your secret admirer-

Opponents of Philly FDR Park Development Speak Out

from Unicorn Riot

January 26, 2023

Philadelphia, PA – The FDR Park in South Philly is in the midst of a new redevelopment plan supported by the city and private groups like Fairmount Park Conservancy. Opponents of the plan have dubbed their cause “Save the Meadows,” referencing a wild area that was partly bulldozed late in 2022. The plan’s authors are finally hosting a community event on January 26, 2023, although opponents believe that they will not be allowed to speak inside.

A demonstration outside the Grand Yesha Ballroom in South Philly is highlighting reasons they oppose the plan. An ad-hoc coalition of several groups, under the flag “The People’s Plan for FDR Park,” has pushed local officials to reconsider the plan and preserve more meadows while unlocking often-shuttered sports fields around the city.

Among the main concerns opponents have is that the expansion of the Philadelphia International Airport will remove wetlands near the town of Eastwick, which can thus expect more flooding as climate change intensifies. (The airport’s expansion is a key part of the financing of the FDR Park project.)

Live coverage below:

[Video Link]

See our video report from last fall below:

[Video Link]

Opposition to the development plan was also an element in a large demonstration and march in November 2022 that highlighted several different, yet related causes in the city.

[Video Link]

Fuck A “Cellicon Valley” Zine

Submission

PDFs of a zine that got put out this month regarding development at Bartrams.

[Read] [Print]

banner for forest defenders

Submission

On Saturday the 17th we hung a banners in solidarity with our friends jailed in Atlanta for defending the Weelaunee Forest against developers and cops. We hope that our action although small inspires others to act in solidarity with the arrested and against the system that arrests free life.

The struggle against cop city is not over!

From Philly to Atlanta let’s spread and intensify the struggles against police, gentrification, and the destruction of nature!

Protesters Call Attention to Development and Gentrification in Philadelphia

from Unicorn Riot

 

Philadelphia, PA – A number of groups are rallying and marching on Saturday afternoon around concerns regarding how space and development in the city are controlled, the day’s call is about “democratizing development.” The group is gathering at FDR Park in South Philly.

Follow our livestream here:

[Video]

Organizer flyers included some of the key concerns. According to an event page the attendee groups include “Philly Thrive, Sunrise Movement, VietLead, Save UCTownhomes, Save the Meadows, RECLAIM, PSL, Cobbs Creek EJ”.

One major concern is the redevelopment of a massive Southwest Philly refinery site which was the site of a massive, dangerous fire in 2019. Highly toxic hydrofluoric acid was released, and an explosion launched a section of a tank all the way across the Schulykill River. On October 11 the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released its final report on the disaster including a gripping video animating the sequence of events. Despite the many decades of chemical exposure on nearby neighborhoods, the public has been largely shut out of the redevelopment process (including a recently shelved, long sought community meeting with the development company).

[Video]

Another issue raised by organizers is the rapid redevelopment of FDR Park itself, which they argue put people at risk by felling trees without warning. Unicorn Riot released a closer look at the park site in September.

Another topic raised by organizers is the impending eviction of 70 families on Market Street. UC Townhomes residents have been struggling to reprieves from eviction this year — the Save the Townhomes campaign has pushed for more time and demanded ‘just compensation’ for the sale deal, part of a long history of displacement including eminent domain in the 1960s.

Organizers are also calling attention to Chinatown residents who are “having another stadium forced on them” after “fighting off a casino and a stadium.”

Cover aerial photo by Trev Adams.

Meadows Interviews, Unabridged

from Anathema

Anathema sat down with two people involved in defending the FDR meadows. Below are the complete transcriptions of the interviews with each of them.

First Interview
Anathema: Would you like to introduce yourself?

I am somebody who likes to hang out at the Meadows. I live close by. I have been involved in some land and anti-gentrification struggles in Philly for awhile and now I’m participating with different folks under different names organizing to try to stop the development at the meadows.

Anathema: Can you tell us a little bit about FDR park, the Meadows, and the development taking place there?

Yeah, I don’t know about the original history of this park. I know for long term residents of Philly, FDR park is called the Lakes because of the big bodies of water here. I think FDR park was built around these golf courses, and The Meadows was a golf course for a century. It was repeatedly flooded and decommissioned as a golf course in 2018. Although even when it was a golf course, you hear stories about people who have used this land to make a connection to nature. People have stories about foraging all kinds of stuff from South Philly communities. It’s kind of one of the last wild spaces in the South Philly area.

The development that’s taking place here, it’s titled “The Master Plan for FDR Park.” It is an ongoing city plan to raise the elevation of certain areas of the park and add 12 new sports fields. The plan is also connected to development plans with the Philadelphia Airport, which wants to expand and is destroying 40 acres of wetland. By law, it has to restore a comparable amount of wetland. So funds for the redevelopment of this park are funds from the airport to offset the wetland destruction there. They’re also going to “improve” 35 acres of wetlands here at FDR Park.

Anathema: What have the struggles against the development looked like so far? What’s happening?

I heard about it through these meetings happening in the Spring of 2022. They were organized mostly by this one person but under the banner of The People’s Plan for FDR Park. It brought a bunch of people to the park and made people more aware of the imminent development plans. I’m not a long term resident of Philly, I just started exploring the wild space here during the pandemic. So The People’s Plan for FDR Park were trying to let people know that the city had imminent plans to develop it. But the organization of The People’s Plan for FDR Park was more about convincing the city to change the Master Plan to actually include what people want for the park.

From there, a bunch of people were like, okay, The People’s Plan for FDR Park is not the avenue for struggling against this development. It wasn’t for everybody. It wasn’t decentralized. It was very centralized and hierarchical; not super supportive of people working autonomously. After that initial meeting, there were lots of splinters–people branching out and asking what we want to happen here. Do we want this to stay a meadow? Do we actually want the city’s ecological restoration plans to move through, but not the sports fields? There were a lot of conversations about how we are going to organize. One contingent that I was a part of was trying to map out the ecology here, to figure out what species of trees, bugs, animals have a home here. And to encourage more people to come down and hang out. It is a bit far south, and I know a lot of people who have never been to the Meadows. Wanting to encourage and grow other people’s connection to the space before development happened.

The dates for when the destruction was going to happen were pretty unclear. There were people from the parks saying it’ll happen in 2023, people saying it’ll happen in June 2022. There was a kind of waiting or complacency maybe, because we didn’t know when it would happen. There wasn’t a big offensive push. I think that equipment got staged in late August, and there was push back. People
serviced the machines that arrived *laughs.* I think there were a lot of people doing different things, discussing whether construction people had permits, or thinking of ways to put pressure on the construction company. People trying to put pressure on city officials in ways that had no real effect whatsoever.

At first, when the destruction happened in late August, there wasn’t a clear construction zone. Lots of people were just out and about amongst the destruction, kind of putting themselves at risk in hopes that the construction company would get some kind of retribution for endangering people. That didn’t have much effect. They put up more solid fencing pretty immediately. In the first week of destruction, people were messing with equipment, people may or may not have spiked some trees. That stopped the destruction for a week. The place was swarming with cops and the unusable machinery got replaced.

They did the destruction pretty quickly after that. I feel like they were destroying dozens of acres a day. After a few weeks in which there wasn’t much real material resistance, they had cleared like 70 acres. From what I hear, all they have funding for is this first phase of destruction. As far as I know, now that the first 70 acres are destroyed, there’s gonna be a pause. I’m not sure what the development schedule is, or what their priorities are
it seems with the FIFA bid for the World Cup, creating the soccer field is gonna be a priority. I don’t know if they’re going to do the wetland restoration first. I know that they’re going to move a 4 story soil mound pretty close to the entrance of the Meadows, which they’ll use to try to raise certain areas. As far as the schedule for what’s up next for the developers, I’m not sure.

Anathema: How have the city, the cops, the neighbors responded to the struggle for the Meadows?

The city doubled down on its greenwashing media blasts. The Inquirer and other news outlets are like “The protesters are out of control!” or “Why the city needs the development at FDR Park.” They’re just pushing a narrative that they’re trying to make the space better, of course. Gentrification. They’re trying to make the park welcoming to sports people.

A response from neighbors
I’ve definitely seen people who are used to using the land express heartbreak and dismay that they can’t access the space, that it’s being destroyed.

I think the city has a lot of talking points that seem to be pretty convincing for people, that sports fields are about equity for young people of color in the city. How this project for them is about creating more equity. People seem really confused about that. Trying to represent this wild space that people already use as needing to undergo some kind of city developed equity and inclusion transformation
people seem to be buying it. I haven’t heard any neighbors express excitement. I’ve heard some people be like, “Hopefully it’s worth it.”

What I have heard from neighbors is dismay or anger, and confusion.

The cops
I feel like the police presence was heavy for awhile, and was coming down to interrupt arts and youth programming just to intimidate people using the space. They definitely set up a lot of new fences, and there’s tons of signs saying “A wetland is coming to this space.” They city’s increasing its greenwashing efforts, the space has gotten new fences, there is a heavier police presence here. There was a 24 hour cop station here for awhile, but I don’t know if they’re still here.

Anathema: You kind of touched on this already, but a lot of the land in FDR has already been cleared. Has this changed how people are struggling and what are some of the next steps in light of this clear cutting, leveling, and bringing in dirt?

I think that once the destruction started and it was kind of clear that we were slow on having both an offensive and a defensive strategy. Once we weren’t able to hold ground anymore, a lot of people were like “Oh fuck, we lost.” I guess it’s real to feel disheartened. People have distanced themselves from this struggle.

There’s still around 100 acres of land that hasn’t been touched, that they plan to develop. There’s still a lot worth defending here. Trying to get ahead of what the developer’s plans are makes sense as a strategy. There could be a long lull until they get enough money to move forward. And continuing to make the project financially unviable for them will always benefit us in trying to stop them.

People are still doing programming to keep people connecting to the space and aware that the space hasn’t been destroyed; it’s still open, there’s a lot of life here. With winter coming, hopefully it’s a time to strategize.

Anathema: What would you say to anyone who wants to take part in defending the Meadows?

I would say there’s a lot of ways to do that. There are a lot of people invested in this project for whatever reason–annoying them and making their lives difficult is great. I think a lot of people would probably enjoy that. There’s still a lot of open space here to have parties, bring people out. I think A&P construction and the other subcontractors who stand to gain from this project
it definitely makes sense to try to make their lives more difficult.

If you’re looking for offensive or defensive entry points, there are many.

Anathema: Do you think there’s anything people outside of Philadelphia can do to contribute to this struggle?

I feel like having solidarity, especially in land defense struggles but I’m thinking in particular urban land defense struggles – like the Atlanta forest, or stopping big development projects. Continuing to boost each others’ struggles and bringing attention to them is bugging the people who stand to gain from them. Those people, those companies exist in different cities. It feels really good, fun, and exciting to be learning from each others’ strategies and boosting each other in those efforts.

Anathema: Totally. Is there anywhere people can follow these struggles and keep themselves informed about what’s going on around the Meadows?

Yeah, I think the news source I trust the most at the moment about it is the Save the Meadows. They have a website savethemeadows.com. The instagram account is @savethemeadows.

Anathema: What would you say are some strengths and weaknesses of the struggle to defend the Meadows?

Some strengths are that our opponents in this struggle–the city, parks and rec, the developers, the cops–are really stupid. The people involved in defending the Meadows are more creative and smarter.

There is a difference in resources, obviously. The city has machinery that can facilitate destruction really fast. The city’s monopoly on violence and destruction is an obstacle to work around. But I feel like there are a lot of artists, smart and brave people involved in the struggle. A disadvantage is that this plan created by the city precedes a lot of our knowledge. They had a big head start.

Hopefully we can outlast them. Their resources are going to run out and be dependent on other companies coming in to boost how they move forward with this project. If we can stay creative and continue to engage with this space, then that’ll be a strength.

Anathema: What are some of the biggest tensions involved in people defending the Meadows?

Politically, a lot of people involved are still invested in a centralized decision making around what happens here, whether that’s collaborating with the city or having a centralized organization. Of course you don’t have to participate in that, but a lot of organizers are still thinking in terms of how they can get other people to do things instead of doing the things that they want to do, or encouraging people to do the things they want to do. Maybe that’s an issue with how we imagine projects getting done, or how we imagine working together for a shared goal. There is a desire amongst some of the organizers to continue a top down model, and it’s a lot of work to continually challenge that.

Second Interview

Anathema: Would you like to introduce yourself?2.

I do a lot of autonomous work. That’s why I’m around.

Anathema: Can you tell us a little bit about FDR park, the Meadows, and the development taking place there?

I live in the suburbs and to be honest, I don’t know much about the history and background. From what I do understand, these meadows have been here for awhile and they have been enjoyed by residents and community members for years. It seems like the airport and the city want to develop the nature aspect of FDR Park, commonly referred to as the Meadows, to be somewhat turned into astroturf. To commodify the space in general. Also the airport wants to expand by basically digging into the wetlands and trying to cover that by making a new wetlands.

Anathema: What have the struggles against the development looked like so far? What’s happening?

So far, the things that have been happening that I’ve been witness to, have been bulldozing. So just clearing the area of natural trees and wildlife. Fencing it off from the general public who were once able to freely roam around it. The struggle has been trying to find the exact dates of when bulldozing will happen, and also people have done campaigns like phone zaps, and making banners and posters. There have been some events held around the Meadows such as foraging, tree-mappings to try and identify trees and other species within the Meadows to have a perspective on if there are some species that might be endangered.

Basically trying to find ways to halt the destruction. When that didn’t happen, the struggle has looked like more events in the park, more walkabouts, filming. Trying to spread as much awareness as possible. There has been some apparent sabotage of equipment, so you could also say some insurrectionary developments in there as well.

Anathema: How have the city, the cops, the neighbors responded to the struggle for the Meadows?

For the most part, the Friends of FDR Park have been going around telling people that they were going to make the Meadows into a different type of area, but that they were going to leave a certain amount for people to still use. Trying to talk about it being more nature. Ultimately it’s being discovered that that’s a lie and not what they were really going to do. The community really enjoys this area, so they have responded like “that’s really fucked up.” But there are still people who believe their master plan, if you will. Because of that, they are under a false assumption that the Meadows will be made into something different and better, so they’re all for the project.

The police response was very minimal at the beginning. As tactics escalated, they responded with a lot more surveillance. It went from a little surveillance, to 24 hour surveillance, to bringing in the FBI. They’ve also brought in the counter-terrorist chain. They’re really trying to snuff out any real sense of eco-justice of an insurrectionary nature.

There have been some neighbors that really wanted to have the project, because the city is going to talk about how it’s going to be better to have this happen, and FIFA is coming. They want FIFA and the World Cup to come through. Some people are not so happy with the resistance as well, just based on wanting things to be better for FDR as a whole, apparently.

Anathema: A lot of the land in FDR has already been cleared. Has this changed how people are struggling and what are some of the next steps in light of this clear cutting, leveling, and bringing in dirt?

People have definitely had to go and do things a little more under the radar or while knowing there are multiple FBI and security personnel that are constantly watching and trying to analyze where they’re going. There have been rumors of cameras being placed in the park every so often. That’s been a general concern which has deterred a lot of people from coming back into the park. A lot of equipment is now under heavy surveillance or is just off of the grid, so any type of sabotaging efforts have pretty much come to a standstill.

In light of the clear-cutting, the next steps have really just looked like more events in the park, trying to get awareness out there, collaborating with other projects such as the UC Townhomes struggle. Also trying to appeal to the city to stop future leveling efforts.

Anathema: What would you say to anyone who wants to take part in defending the Meadows?

Environmental defense of any kind is important. All ecosystems are important. All matters of wildlife are relatively equal to all of us, we’re not more than any animal that is out there. Ecological defense is very much needed. Any effort you want to give is very much appreciated. I understand people have different comfort levels and ideas, but if you were looking to start somewhere, definitely come out and take a walk around the area. Talk to the local people. Go on instagram. Come get involved, come through to an event.

Anathema: Do you think there’s anything people outside of Philadelphia can do to contribute to this struggle?

Some people outside of Philadelphia have done banner drops, calls for solidarity, sharing of information as best they can. Some people have also collaborated with the Meadows efforts, such as the Defend the Atlanta Forest people who have come through.

Anathema: Is there anywhere people can follow these struggles and keep themselves informed about what’s going on around the Meadows?

@savethemeadows

Anathema: What would you say are some strengths and weaknesses of the struggle to defend the Meadows?

The struggles for the Meadows really seem to be coming internally in the form of communication, even though there is an instagram and a website. For instance, there was communication of how much is being cleared, but not about how much all at one time. There was speculation of whether there were 100 acres left or less. I would say the struggle of communication is real.

There have definitely been internal struggles. Not everybody is on board with all the tactics that have been used or talked about through this entire movement. There are definitely people trying to control narratives, peace policing, and denouncement of tactics by certain organizers. A struggle is people not getting along or communicating.

The strengths are the diversity of tactics, when it’s celebrated and left to people’s own autonomy. For the people who might want to do, say, spicier tactics, they can leave the people who want to do paperwork or just spreading the word alone. The other side of that coin is when people who want to do spicier things are left alone. Or when they don’t ask a lot of questions about it.

Anathema: What are some of the biggest tensions involved in people defending the Meadows?

The biggest tension thus far is between organizers and people who are more of a free association, so to speak. People peace policing, people trying to fit a certain narrative or only wanting certain tactics. This has been really frustrating for a lot of people. Organizers have definitely talked a lot of shit on each other. The solidarity is not really there.

The tension has also been between some people who value security culture more and are trying to stay more anonymous, and some organizers who are being a little more public, use more public and unencrypted platforms such as discord, or a website where they want people to sign up with their fucking email addresses. To combat that I guess you could use a proton email or whatever, but people don’t always use that as much. Most of the time, people like to either use telegram or signal to try to communicate through more encrypted methods. Organizers in particular have been trying to push things out into a non-encrypted space and that of course leads to a lot of tension between loads of us who are trying to stay as secure as we possibly can.

And also organizers trying to throw shade, really belittling the work because it wasn’t approved by them. Really trying to go after this narrative of “the movement is 95% white and half of these people are not from the community, so their opinions don’t matter. The ways they choose to enter into the struggle don’t matter.” It’s a real fucking shame because it’s going to show there’s not solidarity amongst everybody, and I think it’s going to turn a lot of people off, if it hasn’t already.

Support Philadelphia’s People’s Townhomes and Show Up to Prevent Their Eviction

from It’s Going Down

Report on ongoing struggle to stop the eviction of the UC Townhomes, which would displace 68 families in so-called Philadelphia. Originally posted to PM Press. 

By Dan Hoylin and Charlie Allison

The sale of the land that would become the UC Townhomes in 1982 to the IBID/Altman Management Company was both a part of, and in response to, the longstanding tradition of the city of Philadelphia conspiring with local universities and property developers to evict low-income, predominantly black families and to transform a neighborhood once literally referred to as “Black Bottom” into the new paragon of gentrification, “University City.”

In July of 2021, Altman notified the residents of UC Townhomes that it would be selling the property, and not renewing its government contract, for a potential total of millions of dollars, displacing a community of 68 families from their long-term home.

This particular gentrification process was begun in the 1960s (the first gentrification in what-is-now-Philadelphia and the surrounding areas was the stealing of land from the Delaware and Lenape peoples centuries ago). The Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority partnered with local universities and hospitals–such as the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, and University of the Sciences–to invoke eminent domain in the section of West Philadelphia known as “Black Bottom.” To quote from current townhomes residents and writers, Rasheda Alexander and Sterling Johnson:

Back in 1968
[the residents of Black Bottom]
were leading a fierce resistance to displacement through “urban renewal” by digging trenches and stretching barbed wire across the street. Frank Rizzo, then Philadelphia’s Police Chief and already positioning himself for his 1971 mayoral campaign, mobilized against that resistance both in the streets and the press.

In the end, the City of Philadelphia forced out countless impoverished, mostly black, families, to expand the university’s campuses and make way for commercial properties and residential properties for students and staff. In the early 1970s, this issue was spotlighted by HUD with help from volunteers and activists from the Black Bottom, who sued the city for these openly racist and predatory housing practices under Frank Rizzo’s mayorship. As a result, the city was made to invest more in subsidized and public housing, resulting in the Dollar-Baby deal of the 3900-3999 block of West Market Street, becoming the spot for Altman’s private, government-subsidizing housing property: UC Townhomes.

UC Townhomes would become subject to much of the same neglect that housing projects across the country deal with mounds of garbage bags left uncollected piling up in the trash enclosure, unshovelled snow leaving walkways hazardous in the winter broken ACs in the summer, busted lights, roach and rat infestations. When the residents of the town homes notified Altman, their landlord, about these problems, the most consistent response was apathy and inaction. Their landlord was happy to collect their rent, but not to keep their living spaces livable.

In July 2021, the families of 3900 Market Street received a notice that Altman would be selling the property. Altman planned to sell the property to National Real Estate Advisors, potentially flipping the block for $100 million. A wave of protest followed that announcement. The residents organized themselves into councils and committees and met to discuss their options. They met with local activists and volunteers. All through the winter and spring they organized to resist having their homes sold from under them.

Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier passed legislation that prevented the demolition of the townhomes. The legislation, did not, however, prevent any evictions. A well-organized and from-the-bottom-advocacy led by townhomes residents created significant delay for Altman’s scheduled date of eviction from July of 2022 to September, and now to October 8th. Also, despite what Altman seems to think, his tenants do in fact have protected people’s rights under the Fair Housing Act, which helped give them tools to resist this encroachment. Altman sued in lower court and doubtless believes that the eviction will go on as scheduled.

To emphasize the fate that likely awaited them if nothing was done, the residents, with the help of volunteers, set up a protest encampment on their common lawn, by the 40th and Market Street Station of the Market-Frankford Line in summer of 2022. They invited volunteers, activists and fellow organizers to help, but made one thing abundantly clear: the residents speak for the residents—none speaks for them to the press. Many times, the residents had to correct journalists who passed by the encampment (and the staffed tables up front, distributing literature, shirts, pins and stickers) that this was not a homeless encampment, but a representation of what was likely to be the fate of the residents if their landlord had his way.

When we visited the (newly renamed) People’s Townhomes this summer to donate gear, a friendly atmosphere reigned. The residents and volunteers made a brightly painted knee high fence out of pallets around the common grassy area, adorned with slogans. The rules—no weapons, no alcohol, respect the resident’s space and noise level etc.—were posted for all to see on a lamppost.

Children ran around the lawn, even in the summer heat, or sold water out of a cooler on the corner to commuters. In the evenings, I was told, there were more communal activities—movie nights for the children, storytelling. The residents had a couple of shade-makers up over tents, asking locals to sign petitions to prevent the eviction. It was a bit of the commons—well provisioned with bottled water, food, tents, paint, games—snatched from the jaws of the increasingly privatized world.

With each article written about the encampment, some enterprising soul made a copy of it, laminated it and zip-tied it to the iron grids around the 40th street subway stop for commuters to read. A sign out front read: “Honk if you want to save the People’s Townhomes!”

When the protest encampment first went up, Altman Realty’s reaction was a fit of pique: they ordered onsite laundry room locked and forbidden to the residents– a wildly illegal and telling act of petty thuggery (that little tantrum of Altman’s was swiftly undone—as the laundry room was opened less than 24 hours after being closed).

Altman’s legal team, however, wasted no time suing in lower courts to have the encampment at the townhomes—made up of volunteers and residents resting on their own property—broken up by the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Department on Monday August 8th. This was done, and scores of people rallied on short notice in protest to this act, briefly shutting down Market Street. In an email the sheriff’s department was good enough to acknowledge that there was a need for affordable housing in Philadelphia.

But in a brave stance that completely avoided personal responsibility for their actions, legal or no, the Philadelphia Sheriff’s department nobly argued that they were simply following orders by removing tents that in no way interfered with the public good. The sheriff’s department took down the tents, forbade tables to be set up and took down the majority of the signage.

As French anarchist Proudhon once said: “Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.”

It is clear to anyone that Altman’s strategy is to let the weight of laws, extractive capitalist culture and inertia do his dirty work for him. Throughout this whole process, he and those who work for him have refused to deal in good faith or basic decency or even speak to the people they are dispossessing.

Sixty eight families—many of whom are older or disabled or both—will be effectively homeless and without recourse if Brett Altman gets his way. Of course, his company will be implicated in this moral crime writ-large, but who cares? They’ll be rich. That’s what matters to them, not the human cost of said riches.

The townhomes location is what has the realtors and landlords licking their chops, right in the core of the UPENN part of West Philadelphia. Close to everything—food, transportation, entertainment, and perhaps most importantly medical care. People’s Townhomes resident Ms. Lyles writes in a widely distributed pamphlet:

After we moved to the Townhomes, my daughter was diagnosed with kidney failure. Our living room became a clinic with her IV tubes and treatment equipment as she went through home dialysis for over a year. Then, my health failed causing me to have to use a walker. When we got the call that they had found a kidney for her, I did not have money for a taxi but thankfully we were able to walk over to the UPenn hospital nearby. She still needs access to healthcare as doctors closely monitor her health. Through these times, the close community of neighbors and lifelong friends that I have made at the Townhomes have relied upon each other. I would not have survived without friends like Wanda Goss, we depend on each other daily. I’m afraid that this stability may be ripped away from us.

Many of the townhomes residents are older folk and many have medical issues. Their abrupt eviction would not only remove access to essential medical care, but destroy the essential bonds of community and solidarity created by their neighborhood and put them in very real danger.

The residents of the UC Townhome’s demands are simple. They are as follows in a widely distributed pamphlet:

  1. Stop the Demolition: We demand an immediate halt to the sale and demolition of the UC Townhomes and that it be made 100% permanently and deeply affordable.
  2. Give Us More Time: Residents demand an extension of 2 years if we are indeed being forced to leave.
  3. Make Immediate Repairs: We demand that repairs and maintenance be addressed by immediately assigning a maintenance person to the UC Townhomes and meeting with a group of residents to discuss these outstanding issues.
  4. Provide Just Compensation: We are demanding 500,000 financial compensation per family, amounting to 35% of the total sale price.

As this article was being written, the stated eviction date of September 7th was moved to October 8th. This is of course still not nearly enough time to move, especially in a city that largely doesn’t accept housing vouchers—as the residents know all too well.

Kevin Feeley, Altman’s spokesperson, insists the opposite in defiance of plain facts. Partly because that is his job and because he is (presumably) at no risk of being forcibly evicted from anything, let alone his home or community at the present time.

The residents of the People’s Townhomes have embraced a diversity of tactics. Most recently, they have put together their own plan to help buy the Townhomes.

A spokesman for the City Of Philadelphia issued a statement in response to the residents of the People’s Townhomes and their supporters marching in significant numbers in Center City. It was a diplomatic statement, if we remember that old proverb of Bismarcks: (“I am learning to be a diplomat—speaking a great deal and saying nothing at all.”)

What you can do as the eviction deadline approaches:

Call Mayor Kenney’s office and make your support for the People’s Townhomes known—he has systematically refused to meet with them throughout this scandal.

Call Councilwoman Jamie Gauther’s office.

Call Altman. A script can be found here.

Show up in person to demonstrate solidarity with the UC Townhomes on October 8th, the date the eviction is due to be served.

I can think of no better closing quote than this. As residents Rasheda Alexander and Sterling Johnson write:

To sit silently by today, as the city allows these projects to expire and return to the market, is a betrayal of the long fight against desegregation and discrimination. Indeed, it is nothing more than a return to the racist housing policies of the past.

Cobbs Creek Golf Course machines sabotaged

Submission

Early last week we sabotaged four pieces of heavy machinery that are being used to develop the Cobbs Creek golf course. The machines were right next to a main road, so we used some quieter methods, using epoxy to glue their locks and putting sand in their fuel tanks. The Cobbs Creek Foundation and A.M. Logging have already destroyed over 100 acres of forest in the area.

We wanted to contribute to the recent wave of attacks against ecological destruction, gentrification, and colonization across the country, and encourage people to help defend green spaces wherever they live. Shoutout to whoever sabotaged the machines that were about to destroy the meadows at FDR to build whatever it is they’re building there. There doesn’t need to be a bigger campaign going on for us to take matters into our own hands and try to stop some of the destruction that surrounds us.

Two Construction Sites Attacked By AGA

Submission

On the morning of June 17th we used paint and glass etch to fuck with windows on luxury apartment construction at 48th and Spruce and gentry construction at 51st and Baltimore. We also smashed out the front doors and windows at 51st and Baltimore. We did this to fight gentrification and to contribute to the new wave of anarchist attack in the US. We also did this to have fun!

Happy Pride!
-AGA (Anti-Gentrification Action)
(Another Gay Anarchists)

Saboteurs of Rent

from Hypocrite Reader

Get (the fuck) out, slumlord, parasite, hoarded wealth, they graffitied in black or red permutations on the walls and fences of nine vacant homes in West Oakland, California, stolen land they said, held in the portfolio of Sullivan Management Company (SMC) East Bay. Later that morning of May 2, 2021, an anonymous group released a communiquĂ© claiming the actions through Indybay, a local independent media site. The group called SMC’s owner, Neil Sullivan, one of the biggest evictors in the region, “predatory” and the vacancies a “violent force.” These vacancies’ violence manifested in at least two forms: upward pressure on rents by limiting the rental stock; that they are vacant while growing numbers lose housing. On one fence the group painted, “BLACK PEOPLE USED TO LIVE HERE.” “As long as these houses are not functioning as shelter or materiel resource for those who need them most, we must disable and disarm them as weapons of extraction and poker chips for the rich in their apocalyptic games,” the anonymous group wrote, going on to invite others to take similar actions.

To my knowledge, no such sabotage has yet followed in West Oakland or elsewhere in the East Bay area, though in the preceding days and years SMC had been the target of other kinds of direct action and organizing. On May 1, for example, local houseless solidarity group House the Bay demonstrated how to open up a vacant home to house unhoused people—by opening up another vacant SMC unit, setting up an installation inside and circulating propaganda illustrating how to do just that, and holding a block party there and in the street. Throughout the pandemic many of those who rent from SMC organized themselves into what they call SMC Tenant Council. Tenant councils or tenant associations are organizations of tenants living in the same building or sharing a landlord, convened to apply collective pressure on an intransigent landlord. Like other such groups in the tenants’ movement in this period, this council fought a rent strike in the name of rent cancellation, and when SMC struck back with eviction threats they successfully parried. Not only has the desire to see some of these tactics repeated been frustrated, this assembled diversity—rent strikes, home expropriations, and anti-landlord sabotage—is seen together all too rarely; I know of no other contemporary campaign which has integrated these tactics (I use campaign here broadly; the anonymous group indicated in their communiquĂ© they aren’t associated with others).

Participants and documenters of the housed and unhoused tenants’ movement, including myself, have given much attention to the rise of publicized home expropriations and rent strikes in recent years. As for expropriations, Oakland’s Moms 4 Housing, Los Angeles’ Reclaiming Our Homes, and Philadelphia’s OccupyPHA have animated the imaginations of both those who have hoped for such reclamations and those who’ve wondered how to house those without. Of the aforementioned only the Moms’ occupation preceded the pandemic; rent strikes had already been becoming a more commonly rehearsed tactic in the tenants’ movement’s repertoire—thanks in no small part to LA Tenants Union, the largest autonomous tenants union in North America. “Tenants union” typically refers to a body that supports, coordinates, and agitates tenant associations, while the term autonomous indicates independence from institutional funding, a reliance on member funding, and, usually, volunteers rather than staff. As unemployment spread with the chaos of COVID-19, so too did rent strikes and autonomous tenant unions supporting them. In October 2020 a continent-wide federation of such unions, the Autonomous Tenant Union Network (ATUN), held its founding convention. I participated in that convention as a member of the Bay Area’s Tenant and Neighborhood Councils.

As our points of unity testify, ATUN does not believe the housing affordability crisis can be ended without the end of capitalist, colonialist landlordism. Many in this tendency of the tenants’ movement approach our efforts as gathering social forces for revolution by building an independent and agitated support base—by building what some call dual power. By assembling, as the thinking often goes, independent institutions of proletarian tenant power, such as tenant associations and tenant unions, we assemble a force capable of challenging and supplanting that of landlords, capital, and the state in a forthcoming moment of general social crisis. Generally, the dual power account explains this pro-revolutionary potential through the development of the capacities of organizations—it does not provide an etiology of direct actions, such as the home expropriations which spread in the earlier pandemic phases or the anti-landlord sabotage which did not. Direct actions and their consequences can and do spread, intensify, and accumulate more or less independently from organizations, particularly if one understands the term organization to refer only to groups that are formally constituted, as many advocates of dual power tend to understand the term. The role such actions, the informal organizations that sometimes enact them, and their consequences can play in promoting a revolutionary process must also be interpreted.

The late abolitionist communist Noel Ignatiev composed an explanation of the relation between direct action and dual power, a strategy he called creative provocation. Looking to the acts of abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown in provoking a cycle of reactions and actions leading up to the Civil War—which he, after WEB Du Bois, reads as the United States’ true revolution—Ignatiev argues that our acts need not necessarily result in observable victories in the present for them to fan embers into the wind that carries them to future conflagration. “[T]he abolitionists
sought to divide all who could be divided, draw a clear line between themselves and the moderates, and establish themselves as a distinct pole against the consensus on the [moderates’] side” and in doing so push the opposition to greater recklessness, leading to the secession that made the Civil War possible. Creative provocation is roughly the inverse of the more widely-held theory of the radical flank effect most commonly exemplified by the oversimplification that Malcolm X’s radicalism made Martin Luther King Jr.’s reformism appear more reasonable. Where this iteration of radical flank theory would explain how to lay ground for compromise, creative provocation does so for revolution; rather than pull the opposition to a newly safe middle, creative provocation cuts the cord between agonists and makes confrontation necessary.

Proponents of dual power in the tenants’ movement may not always have a theory for how home expropriations contribute to their pro-revolutionary strategy—nonetheless they see in them, more or less clearly, a glimpse of the hoped-and-striven-for time to come. More opaque perhaps, if even looked to, is anti-landlord sabotage such as the anonymous West Oakland vandalism of May 2, an ensemble of tactics which may have equal if not greater potential to provoke. Some may, some have, even claim(ed) sabotage jeopardizes the viability of the movement by alienating the public or soliciting state repression, demanding tenants engage only in so-called non-violent direct action, taking the conservative side in an old social movement controversy as to whether property destruction constitutes “violence.” But if we want a world without rent, we must consider all options.

What light might a burning building shed, a broken window refract, a graffitied wall condense, upon the revolutionary prospects of the contemporary tenants’ movement? Since 2013, Philadelphia has been home to the most sustained campaign of such sabotage that I’ve found documented, presenting a crucial case study, though that sabotage aligned itself more against gentrification than with tenants. Only in recent years has the tenants’ movement equaled if not out-scaled the anti-gentrification movement that it overlaps with, in no small part due to the multiplication of autonomous tenant unions. According to one anonymously published zine, Anti-Gentrification Direct Actions: Philadelphia 2013-2018 (AGDAP), anti-gentrification saboteurs committed more than 60 distinct acts with targets including constructions sites, cafes, and private homes, and acts including graffiti, window-breaking, construction equipment destruction, and arson. As the AGDAP timeline shows, these acts of sabotage first spiked numerically in 2015, carrying on the energy from the initial Black Lives Matter upsurge, while the peak of intensity was an arson and riot in a gentrifying neighborhood on May Day 2017. From 2017 to 2018, the number of actions more than doubled, from 10 to 25. According to one Philadelphia anarchist close to the scene from which these actions emerged, who spoke to me on the condition I refer to them only as E, this later moment drew its escalation in part from anti-Trumpism and anti-fascism. (Note that my count refers only to lines on AGDAP’s timeline since in some cases where several, or more, objects of gentrification were destroyed as part of what appear to have been or were claimed as singular coordinated efforts.)

The first couple documented acts occurred eight months apart in January and August 2013 in the Point Breeze neighborhood of South Philadelphia. An article in the local anarchist periodical Anathema from July 2015, “On the Recent Attacks Against Gentrification,” described Point Breeze as “rapidly gentrifying” over the preceding four years, with median incomes increasing from $77,300 to $115,000 and the white population growing by 30 percent. As in West Oakland, the Philadelphians started with graffiti—defacing a few new residential buildings with abstract lines. An action that August targeted a coffee house owned and bearing the name of the developer and landlord OCF Realty, helmed by later city council hopeful Ori Feibush; saboteurs threw concrete through the coffee shop’s windows the same morning the local community organization Point Breeze Organizing Committee (PBOC) marched to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

Feibush, who had been in conflict with PBOC over his development efforts, accused PBOC of the attack. PBOC denied responsibility and condemned the vandals, advocating for a criminal investigation and non-violent protest only, accusing them of being provocateurs and part of a supposed tradition of violent tactics that had jeopardized movements going back to the Civil Rights Era. E told me that OCF Realty had likely been targeted due to the attention PBOC had brought to their gentrifying activity—which, E explained, involved a strategy “where they put like fancier cafes in the neighborhoods they were going to gentrify as like a little foothold and then they’ll also like start flipping houses and like renting stuff out and building developments.”

For whatever reason, whether because of backlash from PBOC or something else, AGDAP records no further actions until 2015, when, again, they picked up, perhaps emboldened by a national movement upsurge whose tactics often incorporated property destruction. The first several actions of 2015 again targeted OCF and Feibush. By then, Feibush was running for city council against Kenyatta Johnson, who was endorsed by PBOC and other progressive community organizations. Twice that March, anti-Feibush graffiti popped up in Point Breeze, the first time accompanied by posters and the second time vandalizing his campaign office. Toward the end of the month, an OCF company car’s tires were punctured in West Philadelphia. In April, someone graffitied “Don’t vote 4 Ori” in Point Breeze, leading Feibush to finally snap and blame, again without evidence, his opponent Johnson for the series of sabotages. PBOC again published a statement, this time withholding respectability politics and focusing criticism on Feibush’s history of dishonesty regarding such attacks. One might speculate that the changed social movement environment had altered the tone of PBOC’s response. A fifth attack on OCF upped the ante—destroying several locks and windows at two vacant homes of theirs in South Philadelphia. Johnson defeated Feibush, with Feibush doing especially poorly in Point Breeze. (It so happens that Johnson and his political consultant wife Dawn Chavous were indicted in 2020 on 22 counts from racketeering to fraud, all related to abusing his influence over development-related zoning.)

That June, Anathema republished communiquĂ©s claiming the sabotages of cars and vacant buildings in late March and April. In the first of the communiquĂ©s, the saboteurs invited others to “let the yuppies and developers know they are not welcome” by “creat[ing] environments hostile to gentrification,” giving instructions about how to pop a car tire and explaining that it’s “a fast and easy way to cause damage to our enemies,” with two tires taking less than two minutes. A group calling itself the Radical Action Network wrote the second communiquĂ©, saying they were “following the lead of the rebels of Ferguson and Baltimore,” justifying their acts “because we are tired of living in a system that constructs houses for the rich, while the poor and working class people get nothing but more police, more jails, more budget cuts, more misery.” Anathema included a third communiquĂ© in the issue, which described the removal of surveillance cameras from a construction site in West Philadelphia’s University City district. The anonymous authors justified their attack in similar terms to the other two communiquĂ©s, emphasizing both the simplicity of the action as well as the connection between gentrification and policing. They added, “[t]he removal of surveillance cameras makes room for other more damaging anti-gentrification attacks to be taken with less risk” and expressed excitement for the emerging series of such attacks.

A couple more sabotages occurred in June and July 2015, including graffiti reading “FUCK CONDOS” thrown up on a development in University City and white paint splattered on another OCF Realty car. The introduction to ADGAP explains some of the focus on University City, where Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania were massively gentrifying West Philadelphia ostensibly on behalf of their students and professors. According to one report, between 2000-2016, the Black population of West Philadelphia declined 35 percent while the white grew 74 percent, with median rents rising 27 percent and median home prices 169 percent.

That summer, Philadelphia anarchists in the area began to specifically defend and promote sabotage as a worthwhile anti-gentrification tactic, writing pieces independent from claiming responsibility for particular actions. I’ve already discussed how the Anathema article from July, “On the Recent Attacks Against Gentrification,” explained some of the focus on Point Breeze. The authors also criticized the tactical narrowness of PBOC and their respectability politics as betraying an opportunity for solidarity. Contrary to the claim that sabotage undermines the movement, the authors argue that sabotage’s positive legacy spans not only the Civil Rights Era but also the more recent earth liberation struggles and the much earlier fight for colonial independence. Instead of competition and betrayal among the factions of the anti-gentrification movement, they advocate at least “avoid[ing] public denunciations and endorsements of police intervention” and at most “stand[ing] behind [sabotage] publicly and be[ing] explicit that different methods exist within the same struggle,” the latter point coming from a position usually called diversity of tactics. Drawing on the anarchist principle of favoring direct action over actions intended to influence politicians, the authors argue that sabotage and expropriation, in concert and among other tactics, “can put a real damper on development” through dissuading the economic agents thereof. They also argue that it’s worthwhile to enact one’s “frustrations with class society” by taking pleasure in destroying that society’s artifacts. Finally, they claim “that every attack is an invitation to act, a call to others to revolt.”

The next month, the anarchist blog Philly Anti-Capitalist published the anonymous “A Concerted Effort Against Gentrification.” “The momentum of recent actions leads us to believe that now is an especially good moment to call for a focused opposition to gentrification,” wrote the authors. They argued that the recent attacks unveil the often concealed violence of gentrification, which, through the displacement of Black residents, is part of the broader violence against which Black Lives Matter moves. These actions “have created a momentum outside of the institutional left” and in this autonomy built the capacity of individuals and groups to take further autonomous action. And as increasing gentrification makes possible the spread and escalation of sabotage across neighborhoods, “resistance will become harder to control.” Such resistance, taking the form of attacks against “the material processes of development,” is difficult to pacify—more difficult, the authors imply, than strategies reliant on so-called non-violent tactics. Beyond the spread of sabotage tactics, the call for concert encourages the convening of in-person reflective dialogues about anti-gentrification strategy—so as to, among other benefits, reduce the “risk of alienating with our attacks people who might otherwise understand our motives and see themselves as part of the same struggle.” Anathema reported a first such gathering happening in mid-July at an undisclosed location, while ADGAP lists another in mid-December.

The strategic reasoning in these two articles differs from, but is complementary with, that of Ignatiev’s theory of creative provocation. While creative provocation describes a process of direct action that develops dual power through action and reaction across a whole cycle of struggles, these authors, iterating on the beliefs of insurrectionary anarchism, focus on the proliferation of tactics and the accumulation of their material effects on both the actors and targets from moment to moment in an upsurging anti-gentrification movement, itself channeling energy from another overlapping movement—Black Lives Matter. E told me explicitly that insurrectionary anarchism influenced them and their peers; these writings, and the Philadelphia communiquĂ©s as well, are brimming with that tendency’s concepts. While insurrectionary anarchists indicate insurrectionism as a position organic to all radical social struggle, seeing elements initially stated by early anarchists like the Russian collectivist Mikhail Bakunin and the Italian communist Errico Malatesta, it emerged historically as a self-conscious tendency in Italy during the 1970s, as a reflection on and critique of contemporary Italian movements. It then was transmitted to the US from the 1980s to the 2000s through the anti-nuclear, earth liberation, and anti-globalization movements, where it arguably has become the predominant tendency in anarchism. Sabotage was widely promoted by insurrectionary anarchists; for example, the scene-ubiquitous insurrectionary anarchist quarterly from the late 2000s to early 2010s, Fire to the Prisons, republished an anonymous essay written some time before 2003 probably by someone(s) Spanish, “On Sabotage as One of the Fine Arts,” in a 2009 issue in which they also covered the arrest of the Tarnac 9, a French group of alleged railroad saboteurs also alleged to have authored The Coming Insurrection.

One short essay from 1989 by the Italian Alfredo Bonanno, “Anarchists and Action,” contains the essential concepts. Rather than focus on mass mobilization, anarchists “should identify single aspects of the struggle and carry them through to their conclusion of attack.” Driving toward attack, these struggles should be informally self-organized, rather than embedded in formal organizations, since formal organizations, Bonanno argues, are shaped to a greater degree by capital and tend to infect individuals with a “spreading feeling of impotence” because of the limitations on the kinds of tactics the organizations will support. Finally, rather than accepting compromises by making agreements with opponents, anarchists should insist on “permanent conflictuality.” Direct attack, self-organization, conflictuality—an insurrectionary anarchist trinity. The efficacy of these elements of strategy relies on one further notion, iterated by Bonanno, expressed by early anarchists including Bakunin: the propagandistic effect of deeds; Bonanno emphasizes that even small acts make an impression through their ease of repetition. (E speculated that as the Philadelphia sabotages proliferated, it was likely that the saboteurs included more people from outside the anarchist subculture that initially incited the actions, judging from alterations in tactics and messaging.) The accumulation of subversive acts in accordance with this insurrectionary anarchism, says Bonanno, here nearer to Ignatiev, encourages “conditions of revolt [to] emerge and latent conflict [to] develop and be brought to the fore.”

2015 closed out with a half dozen actions around West Philadelphia, including two separate banner drops against new residential developments, one accompanied by graffiti against racism. There was also graffiti on an upscale bar and a just-opened high-end restaurant called Clarkville.

The next year, the attacks continued in West Philadelphia. In early March, four buildings had their locks glued and their walls painted with messages against gentrification and the police. In late March and early April, vandals graffitied banners hung from construction sites, including a project by OCF. Late May saw Clarkville vandalized again with paint on its windows, signs, and surveillance cameras, one message reading “GENTRI GO HOME.” In the second half of the year, sabotage spread from the West. At some point in June, as part of an international call to action called the Month for the Earth and Against Capital, a construction site was hit with the most sophisticated sabotage of the anti-gentrification campaign thus far. Saboteurs destroyed machines and parts of the building, and removed survey markers. The rhythm of one sabotage a month continued until after the election of Donald Trump, which triggered, as the reader will recall, a substantial uptick in the recruitment and militancy of factions across the left (for the purposes of generalization, we’ll consider most anarchists part of the left). 2016 ended with two vandalism attacks over about two weeks, targeting the South Philadelphia offices of OCF Realty, first the walls with paint and then the windows with glass etch.

In keeping with the tactical repertoire of the ascending antifascist era, 2017’s sabotages would include some in the form of black bloc marches. Black bloc refers to marching masked and garbed in all black, grouping together with all those similarly dressed, so as to not only conceal the identities of individuals but to also make it difficult to identify who is responsible for which acts. Typically, the acts are of property destruction, although in direct confrontations with fascists, the acts often include physical assaults of persons. Before the first such bloc—which assembled on the day of Trump’s inauguration to attack luxury businesses and cars and aligned themselves with prior local efforts through graffiti like “Fuck Gentry Scum”—the year opened on January 12 with a memorial window-breaking in University City in honor of two anarchists who had died in Oakland’s Ghostship fire. From February through April, three actions targeted OCF Realty in Point Breeze: windows broken at a construction site; banners removed from a site in coordination with #DisruptMAGA propaganda; posters against gentrification and Feibush specifically were wheat-pasted throughout the area.

The next couple actions, on May Day, effected a qualitative leap in intensity—each equally reliant on sabotage’s signature anonymity, but anonymized differently, by clandestine darkness and by black mask. In the young hours of that International Workers Day, which is also, as E commented, “an anarchist holiday basically,” 11 OCF townhouses under construction—the same site where vandals broke windows in February—were lit, burned, two falling to the flames, two requiring safety demolition. The average sale price of each home, all of which were uninsured since Feibush was self-financing the project, was $587,500; Feibush claimed the damage exceeded $1 million. Despite concerns such an action might alienate the public from the anti-gentrification struggle, neighbors interviewed by the press all seemed to understand the context, as did the journalists themselves. One local professor recognized it as “classic resistance to new developers.” Another neighbor—“This particular developer has not exactly endeared himself to the Point Breeze community.” Not to be discouraged, at least publicly, Feibush wrote on Facebook that OCF wouldn’t be intimidated; “we’re not going anywhere,” he said. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives offered a $10,000 reward for the arsonist(s), on top of which Councilman Johnson offered $2,500 and Feibush $90,000 more. No communiquĂ© appeared claiming the massive sabotage, perhaps because the heightened risk of the action discouraged those responsible from creating a paper trail, but the context lends reason to assume, as Feibush and the public did, that the arsons were part of the ongoing anti-gentrification efforts. As of the latest report from 2020, there have been no related arrests.

Black masks, paint, and broken glass followed the flames, with Philadelphia’s second anti-gentrification black bloc of the year, this time in North Philadelphia. The bloc, made up of 30 to 50 militants according to different estimates, attacked luxury cars and homes, carrying a banner reading “Gentrification is death, Revolt is Life,” dealing over $100,000 worth of damage according to one estimate. They also encountered a consequence of the risk of such a visible action, even while anonymized, even with observers aware of the motivation: a group of residents formed, outnumbering the bloc, eventually containing two of the group, whom police later arrested and charged with causing a catastrophe, criminal mischief, and other alleged crimes. Anathema in their next issue published a defense of the attacks, underscoring the value of direct action and identifying gentrification as part of a social war as old as settler colonialism against which nonviolent resistance is powerless. In a communiquĂ© in the same issue, anonymous self-described “bitches with hammers” considered the action a step up from the Inauguration Day bloc. The writers took responsibility for the bloc’s insufficient preparation and the neighborhood and police response, noted that a couple intended targets had been missed, and recommended several tactical improvements for future blocs.

A couple milder attacks in June and July, as well as an attempted arson at another OCF development, this time in North Philadelphia, brought the year to a close. In 2018, the instances of sabotage more than doubled, more numerous than I can recount in detail. Proportionately, the focus on OCF declined, though the windows at an office and a coffee house of theirs were shattered in separate incidents. The anti-gentrification black blocs were not repeated, and, for the most part the tactics resembled those of years past—graffiti, glass breaking and etching, locks glued, cameras destroyed, banners dropped, tires popped, etc. There were at least four innovations, two tactical and two target-related. Borrowing a trick from the earth liberation movement, in February some construction equipment had its gas tank sugared (although the classic monkeywrenching field manual, Ecodefense, recommends over a dozen alternative, more effective methods to disable bulldozers and the like). Perhaps more effective was a third attack on OCF—toilets at one of their cafes were decommissioned by flushing concrete down them; this sabotage was claimed by the “Summer of Rage preseason softball team.” The phrase Summer of Rage had previously appeared in association with the May 2017 black bloc, which police took to refer to the name of a group; another construction site sabotage, graffiti, and a glue attack at a completed development on 2018’s May Day were claimed by the Summer of Rage Anarchist Crew. As for general targets, saboteurs began gluing ATMs and bike rental kiosks, presumably to limit the monetary and bodily circulation of gentrifiers. More than 40 such actions occurred between February and April. Finally, as Amazon considered a potential HQ2 in Philadelphia, the company’s infrastructure became an anti-gentrification target. Several of their lockers had their electricity cut, a Whole Foods was propagandized with fliers and a banner, and an Amazon truck was torched.

What did any of this accomplish?, one might wonder. The simplest answer, not especially useful for pro-revolutionary theory, would be little to nothing beyond the acts themselves. The authors of the AGDAP zine warn against “creat[ing] a false sense of strength,” and that “past actions [do] not mean resistance to gentrification is thriving,” writing that their hope in documenting the sabotages is to offer “memory and imagination” to all those who might choose to fight in the future. A still-darker view is available. E told me that along with insurrectionism, nihilism too was an influence of theirs, common enough amongst Philadelphia anarchists in those years. In the Anathema issue covering May 2017, the closing article on a tendency referred to as “black anarchy” (in contrast to red anarchy, such as anarchist communism or syndicalism; not to be confused with the Black anarchism developed by peoples of African descent) defines the tendency largely in terms similar to insurrectionism, but with a nihilist attitude with respect to revolution or even insurrection: “all the various ideas, concepts and conceits of an anarchist victory via revolution or insurrection in the current context are nothing more than political heroin.” The option the so-called black anarchist chooses in the face of hopelessness remains “savage attack” rather than “resignation.” If the communiquĂ©s and articles are any guide, it doesn’t seem that, at least regarding the claimed actions, nihilism was the predominant view—clearly some people at least pretended to hope for the possibility of stopping gentrification.

When I asked E about the goals of the sabotage campaign, they told me that “insurrectionary anarchy didn’t really have any sort of history like in the recent past in Philly and so like even though like a lot of the stuff was anti-gentrification I also think people wanted to like encourage the development of like practices where people attack things directly”—which clearly seems to have been successful. E added a number of other goals which seem to have been met: “[simply] being in conflict . . . whether people succeeded in stopping all of gentrification or not”; “doing damage”; “frustrating people’s efforts to gentrify”; “to like build individual or group capacity”; “having fun.” All relatively modest, and frankly worthwhile goals for any social movement campaign, reliant on property destruction or not.

Beyond the near-term failure to stop gentrification, it may still be too soon to recognize the provocative effects of these efforts—and in any case, a more comprehensive analysis than this retelling would be needed to really make an assessment. Suffice it to say that the combination in Philadelphia of vacant public housing expropriations and two militant unhoused encampments, before and during the George Floyd Rebellion, were able to win a recently unprecedented 50 vacant properties for a popular community land trust. E was careful to give the credit for that win to OccupyPHA—PHA refers to the local Housing Authority—but also said “I’m sure that that kind of anti-gentrification stuff in this like kind of uncompromising way made space for things like stealing houses to be more acceptable.” Propaganda of the deed, and all that.

With the West Oakland sabotage of SMC in mind—where vandals once targeted the same landlord as did expropriators and a tenant council—one can’t help but wonder what might have been, what might still be possible, in Philadelphia if the saboteurs coordinated, indirectly or otherwise, with tenant association organizing and home expropriation campaigns—and, likewise, what might be possible in Oakland and elsewhere, were saboteurs to sustain momentum in concert with the broader tenants’ movement. This may be possible now in a way it wasn’t before—now that, since the pandemic, the tenants’ movement and its burgeoning autonomous tenant union tendency have reached a scale not seen in recent years, if ever. While gentrification is an enormous, amorphous force, the opponents of tenants are clear: landlords. Though sabotage, illegal and anonymous, is of necessity difficult to communicate and coordinate with directly, tenant union campaigns regularly reach a point at which their activity and targets are public.

With respect to confronting individual landlords, sabotage could be an additional lever with which to move a landlord from their intransigence toward demands and pressures issued from a tenant association; with respect to overturning landlordism as a whole, it may not be enough for every building to have a tenant association, for every vacancy to be expropriated, for every eviction to be blockaded—landlords may need to be driven away from even considering rent collection as a business by encountering tens, hundreds, thousands of sabotages large and small leeching back upon their already parasitic cash flow. The end of rent will require not just the dual power to which a vast network of tenant self-organization contributes but, also, a direct confrontation with landlords that a multiplication of sabotage might help creatively provoke. If saboteurs were to contribute their own humble tactics to the tenants’ movement, the least tenant unions and the like could do would be to stay silent and never call the cops, if not outright embrace tactical diversity. As rent abolition more and more comes to be the revolutionary watchword of tenants, all of its present forms should be recognized and considered—the rent strike, the expropriation, the sabotage. Any act which harms no tenant and inhibits the landlord’s ability to collect is ours with which to provoke the possibility of a revolution for a world without rent. Imagine, a tenants’ movement in red and in black.

 

Squatting, Rebellion, Movement: An Interview with Philadelphia Housing Action

from It’s Going Down

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On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with two members of Philadelphia Housing Action, about the ups and downs of 2020 that has been outlined in the recent piece, Occupy, Takeover: How Philadelphia Housing Action Turned Vacant Buildings Into Homes. It details how throughout 2020, members of the group moved unsheltered individuals and families into livable, unused homes owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority. Moreover, in the midst of the rebellion that kicked off following the police murder of George Floyd, the group was also involved in setting up several encampments throughout the city, which often were marked by standoffs with the police and barricades in the streets.

While the eyes of the nation were centered squarely on the autonomous zone in Seattle, in Philadelphia, such encampments were able to leverage the city to turn over 75 homes to a land-trust, providing housing for multiple families and formerly unhoused individuals – including many who had been squatting in the months prior.

As extreme weather becomes the norm and building takeovers to provide shelter and resistance to sweeps of homeless camps become more widespread, the campaign by Philadelphia Housing Action remains an instructive example of what is possible.

More Info: Occupy, Takeover: How Philadelphia Housing Action Turned Vacant Buildings Into Homes, Philadelphia Housing Action on Twitter, and Philadelphia Housing Action homepage.

Occupy, Takeover: How Philadelphia Housing Action Turned Vacant Buildings Into Homes

from It’s Going Down

Following months of riots, building barricades, and stand-offs with police trying to evict encampments, in late September of 2020, Philadelphia Housing Action was able to claim victory, after the city of Philadelphia offered unsheltered families and individuals access to housing in formerly vacant buildings, a process which people had already begun in the months prior, as homes owned by Philadelphia Housing Authority were squatted. In the end, upwards of 75 homes were handed over by the city, which included many homes which had been previously squatted. Here Philadelphia Housing Action looks back at 2020 with analysis and a timeline on what all went down. 

On Sept. 26, housing activists and organizers from Philadelphia Housing Action declared victory after the city agreed to allow 50 previously unhoused families who took over a number of buildings to live in vacant, city-owned housing through a community land trust.

Philadelphia Housing Action has actually been many years in the making; grounded in struggles around gentrification, displacement, homelessness, police violence, institutionalization, family separation, legalized discrimination and more. All of us had been in the city for years if not our entire lives. OccupyPHA had been sweating the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) for over five years around it’s rogue private police force and systematic displacement of neighborhoods through forced relocations under threat of eviction, selling of public land to developers, deliberate vacancy and eminent domain. In 2019 OccupyPHA had an encampment in front of the housing authority which lasted over 120 days focusing on these issues that laid a lot of the groundwork for what was to come. The issue of vacant public housing blighting neighborhoods and creating the pretext for eminent domain had long been a concern and the idea of occupying those houses as an act of protest and counter-gentrification had been discussed for at least a year.

Early on in 2020, the group of us who would go on to form Philadelphia Housing Action were finding each other in the same spaces as we challenged the city’s Office of Homeless Services around the ongoing policy of evicting homeless encampments. Like most places, nobody seemed to give a shit about homeless people and attempts to get media coverage or rally allies fell pretty flat. After a while, it became obvious that fighting the city on their terms wasn’t enough, we needed to take direct actions and force the issue; moving people into vacant publicly-owned houses seemed like the best way forward. Once COVID-19 rolled in and people were given stay at home orders, it just seemed like common sense for us to move ahead with take-overs, like a few other groups had already done around the country.

For several months as a small group we worked at that entirely under the radar and managed to occupy around 10 Housing Authority houses, primarily with families numbering a total of 50 people before the city erupted over the murder of George Floyd. Although Philadelphia Housing Action represented members from several groups, there were never more than 5 or 6 of us doing the work, none of us were getting paid and we got all the houses up and running with less than $1,500 from small donations or out of pocket. We had no legal or formal organizational support and relied entirely upon ourselves.

SOURCE: Philadelphia Housing Action

Within 10 days of the George Floyd uprising, we initiated a homeless protest encampment downtown and within the month we had made the announcement about the housing take-overs. Over the course of the summer hundreds of people became engaged in the encampments and the campaign while our group grew smaller, some members breaking away and one dying tragically of an overdose. We ended the year having housed 150-200 people, occupying 30 houses, continuing to fight the city for what we were promised and doing our best to weather the drama that comes after any upswing in mass movement activity inevitably tapers off and devolves into finger-pointing and competition amongst former allies.

We are proud that not a single occupied house was evicted and that there were no arrests in the largest organized and public housing takeover in the United States in more than a generation. We are gladdened that through the protest encampments and occupations the connections between homelessness, housing, and institutional/historical racism were put into much sharper focus while the racialised systems of domination, surveillance and control that permeate the homeless industrial complex, public housing, family court and more were successfully linked to the movement against police and state violence. We are hopeful that our demonstrated ability to link, cross-pollinate and grow movements for tenants rights, homelessness, public housing and foreclosures can be replicated by others across the country, for indeed they share a common enemy. Our campaign victory to win the transfer of vacant city-owned property to a community land trust for low-income housing was a big win for the national movements around housing and human rights and was built upon the shoulders of the many people and movements who came before us both here in Philly and abroad.

It is our assessment that in the year to come, we will see a great deal more in the struggles around housing as a mass eviction wave looms and the economy seems poised to fall off a cliff. We hope that in some small measure, we have done our part to set the stage for the fights to come and inspire others to take the bold and direct actions necessary to keep our communities safe and advance the struggle for universal housing.

Below is an incomplete and summarized timeline of our activities in 2020.

January 6th Philadelphia Housing Action protests encampment eviction at 18th and Vine St/5th and Wood streets along with members of North Philly Food Not Bombs (NPFNB),

February 12 Philadelphia Housing Action attends and contests meeting held by Office of Homeless Services about the coming planned eviction of the encampment at the convention center,

March 23 Philadelphia Housing Action and allies including NPFNB contest eviction of encampment at the convention center on the morning of City’s stay at home order, confronts David Holloman of Homeless Services with newly published CDC guidelines advising against evicting encampments. Later in the afternoon, Philadelphia Housing Action takes its first abandoned PHA property and opens it to the homeless community.

Throughout April and May Philadelphia Housing Action identifies and opens 10 more city owned houses for homeless families while city remains in lockdown.

April 10-17th Philadelphia Housing Action supports first protests/daily actions since lockdown led by no215jails coalition for the mass release of people from jails and prisons.

April 16th Philadelphia Housing Action supports action by No215Jails Coalition at CJC, chases Judge Coyle and her small dog who had denied every single case for release put before her down the street and blocked her exit from the parking garage.

April 17th Philadelphia Housing Action publishes Op-Ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer calling for the opening of empty hotels and dorms for the unhoused during the pandemic.

April 22nd Philadelphia Housing Action / ACTUP informs the City of Philadelphia about federal funding available that would pay for non-congregant housing in the form of Covid Prevention Spaces.

May 5th Philadelphia Housing Action contests encampment sweep on Ionic St w/ members of NPFNB. Delays sweep.

May 13th Philadelphia Housing Action supports ACTUP, ADAPT/DIA, Put People First, DecarceratePA, Philadelphia Community Bail Fund and March on Harrisburg pressing Managing Director Brian Abernathy to open non-congregant housing for people living in shelters, nursing homes and recently released prisoners. Demands universal testing in all congregant housing.

May 27th City of Philadelphia evicts homeless encampment from the international terminal baggage claim. Philadelphia Housing Action had visited the encampment several times throughout may and participated in advocacy work that delayed eviction for over a week due to legal action from Homeless Advocacy Project and attention from the press. First Covid-19 Prevention Hotel is opened in Philadelphia.

May 30th Philadelphia Housing Action joins the largest multi-racial uprising against police violence in the history of the United States in response to the killing of George Floyd. Uprising is city-wide and spills into the surrounding area with a week of street fighting, looting, riots and marches. The National Guard is mobilized to the city and occupies downtown, displacing the homeless population while people continue to loot and blow ATMs.

May 31st Philadelphia Housing Action / ACTUP / Put People First / Global Women’s Strike / March on Harrisburg demonstrate/hold funeral services at the home of Liz Hersh, Managing Director of the Office of Homeless Services.

June 6th OccupyPHA and Philly for REAL Justice lead a march of several hundred from PHA Police Department Headquarters to Temple Police Department Headquarters and back highlighting the impact of unaccountable private police departments on North Philadelphia and their connection to gentrification and displacement.

June 10th Philadelphia Housing Action and homeless activists initiate a protest encampment at 22nd and Benjamin Franklin Parkway under the banner of Housing Now. Encampment defies police orders, declares a no cop zone, bans homeless outreach, issues demands and expands rapidly. In the evening a small march blocks traffic and breaches the outer doors of Mayor Kenney’s apartment complex.

June 15th James Talib Dean, 34, co-founder of the parkway encampment, co-founder of Workers Revolutionary Collective and member of Philadelphia Housing Action dies at his home of an accidental drug overdose. Parkway encampment officially renamed Camp JTD.

June 22nd Marsha Cohen, executive director of Homeless Advocacy Project issues a public apology for her comments to the Philadelphia Inquirer about Philadelphia Housing Action being ‘insane’ and ‘using homeless people as pawns,’ amongst other vaguely classist/racist comments.

June 22nd Occupy PHA/Philadelphia Housing Action makes public announcement about its housing takeovers on independent media outlet Unicorn Riot.

June 23rd Philadelphia Housing Action taps water fountain, runs 1000 feet of pip to install running water, hand wash stations and a shower at CampJTD.

June 26th Philadelphia Housing Action and representatives from Camp JTD meet with city officials in an abandoned storefront. City makes no offer of permanent housing, denies having power over the housing authority or ability to convey other vacant city-owned property.

June 28th Philadelphia Housing Action / OccupyPHA open second encampment on an empty lot across from Housing Authority headquarters on Ridge Ave. The lot, taken through eminent domain by the Housing Authority is slated for of 81 market rate and 17 ‘affordable’ units, along with a parking garage and ‘supermarket.’

June 30th Housing Authority attempts to fence in Ridge Ave encampment and post no trespassing signs. Encampment residents resist, blocking bulldozers and tearing fenceposts out the ground, led by Teddy Munson. Managing Director Abernathy orders Housing Authority to ‘stand down,’ proving that city has power over the Housing Authority. Supporters immediately erect barricades around the entire perimeter of Camp Teddy, working into the night.

July 7th Philadelphia Housing Action taps into city power at CampJTD, installs outlets to power fridges, etc.

July 9th Philadelphia Housing Action breaks off negotiations with the city after several weeks of talks. Cites city’s refusal to offer any actual housing and refusal to bring the Housing Authority to the table.

July 9th PHA Police attempt eviction of occupied house. OccupyPHA/Philadelphia Housing Action and loosely organized Eviction Defense Network rush to the scene and successfully force the police to withdraw before they can enter the building. The house is the first of only 4 to be discovered by the Housing Authority.

July 10th City posts eviction notices for both encampments, cutoff date set for July 17th.

July 13th Philadelphia Housing Action rallies hundreds of supporters at Camp JTD, vowing to resist eviction and demanding permanent housing. Support for the encampment ratchets up all week with allies calling for supporters to sleep over to defend the encampment the night before eviction.

July 13th-17th OccupyPHA and Camp Teddy residents protest at Philadelphia Housing Authority President/CEO Kelvin Jeremiah’s personal home every day.

July 15th City of Philadelphia pressures porta-potty rental company National Rentals to cancel contract with CampJTD. Philadelphia Housing Action supporters cut locks to city bathrooms at Von Colln Field in response.

July 16th City backs down from eviction. Managing Director Brian Abernathy resigns. Mayor Kenney says he will become personally involved in negotiations.

July 20th Philadelphia Housing Action meets in negotiation with Mayor Kenney, other high level city officials as well as the CEO/President of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, Kelvin Jeremiah. OccupyPHA vows to continue occupying houses. PHA carries out raid of long standing land occupation, the North Philadelphia Peace Park, in the middle of negotiations.

July 30th Final meeting with Mayor Kenney.

August 4th Both encampments weather Tropical Storm Isaias.

August 10th Philadelphia Housing Authority holds press event with employees posing as ‘community members’ speaking out against Camp Teddy. OccupyPHA and Camp Teddy residents counter-demonstrate, infiltrate event and get on the microphone.

August 11th Philadelphia Housing Authority announces the creation of a ‘Community Choice Registration Program’ in an effort to appear like it is meeting protest demands.

August 13th Deputy Managing Director Eva Gladstein breaks off negotiations with Philadelphia Housing Action in an email, saying protestors were not meeting the city halfway.

August 16th City posts 24 hour eviction notice for protest encampments.

August 17th Over 400 supporters turn out the morning of eviction to defend the encampments. City Council Members Gauthier and Brooks intervene and re-open talks between the city and the encampments Talks last for over 6 long hours. Lawyer Michael Huff files in Federal court for a restraining order and injunction against eviction, representing individuals from both encampments.

August 17th PHA Police attempt extrajudicial ejectment of occupied house late in the night. OccupyPHA arrives and forces PHA Police to leave mid-ejectment. OccupyPHA demonstrates at PHA CEO Kelvin Jeremiah’s home every day the rest of that week.

August 25th Federal judge rules in favor of the city, clearing the way for an eviction, but mandating 72 hours notice with protections and storage for residents property.

August 31st City issues ‘3rd and Final’ eviction notice set for September 9th.

September 1st Philadelphia Housing Action publishes Op-Ed in Philadelphia Inquirer detailing demand for the transfer of vacant city-owned properties to a land trust for permanent low-income housing. Philadelphia Housing Action meets again with the City despite eviction notice. City and Housing Authority finally admit to having the power to transfer properties to meet the demands, but claim they simply do not want to.

September 3rd Philadelphia Housing Action and encampment residents participate in blockading the reopening of eviction court. The courts are effectively closed down for the morning before protestors are cleared by riot police.

September 4th OccupyPHA and camp teddy occupy a many years vacant, but newly built PHA property around the corner from Camp Teddy. After holding the building for several hours, occupiers foolishly allow access to the PHA Police. PHA finally moves in tenants the same night. In an email, PHA informs OccupyPHA found Jen Bennetch they have requested a federal investigation of her and the housing takeovers under the Riot Act.

September 6th Philadelphia Housing Action, encampment residents and supporters rally and march to Mayor Kenney’s apartment building and hold intersection and rally for hours.

September 8th Whole Foods, Target and CVS board their windows in preparation of encampment eviction and possible riots. OccupyPHA and Camp Teddy visit the homes of senior managers of the Philadelphia Housing Authority.

September 9th In a repeat, roughly 600 supporters turn out to fight the eviction, barricades are massively expanded at Camp JTD, including the closure of N 22nd St next to the encampment. The street remains closed for the rest of the month. City attempts to send Clergy to both encampments in an attempt to persuade people to leave but they are shouted down and leave in humiliation. Although trash trucks and buses are staged on the parkway, police never appear. Both encampments remain in a state of heightened alert over the coming weeks. Police test response time and defenses several times but do not arrive in force.

September 10th supporting organizers at camp JTD invite Mayor Kenney to a brunch on September 14th, raise a banner facing the parkway with the invitation.

September 14th Mayor Kenney declines to attend brunch.

September 18th HUD Mid-Atlantic Regional Office formally confirms that the Philadelphia Housing Authority can legally transfer properties without the need for federal approval.

September 26th Philadelphia Housing Action announces that city has tentatively agreed to transferring 50 vacant houses to a community land trust in return for ending the encampments. City/PHA comments that the announcement of a deal is ‘entirely premature.’ In talks, City had confirmed with Philadelphia Housing Action that they were willing to transfer the houses and continue negotiations in exchange for removal of the 22nd st barricades, a decision ratified by popular assembly of Camp JTD residents after much canvassing and discussion over the next several days.

SOURCE: Twitter @PeoplesParty_US

October 1st Philadelphia Housing Authority proposes settlement with OccupyPHA for resolution of the Camp Teddy encampment. PHA offers 9 fully rehabbed houses, two empty lots, the transfer of any squats that have already been approved for disposition to the land trust, amnesty for all Philadelphia Housing Action squatters, an end to extrajudicial ejectments and evictions by PHA Police, jobs for encampment residents to rehab the houses, a 1 year moratorium on sales of PHA property and an independent study on the impact of PHA property sales, participation of PHA Police Department in City of Philadelphia reform initiatives and to fully implement the CCRP with up to 300 vacant properties.

October 2nd Camp Teddy residents ratify the agreement and OccupyPHA signs agreement to vacate by the night of Monday the 5th.

October 5th Camp Teddy vacates and clears encampment by deadline. PHA informs the City after the fact. City is reportedly furious.

October 8th OccupyPHA founder Jen Bennetch wins a PA Superior Court ruling setting a state precedent affirming the right to film DHS workers (Philly’s version of Child Protective Services) performing their duties. The case originated in 2019 when the Housing Authority and homeless service provider ProjectHOME brought a complaint against Ms Bennetch for having her children with her in the daytime during her 2019 124 day occupation of the PHA headquarters. Ms Bennetch denied DHS workers entry to her home and filmed them in front of her house. In the lower court ruling, the family court Judge Joseph Fernandes had ordered Ms Bennetch to delete and remove from social media all videos of the DHS workers and to never record them again. Ms Bennetch’s appeal to the Superior court was based on First Amendment grounds.

October 10th Managing Director Tumar Alexander approaches OccupyPHA with a ‘best and final’ offer for resolution of Camp JTD in exchange for 50 additional houses.

October 12th After multiple assemblies and extensive canvassing at Camp JTD, Philadelphia Housing Action signs agreement to vacate on a tight timeline in exchange for 50 additional houses. Over the coming weeks Philadelphia Housing Action, supporters, the Housing Authority and the City work to find people housing and clear the encampment.

October 21st A Camp JTD resident legally obtains a unit at the formerly occupied newly constructed vacant PHA property around the corner from Camp Teddy.

October 23rd Marsha Cohen officially resigns as executive director of Homeless Advocacy Project.

October 26th Camp JTD formally closes and is fenced in by the city. Upon closure Philadelphia Housing Action counted 30 occupied city-owned properties. In the final weeks, 35 residents were given rapid re-housing vouchers despite income requirements and 10 elders gained immediate access to PHA senior housing. Philadelphia Housing Action estimates that more than 200 people gained access to housing over the course of the encampment through housing occupations or various city/housing authority programs.

October 26th Philadelphia Police shoot and kill Walter Wallace Jr, sparking widespread riots.

October 29 November 1st OccupyPHA/Philadelphia Housing Action demonstrate nightly at Council President Darrell Clarke’s home forcing a meeting with OccupyPHA and allies on November 4th. The following week the Philadelphia Housing Authority confirms Clarke has dropped his opposition to Philadelphia Housing Action getting houses in North Philadelphia. By November 23rd Darrell Clarke procedurally kills his own initiative to give $14.5m to the Philadelphia Police Department and refuses to comment to the press.

November 11th Philadelphia Housing Action occupies lobby of 22nd district for several hours after receiving the MOU between Philadelphia Police Department and Temple Police Departments. MOU is read out loud clarifying the limits of Temple University Police jurisdiction and generally harassing the police working that night, a turkey was thrown across the lobby.

December 1st Philadelphia Housing Action visits Covid Prevention Site Hotels and occupies lobby, confronts security.

December 2nd Philadelphia Housing Action has call with Office of Homeless Services and hotel residents about impending closure of Covid Prevention Hotels on Dec 15th. Demands delay of closure and extension of program. Over the coming weeks it is revealed the city will be moving residents from the hotel into former halfway houses that do not have private rooms or bathrooms. Philadelphia Housing Action continues to organize with residents and other advocates for the permanent housing the city promised at the beginning of the program. Activity is ongoing.

December 23rd Philadelphia Housing Action successfully pressures PHA to get gas turned on to several properties that were being denied service by PGW. City moves first residents from prevention hotels to former halfway houses and Philadelphia Housing Action learns that the new facilities have no heat or hot water. Philadelphia Housing Action and supporters visit the home of Office of Homeless Services Director Liz Hersh at night, talking to neighbors and playing loud music to protest the closure of the Prevention Hotel and the placement of people with preexisting health conditions into congregant housing with no heat or hot water over the holiday.

December 28th Philadelphia Housing Action visits Walker Hall, the former halfway house owned by private prison contractor CoreCivic that is now housing residents from the Covid Prevention Hotels. Security denies access to the premises and calls the police. The location is in a remote industrial area and lacking services, transportation or access to food. Heat and Hot water are still not available to all residents, nor are they allowed to possess space heaters. Residents have windows in their doors and are not permitted to block them. Female residents complain about male guards looking into their rooms. No transportation was made available. Residents are searched upon entry and at least one resident, a disabled elder, has been expelled for possession of a marijuana cigarette.

January 1st Philadelphia Housing Action, pushing for corrections around the availability of federal funding in a Philadelphia Inquirer article on the closure of the Covid Prevention Hotels is able to confirm that the City of Philadelphia never applied to FEMA for funding that would pay 75% of the program costs of the program. The statement from a city official on record undermines the entire premise of closing the hotel due to a lack of funding and exposes a high level of willful incompetence at the Office of Homeless Services. Furthermore, Philadelphia Housing Action and ACTUP are able to confirm that the current facilities will not be eligible for FEMA funding due to their congregant nature.