USSF2007 WORKSHOP STATEMENT

This statement was approved by participants from numerous social grassroots organizations working directly with homeless issues in the workshop "AHA Promoting Homelessness." This statement calls for solidarity and support from the governing board of the US Social Forum.

The following statement was agreed upon by the delegates of the Workshop "Atlanta Housing Authority promoting Homelessness" on 28June 2007:

We specialists and professionals as well as activists at the workshop conclude that we have an obligation to document through voices and action that the US culture is increasingly "anti-family" especially making "the poor and disenfranchised vulnerable to eviction and homelessness. And that the deeply discriminatory and anti-social actions of the AHA ( by evicting families from public housing and demolishing the remaining public housing in Atlanta) are representative of similar activities to those we have experienced from Miami to Boston and from Chicago to the West Coast of the United States in its increasingly predatory nature against the poor and people of color.

We question the hypocrisy of officials who offer lip-service and encouragement to people's movements for democracy and self-determination world-wide while criminalizing such activities at home. Many Atlanta families and working poor are directly threatened by homelessness and criminalization through the underhanded and discriminatory actions of the local Housing Authority.

For these reasons we call for the support of all groups and participants in the USSF 2007 to affirm this statement and the following action:

To demonstrate our protest, a Notice of Non-compliance will be placed on the. AHA offices deserted by its staff during the US SF 2007. The placard will put the AHA on notice for their non-compliance with basic human rights to housing and civility to all people.

We call upon all Social Forum participants and delegates to support this resolution and action. We call for support to encourage solidarity with thousands of Atlanta homeless people and 9,600 public housing residents who are threatened with eviction from and demolition of their apartments by AHA.

This Resolution and the Notice of Non-compliance were unanimously supported by workshop participants.

Atlanta Housing Authority Promoting Homelessness, Atlanta, USSF2007