NEWHAB Equity Manifesto

NEWHAB Equity Manifesto

NEWHAB brings together individuals from many sectors who care about ensuring healthy, affordable, sustainable housing for all. We recognize housing as a human right. We also recognize that climate change is occurring and triggering destabilization throughout the planet. Resources are being depleted and the most vulnerable are made to bear the largest burden.

Our Creed We believe everyone has an equal right to clean air, safe water, reliable energy, and quality shelter. We seek access to housing, energy, and water that is healthy, affordable, and sustainable for everyone. Structural and institutional racism and a range of other institutional barriers make it hard for many people to participate fully in our economy and thus to enjoy clean air, safe water, reliable energy, and quality shelter. We are an anti-racist network committed to take risks to dismantle these unjust systems in measurable ways and we want to do so in a way that is led and informed by underserved communities.

Our Vision

1. Everyone has housing, energy, and water to meet their needs at costs they can afford.
2. Everyone is committed to sharing resources.
3. The benefits and burdens associated with the production and distribution of energy and water are shared fairly by all.
4. Our building, energy, transportation, and water infrastructure is built, upgraded, and maintained to the highest standards of efficiency and ensures health and safety for all.
5. Underserved communities have decision-making power over the allocation of resources, and these allocations serve in part to remedy historical and ongoing systemic racism and exploitation.

Actions we are taking collectively to advance our vision:

1. Courageous Discovery: The scarcity of housing that is healthy, affordable, and sustainable results from an economy defined by massive income and wealth inequality. The dominant cultural norms uphold a system of haves and have-nots. We are committed to confronting our own individual, organizational, and industry-wide actions and beliefs to root out exploitation and inequitable impacts.

Possible Tactics:

• Provide trainings to identify and dismantle structural racism and its impacts
• Systems mapping- regional, subsidized housing, energy production and distribution, jobs, wealth
• Create, use, and disseminate assessment tool
• Examine our own use of terms and create a shared language within the network

2. Listening to Understand - We aim to learn the effective solutions directly from underserved communities. We are committed to incorporating input from underserved community members in a fashion that supports the dignity of all.

Possible Tactics:

• Studies, stories, reports
• Highlighting member and aligned movements
• Community delegations
• Membership recruitment

3. Partnering to Effect Change and Uplift Communities - Community-driven solutions and policy initiatives will drive our practice of partnership, which we will demonstrate via our time, resources, support, and solidarity.

Possible Tactics:

• Increase capacity of frontline organizations to lead, including equitable funding practices
• Position frontline communities of color to lead
• Make partnership and coalition decision making structures explicit
• Supporting community driven movements

This Manifesto is a declaration of our collective vision. The actions identified speak to the work we are doing as individuals and organizations in the world to deconstruct systems of oppression. As a network, we are also committing to apply these principles and create specific action-plans to reflect equity internally. NEWHAB will revisit this Equity Manifesto at least annually with the full membership, seeking feedback, evaluation and any necessary adjustment.