Home Is A Human Right is an online conversation series featuring New Yorkers who have lost a home or are fighting to keep one and other guests with big picture perspectives on the NYC housing crisis. The experience of not having a home has become the norm for nearly one hundred thousand New Yorkers, and as many as 1 million are currently on the brink of eviction. By creating a platform for the voices of individuals with direct experience of this crisis, the series aims to amplify the leadership of those who know the most about what is broken within our society and to generate a citywide conversation about how we might collectively work together to make it right.

 

Each episode of Home Is A Human Right brings together a pair of guests for a conversation about the landscape of housing, hosted by activist and oral historian Nico Fuentes. Guest speakers either have lived expertise of housing instability, complementary perspectives on historical and present inequities within the system, or both. In addition to foregrounding lived experiences, conversations in this series will explore the underlying structures that determine which populations have access to wealth and security, often literally realized in the form of homes and properties, and which don’t. These inequities exist by design: New York City was built on unequal foundations and continues to develop upon them unequally. 85% of NYC shelter residents self-identify as Black or brown, and research has shown that the primary cause of homelessness is a lack of affordable housing. (can this paragraph end here or does it need another thing)

 

The series welcomes people who have never experienced a loss of housing as well as those people currently living without stable homes. bringing people together across demographics and experience to circulate resources and knowledge, and to create strategies for how we can work together, as neighbors and New Yorkers, to realize a city in which all people have the home that every human deserves.

The majority of contributions to the series fund honorariums for guest speakers and the host, with a small portion covering technical and web hosting costs. Home Is A Human Right is produced by a collective of volunteers working within the Housing Team of Mutual Aid NYC, with the guidance and support of citywide leaders of the movement for housing justice.