The Chicago Anti Eviction Campaign was inspired by the activism of the Western Cape Town Anti Eviction Campaign to assert their rights to shelter and basic needs through fighting evictions, water cut-offs, poor health services, obtaining free electricity, securing decent housing, and opposing police brutality. The Chicago Anti Eviction Campaign was founded in 2009 by Willie JR Fleming, Toussaint Losier, residents from Cabrini Green public housing, and allies that included religious organizations and community activists and leaders from organizations facing similar economically motivated evictions. Since its first eviction blockade in the Francis Cabrini row houses, the Campaign has grown substantially both in the number of participants and in the breadth of its focus. In organizing those most affected by the housing crisis, our organization has been led by low-income women and men of color seeking to enforce their human right to housing.  

The Campaign started with a mission to enforce each person's human right to housing, with or without the help of any authority or institution. CAEC’s unique tactics began with a simple math equation: pairing need and opportunity. The housing crisis of the last decade had displaced thousands of people from their homes and had largely left those homes vacant. Additionally, thousands of former public housing residents became homeless following enactment of Mayor Daley’s Plan for Transformation, which tore down the public housing high-rises, failed to replace many units, and forced many residents to live on vouchers in increasingly competitive markets. Seeing the need for housing and the abundance of empty houses, the CAEC began surveying neighborhoods, asking residents if they would want to see a homeless family settled into one of the neighborhood’s vacant houses. If the neighborhood was open to the idea, the CAEC would take over the property, make improvements, and move in a family. Working against a system of predatory banking and foreclosures, CAEC Executive Director J.R. Fleming says “We’re challenging amoral laws by breaking them.”  Unsatisfied with the government’s response, the CAEC saw this as an opportunity to provide housing and bring families back to communities by moving homeless families into people-less homes. 

In its early stages, the purpose of the Chicago Anti Eviction Campaign was to utilize abandoned and vacant houses for residents who did not have a home. The team took over abandoned houses, fixed them up to be livable again, and placed people who were homeless in homes that were peopleless. They were able to do this work because after banks foreclosed on homes and evicted families, they failed to market, upkeep, and secure the vacant homes. Some banks weren’t registering their foreclosures or failed to complete the foreclosure process of these homes. These unattended-to homes drove down property value and were a welcoming space for illegal activity.  There were plenty of vacant homes and plenty of people who needed a home and so the CAEC partnered with the City of Chicago to create a land bank. The land bank’s purpose is to acquire vacant residencies, demolish some, turn others into much-needed rentals and hold on to others until they can be released, strategically, back into the market. Beyond this, we’ve expanded and focused on three main issues which are the protection, preservation, and development of housing, employment and skill development, and the advocacy for and enforcement of human rights.

The CAEC facilitated homeowners and homebuyer’s educational trainings as well as provided skill and labor training for young at-risk youth through our Ladders of Opportunity program. By linking organizing, and advocacy, these efforts directly contribute to progressive shifts in local and national housing policy.  In addition to our ongoing organizing of local homeowners and tenants, the Campaign has spearheaded efforts to gain a $1 million commitment from Bank of America to develop 50 properties for a community land trust. This precedent-setting effort is now being coordinated by the Chicago Community Loan Fund. The CAEC has also extended this effort by partnering with the Cook County Land Bank and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to address blight in our community and to increase property donations and acquisitions for community groups. One of the ways in which CAEC’s efforts have seen systemic change is through the implementation of the Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative (NSI). The program allows properties that are federally owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be purchased and redeveloped by private contractors and non-profits. The NSI came to Chicago as a result of the work of the CAEC.  Programs like this are an example of the results that can be gained by working with the government to act in the interest of people over profit.

The CAEC's organizing and policy has also been complemented by its human rights advocacy. In January 2016, the CAEC  hosted the United Nations Working Group of Experts on the Decade of People of African Descendants. 2017 begin working to build a national public housing movement with resident leaders 2018 created pilot programs in Charlottesville and Cincinnati while assisting NY public housing resident with bringing in a HUD federal monitor.

Currently, the CAEC is focusing on two major programs. The first is Hood for Humanity, an initiative in which housing and education issues are addressed through buying foreclosed homes, fixing up these homes, and putting them back into the market through purchase and renting. This program addresses housing in the community through promoting homeownership, creating an affordable rental market, and, fostering neighborly blocks through moving families into vacant homes.  The second initiative is to create transitional housing to support re-entry programs for ex-offenders and women fleeing domestic violence. This initiative would operate to help people stabilize themselves through housing, while also providing physical health resources, mental health counseling, and job training. Furthermore, the campaign looks to take this resource for men and women further through leveraging their existing properties, and making these a stable permanent housing solution for men and women trying to rebuild.