From September 9-13, the CPD Network held a week of action to Welcome Back Congress from its summer recess. Birddoggers and CPD affiliate members from over 20 states greeted elected officials as they arrived at the airport to demand that they move on legislation we need in this country, advocated for affordable housing, protested the nomination of more ultraconservative judges, and put their bodies on the line for criminal justice reform. The key message: Members of Congress must work for the people who elected them to office. These series of actions made headlines in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Reuters, Curbed, NowThis, The Huffington Post, Newsweek and many more. 

A few key highlights from the week of action include: 

• CPD affiliates gathered with over 300 people to attend a hearing on housing policy. After, activists and tenants visited the offices of some of Congress’s worst perpetrators of the affordable housing crisis. More recently, presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced his housing platform that is largely based on the federal housing platform that CPD affiliates spent over a year crafting. A few days following Sanders’ announcement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced A Just Society legislation to Congress which includes CPD’s historic housing bill that, among other provisions, calls for the Federal government to implement universal rent control for the first time since World War I and for a massive investment in affordable housing. 

• Hundreds joined CPD affiliates to read from Ady Barkan’s book, Eyes to the Wind, in several offices of progressive Congressional members and senators, including Elizabeth Warren’s and Sanders’s offices. The group delivered thank you letters from Ady for its support of his healthcare and financial reform activism and asked those who have not signed on to Medicare for All to do so. Activists also shared their own stories of battling an ineffective and unaffordable healthcare system. 

• Immigration activists from Make the Road NY, PA, NV, and CT all lobbied their members of Congress followed by a visit to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters to protest and share stories of family separation. The group then made its way to the home of Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, to shut down the street, deliver him flowers, and demand that he stop supporting ICE. 

The CPD Network is gearing up for more sustained action throughout the remainder of the year and leading into 2020. Our communities are on the front lines of the fight to legislate a progressive agenda that can create needed structural change in our country and motivate people to engage civically. From immigration justice to workers’ rights, universal healthcare to affordable housing, climate justice to justice transformation, CPD’s affiliates and allies will not stop until our federal agenda becomes reality. Please make a donation now to support this critical work.