A handbook for achieving social change through collective action based on lessons from a revolutionary movement’s struggle for housing justice in Spain.
Founded in Spain in 2009 as an immediate response to the devastating effects of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca – PAH) has since grown into a nationwide movement with over two hundred local chapters. Together, they have stopped thousands of evictions, negotiated with banks, forced legislative change, occupied fifty buildings, and, most importantly, rescued thousands of people from the edge of the abyss. It achieved all of this without backing from any party, union, or major NGO, and without full-time staff or external funding.
As the PAH faced off some of the country’s most powerful institutions, its members learned how to organize themselves, how to look after one another, how to do politics from the street, and how to bring about legislative reform. They managed to change the dominant narrative that blamed the victims of speculation on the housing market, they’ve won broad popular support, and through civil disobedience, they forced political parties to pass laws and pressured wealthy property owners and international corporations to negotiate and accept their demands.
How did they do this? This handbook collects and curates more than a decade-and-a-half worth of experience in social movement and community organizing. The lessons offered here, ranging from how to run a citizens’ assembly and manage conflicts to reflections on negotiation tactics, street-level organizing, and collective care, are drawn from the PAH’s struggle for housing justice, but can be useful for groups of citizens fighting collectively anywhere in the world. The PAH’s message to the world? “Only by organizing in the streets can we force legislative change, and only through legislative change can we gain more rights.”