Since our formation, SCHJN has pushed for safe and permanently affordable homes for all. 

Housing is a human right.

We are the South Carolina Housing Justice Network (SCHJN). We are a multiracial, multigenerational grassroots coalition that believes housing, healthcare, and a living wage are human rights. We came together during the pandemic to imagine and work for a healthy, thriving, and livable future for all South Carolinians. Our purpose is to support tenants in organizing against evictions, foreclosures, utility shutoffs, and other inhumane living conditions. We do this through direct action, mutual aid, resource sharing, basebuilding, and political education.

Our goals are to build tenant unions, expand community control of housing, and increase tenant rights on a local and state level as part of our broader demand for an economy and government that prioritizes people and the planet above profits. Ultimately, we work to push back against and transform the systems that force people into poverty and homelessness. 

Timeline of our work:

  • March 2020

    Our organizing was birthed in the midst of a pandemic, when a pre-existing and racialized housing crisis was intensified by the life and death implications of mass evictions and displacement.

  • March 2020 cont.

    SC Tenant Solidarity form was created in March 2020 to collect tenant experiences of housing insecurity, threat of eviction or foreclosure, harassment by landlords, or unpaid rent/mortgage due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Nearly 70 people completed the form and SCHJN members organized one-on-one email and text follow ups to check in, direct to resources, and invite them into our organizing efforts.

  • April 2020

    We hosted an online training and discussion about tenant rights during Covid-19 to address the following questions: What rights do you have as a tenant to prevent eviction? What emergency measures have been put in place to protect at risk renters, housing insecure folks, and houseless people? What emergency measures do we need? This panel featured Representative Marvin Pendarvis (SC Representative for District 113), Effy Francis (disabled, queer & trans advocate and activist), and Adam Protheroe, Esq.(SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center).

  • April 2020 cont. / May 2020

    Supported the creation of The Lowcountry Mutual Aid Fund,  a coalition of community members responding to the needs of marginalized folks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal was to create an alternative financial support network as a means of building radical funding infrastructure in South Carolina.

    (Note: As of June 2021, $25,000+ funds were redistributed)

  • May 2020

    Organized a May week of action!  See Image Below.

  • December 2020

    SC Housing Justice Network officially partnered with the Homes Guarantee nationwide anti-eviction campaign to set up teams that connected people facing eviction directly with resources and support. Our members phonebanked, canvassed, and attended national organizing calls in hopes of creating a bridge between the national Homes Guarantee campaign and local tenant organizing efforts.

  • March 2021

    Continuation of Anti Eviction Network Collaboration / Tenant Phone Banking

  • June 2021

    In support of Charles House organizing efforts against the Housing Authority, SCHJN members staged an action at the  Piccolo Spoleto festivity  “An Enchanted Evening in the Garden” at the William Enston Home. We were there to say they aren’t so enchanted by the Housing Authority’s treatment of its residents. (see image below)

  • July 2021

    Formalized partnership between SC Housing Justice Network with the People’s Action Institute.

    We are now connected to the National Tenant Bill of Rights campaign and have funds to support our organization’s basebuilding among tenants.

May 2020 campaign

June 2021 action against Charleston Housing Authority