[Excerpt]

"Community Lighthouse is an initiative of Together New Orleans, a coalition of 54 faith- and community-based organizations aiming to address issues ranging from access to healthy food to criminal justice reform. Organizers say they will have two more resiliency hubs up and running over the next three months, for a total of 16 by the peak of the 2023 hurricane season."

[Photo Credit: The New Orleans Advocate]

Two New Orleans Neighborhoods Get Solarpowered Shelters for When Electricity Fails, The New Orleans Advocate [pdf]

[Excerpt]

A surprising legislative success in 2021 is on track to be undone in 2023, unless a grass roots left-right coalition can block legislation and the forces behind it that are trying to go backward....

In the name of jobs and economic development, a 2012 tax code trick called Chapter 313 essentially funneled state money, via school district property tax breaks, to private companies doing new industrial construction. The school districts that granted tax breaks under Chapter 313 were reimbursed — and many still are being reimbursed — by the state, meaning we as taxpayers reimbursed them. It was the ultimate insider game of channeling public benefit to private companies.

The [Texas] Industrial Areas Foundation cleverly brought a man dressed as Dracula to its rally to dramatize how Chapter 313 unfairly drained school districts of funds and that reviving this bad economic development deal would be akin to raising the undead.

[Excerpt]

About 80 people representing multiple local Catholic churches and other denominations met at All Saints Catholic Church in the Heights with training sessions in English and Spanish on being called to be “One Body.” They also learned how to lead small groups and listen to identify new leaders. They focused on practical measures such as “pressures on families”....

Sister Maureen O’Connell, OP, Archdiocesan director for the secretariat of social concerns, said,

“Historically, people have seen the Church as a refuge. But that has eroded. Now we need to go out to the people and help them with their issues of education, transportation, and housing.”

[Excerpt]

In the attached audio interview, Rosalie Tristan and Joe Hinojosa, both organizers with Valley Interfaith, Joe Higgs from IAF, and Bob Fleming, an organizer with The Metropolitan Organization of Houston, say tax breaks for large corporations should not be paid for with monies that would otherwise go to public education. 

[Photos: Rosalie Tristan (left), Joe Hinojosa (holding sign in center) and Bob Fleming (right)]

Valley Interfaith: Don't Suck Money Out of Public Education to Help Large Corporations, Rio Grande Guardian [audio] 

Inquilinos de Dallas Denuncian Malas Condiciones en Viviendas, Telemundo Dallas

[Excerpt]

They say it’s time for Nebraska to aggressively recruit internationally to grow its workforce — in other words, welcome immigrants....

[Excerpt]

On Wednesday, residents will join Dallas Area Interfaith, Bachman Lake Together and Lumin Education in a meeting with city officials to demand solutions to what they describe as “risky and unbearable living conditions” in many units.

“We are ready to speak up, and we are not scared anymore. All the things we went through are helping us to move forward,” said Claudia Cruz, 38, a mother of three children who lives in an apartment in the area. “We are not victims, we are organizers now, and we want the city and those in charge to work with us.”

[Photo Credit: Maria Ramos Pacheco, Dallas Morning News]

Dallas Tenants Counter ‘Unbearable’ Conditions, Dallas Morning News [pdf]

Over 300 leaders, clergy, religious, and bishops from 20 organizations gathered last week in San Antonio to celebrate five years of Recognizing the Stranger, a West/Southwest IAF training, leadership formation, and parish organizing strategy. 

The Convocation was highlighted by a video message from Pope Francis, who offered his “closeness and support” to the IAF network and its work to organize with immigrants and with those at the margins to encourage “participation of the Christian in public life.”  

Delivered to the West/Southwest IAF 'Recognizing the Stranger' Convocation in San Antonio, February 28 - March 1

Over 300 leaders, clergy, religious, and bishops from 20 organizations gathered last week in San Antonio to celebrate five years of Recognizing the Stranger, a West/Southwest IAF training, leadership formation, and parish organizing strategy. 

The Convocation was highlighted by a video message from Pope Francis, who offered his “closeness and support” to the IAF network and its work to organize with immigrants and with those at the margins to encourage “participation of the Christian in public life.”  

"Over a 43-year career across Los Angeles County, the Spanish-speaking Irish immigrant stood up for his working class parishioners against federal and local officials and even his own bosses. Even after Pope Francis appointed him as a bishop in 2015, O’Connell never lost his common touch....

'He had a very fierce passion for justice, for the dignity of people,' said [One LA] lead organizer Robert Hoo, who had known him since 2005....Hoo sent me two video clips, [one] from a Zoom meeting last month, where O'Connell greeted IAF members who had recently met with Pope Francis about their organizing efforts.  In it, the bishop stood in his office and beamed.

‘He Brought Us In Closer’: The LA Journey of Bishop O'Connell, Los Angeles Times