Our 50-Year History
Scroll down for the different decades:
The 1970’s
The organization we now know as City Life/Vida Urbana sprouted from the seeds of the feminist, socialist, civil rights, and anti-war movements of the early 1970s.
CLVU started as the Jamaica Plain Tenant Action Group (JPTAG), who introduced and led a militant fight against displacement with direct actions, like eviction blockades. JPTAG was started by socialist feminists who were inspired to uplift women’s leadership. At the same time, other socialists were unionizing at factory jobs in Boston and nationwide. JPTAG wanted to organize around another equally important arena of struggle – the places we call home. Early bi-lingual and working-class members organized communities in this renewed fight for housing as a human right during the height of slumlord abuse and arson (the deliberate burning down of buildings for profit). Although JPTAG was based in Jamaica Plain, its members worked to stop displacement across Boston. JPTAG members never imagined the housing justice movement would be alive and thriving 50 years later.
Members of the JPTAG community also worked together to run the JP/Roxbury Food Co-op along with other co-ops, which brought people together and created a safe haven during the violent era of bussing and segregation in Boston. JPTAG was created alongside a bilingual (English and Spanish) newspaper called CommUNITY News, which featured stories that mattered to diverse working-class communities across Boston.
Many people of different cultures are affected by displacement and lack of affordable housing, but we’re all united under one movement to fight for racial, social, and economic justice. JP Tenant Action Group – and now as City Life/Vida Urbana– has always been grounded in community– from our birth in the 70s, we’ve hosted cultural events, such as theater shows and skits, involving all generations and families, from children to elders. We know that building community within and across different cultures, languages, and ideas, and celebrating the joy and our relationships to each other are integral to our movement. We encourage you to watch more about CLVU/JPTAG in the 70's in this short video.
Housing is a Human Right!
¡Tener un techo es un derecho!
Housing is a Human Right! ¡Tener un techo es un derecho!
The 1980s:
CLVU IN THE '80s: City Life/ Vida Urbana grew in the 1980s as rainbow coalitions of working class Bostonians fought back against gentrification, speculation, condo conversions and slumlords. In the 80’s CLVU started to expand outside of Jamaica Plain with the eviction free zone campaign, tenant association fights expanding into Mattapan, international anti-imperilaist soldiairyt with South Africa, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, and the labor work in CLVU was heating up too with The Labor Page newspaper. 
Community members from Roxbury and JP came together for the “Eviction Free Zone” campaign in the 80s, with strong arteries in Hydesqaure and Egleston as a response to condo conversions and rent increases following the MBTA project to bring the above-ground orange line train underground🚃. 100’s of streets were doorknocked in JP and Roxbury for the “eviction free zone campaign,” a 1980s campaign to stop displacement, influence local planning and development, and explore new models of nonspeculative homeownership, something we like to now call social housing in 2023. This organizing inspired tenants in Cambridge to launch their own Eviction Free Zone project and solidarity from all over the state🔥. This campaign seeded a Spanish-only committee, Comite Zona Libre” that held weekly meetings that continue today but in a different form.
Sometimes, one call can change the course of a building, and that’s exactly what happened with the Fordham Court Tenant Associations. A call from Jamaica Plain came in about rent increases, which started the Fordham Court Tenants Association following a building sale by Samia Properties📞🏷. The Fordham Court TA stopped 12 evictions that cost the landlord over $40,000 to pursue the evictions and break up the tenant union❌💰. The Fordham TA won a collective bargaining agreement with capped rent increases. The Fordham Court fight lasted over a year until Samia Properties signed a collective bargaining agreement with the Fordham Court tenants association. One of the low points of this fight was when Samia Properties evicted a pregnant woman and her husband on Christmas Eve; that’s when #CLVU swooped in with good old door-knocking to build a fierce tenant association and won a collective bargaining agreement that set a precedent for future collective bargaining agreements in other buildings owned by Samia Properties.
CLVU was organizing against slum conditions, a new wave of speculation in the community with the above-ground #MBTA Orange Line (“The El”) going underground🚇. Tenants had to deal with rent increases, substandard conditions, and poorly maintained properties while slumlords maximized profit. As roaches and rats piled up, bad conditions worsened and displaced tenants🐀🪳. CLVU has been responding to conditions of disinvestment, slum lord-isms, and speculation for decades. CLVU has used different tactics based on a grounded assessment of the economics of the housing market of the time; for example, during the eviction-free zone, CLVU was concerned about gentrification and displacement. Today, we are still fighting the same greed but in a new age of capitalism where absentee millionaire landlords put profit over households.
At Tennis Road in Mattapan, 80 Haitian, Latine, Indigenous, and white families overcame language barriers and came together against slumlord violence. Tenants were threatened with guns by landlord employees asking for rent💵🔫. The landlord and those working for him threatened tenants and the #CLVU organizers who were trying to support the tenants. After a long fight involving rent strikes, protection by a large dog for the organizers, and a red van full of housing activists ready to take on the slumlord, the tenants won a 5-year agreement. More recently, in the 2000s, CLVU organized with the Tennis Road building again after corporate landlord Mayo Group purchased the building and doubled rents💥🥊.
Does this story of BPS shutting down schools for development sound TOO familiar? WELL, In the 1980’s, there was a rumor of the sale of The Bowditch School in Jamaica plain. Former Boston Mayor Kevin White promised The Bowdwich School development to include a significant amount of affordable housing of 80 luxury units. Still, instead, the Bowdwich School was sold to a developer for ONE dollar as part of the school departments’ “Unified facilities plan,” a plan to close 29 schools. Of course, the developer’s plan had practically NO truly affordable housing, so in response, we stood up and fought back and won for the Bowdwitch School to be purchased by the owners of Pine Street Inn and Rosie's place, repurposing the property for 45-unit rooming housing for people who were formerly homeless. The 7 years-long fight for affordable housing in Jamaica Plain leveled up #CLVU’s anti-displacement militant organizing to another level with Tent City in The Bowdwich school parking lot.
CLVU also started to expand outside of Jamainca Plain in the early 80s, the tenants of Adams St in Dorchester organized together to fight back against their greedy landlord, Geraghty who wanted to turn their units into rental condos to upscale the whole place for profit🤑. This was around the time that the resistance against condo conversions scaled up across the city with the Eviction Free Zone Campaign. Adams st. tenants association rallied and, with the help of #CLVU were able to reach a victory and stay in their homes, #CLVU returned to these buildings in the 2000’s to organize against evictions again! The cycles of capitalism will not deter our movement for housing justice♻️.
Imagine a community meeting of over 200 community members speaking on abuse from local speculators and real estate. NEXT DAY, there is a protest encampment at a neighborhood school🤯✨?! That’s EXACTLY what happened in Jamaica Plain, over 1,000 people coming in and out of the Bowdwitch School Tenant City to protest plans to redevelop the school into condominiums, condos too expensive for JP residents. This fight against condo conversions and speculative city property sales garnered over 6 years of organizing and over 3,000 people to sign petitions, 6 years of organizing. Tenant City hosted daily potluck dinners, poetry readings, activities for children, and presentations for South African anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity🎭 🇿🇦 🇳🇮🇸🇻. The Bowdwitch School tent city was modeled after the Mel King South End legacy to dramatize the need for affordable housing.
The Labor Page was a bi-monthly newspaper that started as a page in the CommUNITY news in the 70s and, by 1982, launched on its own by the workplace committee of CLVU🖋. The Labor Page was dedicated to the labor movement, which had a circulation of 4,000 in Massachusetts and was distributed in 20 unions and 50 workplaces by 1986🗞. The #CLVU workplace committee hosted educational workshops about labor history, and the Labor Page writers were also union leaders in their workplaces.
#CLVU, 1980’s AIDS solidarity. #CLVU hosted the #JamaicaPlaina AIDS Housing Task Force💚 🖤❤️. CLVU began a campaign with the AIDS Action Committee to put public pressure on building housing for people with AIDS. The campaign included community education campaigns to organize support for developing new or rehabilitated buildings with 6-8 apartments for people with AIDS and to create solidarity and community.
We are wrapping up the #CLVU 1980s rollout by recognizing gender violence and international resilience❤️🔥. If you didn't notice, our mission statement states: CLVU is a grassroots community organization committed to fighting for racial, social, and economic justice and gender equality by building working-class power. We stand by gender and racial justice and, in 1989, hosted a speakout against racism and gender violence after the murder of Boston pregnant wife, Carol Stuart, who was killed by her husband who falsely accused an African Descendant Bostonian of the murder… ultimately his brother ratted his racist woman killing brother out on the lie - claiming the husband killed Carol the wife, to collect life insurance, and falsely accused a black Bostonian man. In the 70s, Take Back the Night marches ignited across the U.S., which spread internationally in the 80’s in response to a tick in national headlines of women murdered and going missing at night.
1990s
Prominent housing issues of the 1990s were condo conversions, institutional land expansions, the gentrification of our neighborhoods by big businesses like Universities and Hospitals, and public housing neglect🪳. The housing crisis has always existed but has ebbed and flowed with the real estate market; for example, in 2023, the housing crisis morphed the 1990s issue of condo conversions into luxury condo redevelopment, morphed institutional land grabs into big corporate real estate buying out neighborhoods and out-competing 1st-time homebuyers with cash buying, and morphed public housing neglect to an affordable housing and displacement crisis🥊. Sadly, the homes being built now are not affordable enough for families and households most at risk of being displaced. This is why #CLVU challenges government affordable housing standards and fights corporate real estate to build more truly affordable housing💥! Celebrate 50 years of resistance at the #CLVU 50th anniversary party on Friday, October 13th, at the Joyful Resistance Jubilee! Buy your tickets here: joyfulresistance.org
In the 1990s, CLVU led a report about discrimination against Latinoxs when trying to take out a loan from the bank, which led to action⚡️. In response to the discriminatory lending research of Latines #CLVU leaders created a program in the 90s called “Latinos Comparando Casas/ Buying Houses”. These key leaders were also at the forefront of organizing against the foreclosure crisis🔑. In the 90s CLVU broke the silence and called out discriminatory lending in the 90s amongst nonwhite homebuyers. CLVU has a history of also supporting first-time homebuyers and working-class neighbors who are small homeowners. Together, tenants and homeowners fight against displacement and defend their homes daily.
The #CLVU Vision Crew was born in the 1990s in response to the priorities set by the Latino Comite. It was a multiracial, black and brown group of 15 youths who met once a week to record, edit, and produce video projects. They discussed their racial and cultural background and community issues like crime, violence, and drugs. Their goal was to find a way in which the youth could be involved in confronting these community problems. With the help of grants, they got training from Boston Cable Access and completed their first set of short videos, some of which focused on the Egleston Square tenants. The Vision crew aired Bosotn New Network BNN videos on channels 3 and 8. The Vision Crew youth were the first youth ever elected onto the CLVU board and recognized as a turning tide for youth engagement in CLVU. The CLVU Vision Crew also set a precedent for CLVU’s communications department of brilliant young women. For a long time, CLVU was the only housing justice group in the Boston area with a communications team, and CLVU is still working to empower and involve the youth in the fight for housing justice. We gave homage to the Vision Crew on our 50th-anniversary poster, too; see the close-up of the poster below!
At the start of the 90s, City Life Vida Urbana started more intentionally organizing Spanish-speaking communities and empowering Latinx leaders⚡️. The Latino Comite in #CLVU was born in the 90s; they gathered to discuss their vision of housing justice, how to improve their communities, and anti-war conversation from first-hand refugees from war-torn Latin American countries. Five years after the start of the Latino Comite, CLVU was a majority Afro, Caribbean, LatinX organization due to the nature of the way Jamaica Plain was populated and needed anti-displacement support in the 90s. In 2023, the LatinX majority base of #CLVU is in the Northshore, East Boston area. In the 90’s, there was an emphasis on empowering Latina women, who usually were the head of the household, to fight for their communities, which can still be seen today💚.
In the 1990’s CLVU also won permanent affordable elderly housing in Jamaica Plain after a good organizing fight against slumlord Mr.Caroll, who would tell 92-year-old tenant leaders Mr. Tully to turn on the oven in the winter when the heat wasn’t working and to use candles when there was no electricity and tried to sell that same building for 1.2 million… in the 90s🕯⚡️!!! Sturdy 92-year-old Mr.Tully would call CLVU when he was cold in the 90s and, together with neighbors, organized, fought in housing court, and got the judge to order slumlord Mr.Caroll to live in the neglected apartment Mr.Tully lives in with no heat for 2 weeks❌. Slumlord Mr.Caroll bought that building for 75,000$, right next to Stony Brook train station, and wanted to sell for 1.2 million in the 90s. With the organizing support of CLVU, the building was sold to JPNDC and made into permanent low-cost/ affordable housing for the elderly. This building was The Nate Smith house, in memory of #CLVU activist Nate Smith.
In the 1980’s-1990’s U.S. dollars, our taxes meddled in war, political unrest, racist white supremacist apartheid in the global south, and disguised socialist revolutionary suppression. Interestingly enough #CLVU stood in solidarity with El Salvador, suffering through its civil war, South Africa and its apartheid, and Nicaragua. Nelson Mandela was freed in 1990, and in 1992, El Salvador signed its Peace Accords, surging international energy around the importance of international solidarity. CLVU hosted Work-A-Thons (annual collaborative fundraisers), which, for one year, fundraised money with CISPES as part of the anti-intervention work in Nicaragua and El Salvador. CLVU organizers like Steve Meacham and 20 others were part of a civil disobedience at the Ropes and Grey law firm, occupied the office, and got arrested in protest of one of the lawyers of Ropes and Grey who was ALSO the manager of the town of Hingham, Massachusetts he was managing the town's investments in South Africa. Boston organizers demanded them to divest from South Africa in solidarity against the apartheid.
CLVU also hosted annual: “Work-a-thons,” a community clean-up day that doubled as a fundraiser for #CLVU and other solidarity international efforts🧹🌳. The local clean-ups were collaborative efforts between CLVU and other local community groups in Jamaica Plain. Long-term CLVU boricua leader Miguel Cepededa described them: “We want to support the coop residents, and the cleaning and planting around the abandoned buildings and vacant lots will help reclaim these buildings and land in our neighborhood💯.” A radical reclamation of land doubled as a fundraiser that reached international organizing efforts in Central America, in border towns Chiapas and Tijuana in Mexico, Guatemala, and Haiti, which once got 400 bike donations to be used for transport by Haitian organizers🇭🇹🇸🇻🇬🇹🇲🇽🇳🇮. Work-a-thons was an annual collectively organized clean-up and fundraising day with partners like the Central American Solidarity Association, CISPES, Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development, the Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Association, LACASA-NDC, and more!
To wrap up the 90’s, we want to share our 90’s rollout of the CLVU logo, which we still use today! The current logo design was created by past #CLVU director Roxan McKinnon, a visual graphic artist, OoOO now looks at the balance of negative space on the logo. Remember, we need artists in our housing justice movement, so artists stay close💚! Check out the progression of the logos below!
