clara pérez medina

Our film investigates the networks of care and justice that culminated in and outlived the famed occupation of the developer-owned house on Magnolia Street by the Black housing-insecure mothers of Moms4Housing in 2019. Our film picks up in the aftermath of the action that catapulted the Moms to national fame when they took over a vacant house in the historically Black, now actively gentrifying West Oakland neighborhood to protest the financialization of housing and homelessness crisis in the Bay Area. Their rallying cry sparked a national conversation and copycat actions around their central demand, that no human being deserves to live on the streets while housing is a commodity held in manufactured scarcity – Housing is a Human Right. Beyond the spectacle of direct action, our film asks: what are the lineages of care and struggle that produce and carry on well after spectacular political action for the right to space? What are the Black feminist place-making practices that the Moms have enacted in order to maintain community and memory in the face of Black displacement in the Bay Area? Through our collaboration, we contribute to the Moms4Housing goal of building the capacity and imagination of Oakland residents to secure housing as a human right.