ACORN International

10/15/2026

ACORN’s organizing in Bristol is making a difference! A new article in the London Review of Books, “Bristol goes Green,” highlights how ACORN members organized tenants to resist eviction, mobilized neighbors against unsafe housing conditions, fought the sale of public housing, and helped shape local housing policy. From forming a human chain to protect a family facing eviction to winning changes in council housing policy, Bristol shows what people can achieve when they organize together and fight for their homes.

Alsayed Al-Maghrabi, a Labour councillor of Palestinian ancestry, quit Labour for the Greens. He told me he had joined...

09/30/2026

Our French affiliate Locataires Ensemble was on the ground in Madrid for the international protest defending the right to housing, joining tenants and housing organizers standing in solidarity with Maricarmen Abascal and others facing eviction and displacement. The demonstration brought together people from across Spain and beyond to demand that housing be protected as a human right, not treated simply as an investment.

09/28/2026

The eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her home in Madrid, where she had lived for more than 70 years, has sparked protests across Spain and renewed calls for stronger tenant protections. After her landlord sought to sharply increase her rent, she faced years of legal battles before being evicted, despite efforts by housing organizers to keep her in her home. Her story reflects a housing crisis that reaches far beyond one city or one country, as rising rents, displacement, and inadequate housing threaten working-class communities around the world.

Last week, ACORN International’s Organizers’ Forum delegation was in Barcelona, meeting with tenant organizers, cooperatives, and community organizations working to build collective power. While ACORN does not currently have an affiliate in Spain, our members and organizers are confronting many of the same challenges in England and Wales, Canada, the United States, Scotland, Palestine, France, India, Africa, Honduras, and beyond. The housing systems differ from country to country, from places with limited rent control and social housing to communities where tenants are winning stronger protections and expanding access to affordable homes. But the underlying struggle is shared: housing must be treated as a human right, not an investment.

That struggle is about more than having a roof overhead. A home must be safe, healthy, and affordable. Across our network, members are organizing against displacement, unaffordable rents, unsafe housing conditions, and the loss of public and affordable housing. From fighting extreme heat and dangerous repairs to demanding rent controls and protections against eviction, ACORN members are building the collective power needed to make housing a foundation for dignity and security.

Stories like Maricarmen Abascal’s are unfolding in cities around the world, as tenants face eviction, displacement, and the loss of homes they have lived in for decades. It is time for communities to come together, organize, and defend their right to healthy, safe, and affordable housing.

Housing is a human right, and protecting that right takes collective action after sustained organizing.

09/22/2026

ACORN Leeds members took the fight to Yorkshire Water, confronting the company over crumbling infrastructure, rising bills, sewage pollution and the use of bailiffs to collect household debts. Members demanded an end to bailiff collection, relief for household utility debt built up during the cost-of-living crisis, limits on price increases, and an end to executive bonuses while basic services remain inadequate. When the company’s CEO refused to meet with members, ACORN Leeds secured a face-to-face meeting with senior management instead.

That action has already delivered concrete results. Yorkshire Water has agreed to end the use of bailiffs against vulnerable customers and establish a pre-action protocol with ACORN. The company will also provide a direct contact for members dealing with debt relief issues and refer customers facing housing problems to ACORN. Yorkshire Water has additionally agreed to issue written apologies to members Fiza, Christine and Gabe, who faced serious problems including water contamination and aggressive bailiff action.

ACORN Leeds members are achieving major wins organize collectively and taking the fight directly to the institutions responsible.

Congratulations!

ACORN Leeds

09/22/2026

The Organizers’ Forum delegation traveled from Bilbao to Mondragon to learn about one of the world’s largest cooperative enterprises. Today, Mondragon brings together 92 autonomous cooperatives with more than 70,000 worker-members and over 100 subsidiaries around the world. Founded in 1959 by five engineers who emerged from a local technical school, the cooperative movement has built an economic model based on worker ownership, member investment, democratic governance, and long-term employment.

The delegation explored how Mondragon connects cooperative principles with the hard realities of running sustainable businesses in a global economy. Members invest in their cooperatives, build equity, participate in general assemblies with one member, one vote, and have systems for retraining and finding work in other cooperatives when a business closes. The visit offered organizers an opportunity to examine both the possibilities and challenges of building worker-controlled institutions at scale, and what lessons might be relevant for organizations seeking to build lasting economic power.

09/21/2026

In Bilbao, the Organizers’ Forum met with representatives of ELA, the Basque Labor Union, which has approximately 100,000 members. ELA has built its organizing strategy around strong member dues, a large strike fund, and a major investment in organizers, allowing workers to sustain strikes for months while continuing to fight for stronger contracts and workplace power.

The discussion gave Forum delegates a close look at how a union operates in a system with multiple unions and sectoral bargaining, and how financial resources can be deliberately directed toward organizing and worker action. For ACORN and its labor partners, the exchange offered valuable lessons about building the organizational capacity and member resources needed to sustain long-term collective action.
ELA Sindikatua

09/20/2026

During the Organizers’ Forum visit to Barcelona, delegates met with Mujeres Palante, a largely volunteer organization supporting migrant women, particularly women from Latin America, as they navigate registration, employment, housing, and the challenges of establishing themselves in the city. The group works with women facing especially difficult circumstances, including those fleeing domestic abuse or economic hardship, helping them access the documentation, work, and support they need to build stable lives.

The meeting highlighted a reality organizers encounter across many communities, that the protections and services people are entitled to on paper do not always reach them in practice. Mujeres Palante organizes to bridge that gap, working directly with migrant women and building relationships with other community organizations, including the Barcelona Tenants Union and the cooperative network visited by the delegation.

Mujeres Pa'lante

09/19/2026

As part of the Organizers’ Forum visit to Barcelona, delegates met with La Ciutat Invisible (The Invisible City), a worker cooperative founded in 2005 in the working-class neighborhood of Sants. What began as a critical bookstore and research collective has become part of a much larger network of cooperatives, tenant organizers, community projects, ethical finance, and social movements working to build community power outside traditional institutions.

The delegation learned how this network has helped develop projects including La Borda cooperative housing, La Comunal’s shared cooperative space, and the wider Can Batlló neighborhood movement. The visit offered organizers from ACORN, Living Rent, and partner organizations an opportunity to explore how tenant organizing, worker cooperatives, community-controlled housing, and solidarity finance can connect to build lasting power at the neighborhood level.

La Ciutat invisible

09/18/2026

Organizers’ Forum: Learning from the Barcelona Tenants Union

Members of the Organizers’ Forum delegation met with representatives of the Barcelona Tenants Union (Sindicat de Llogateres) to learn from their tenant organizing. Founded in 2017, the union has grown to 6,000 dues-paying members across Barcelona and other towns in Catalonia, with members organizing through local chapters, working groups, and direct outreach to tenants in buildings owned by major landlords and investors.

The exchange focused on campaigns to defend tenants from eviction, challenge major landlords and investors, regulate short-term rentals, and organize rent strikes. In one major 2024-25 rent strike involving more than 100 tenants, residents won when the government purchased the building, allowing tenants to remain in their homes on long-term leases. The visit highlighted the value of international organizing exchanges and opened the door to future collaboration around common targets and tenant campaigns.

Sindicat de llogaters

09/14/2026

Organizers’ Forum: Learning from the Fight Against Racism and Fascism in Barcelona

The first meeting of this year’s Organizers’ Forum delegation brought us together with David Karavala, a leader and spokesperson with World Against Racism and Fascism, in Barcelona. David shared the organization’s history and the broader political and social movements in the region, including how activists have built coalitions of labor unions, leftist groups, and social movements to organize against racism and fascism.

The organization is largely horizontal, with an open general assembly and a network that mobilizes in response to racist and fascist incidents. Their most recent anniversary march brought 4,000 people into the streets. David spoke about successful counter-protests, pushing fascists out of municipal governments, and building connections with similar organizations across Europe. For the Organizers’ Forum delegation, it was an opportunity to learn from organizers about coalition building, mobilization, and the international fight against racism and fascism.