From: Housing, Organizing, & Movement Empowerment Society
Date: September 15, 2025
Subject: HOMES - 09/15 Newsletter



Hi, everyone!


Good morning, and happy Monday! Congrats on making it to the third week of classes! Make sure to remember to hydrate and eat a vegetable or two. Law school can be very overwhelming, but building community helps make it less so. Get a head start by joining us at our first general body meeting next week! More details below.

Join us this week at City Life/Vida Urbana for their weekly tenant organizing meetings! City Life is a 50+ year-old grassroots organization fighting for racial, social, and economic justice through direct action, coalition building, education, and advocacy. They hold meetings every Tuesday (in English) in Jamaica Plain and every Wednesday (in Spanish) in East Boston to build community and inform people about their housing rights. Every Tuesday in Jamaica Plain, HOMES holds a 'Know Your Rights' training for tenants who have recently received a Notice to Quit, marking the first step in the legal eviction process.

If you'd like to attend a meeting with HOMES members, please complete the Google form below. Let us know if you have any questions or transportation concerns, and we will be happy to help! The BU Public Interest Law Society pro bono transportation reimbursement form can be found here.

Weekly Sign Up for City Life/Vida Urbana Meetings

JOIN OUR FIRST GENERAL BODY MEETING
Interested in housing justice, movement lawyering, or just finding community with other students who care about advocacy? Join BU Housing, Organizing, and Movement Empowerment Society (HOMES) for our first General Body Meeting of the year next Tuesday, September 23rd, at 1:00 pm in room 203! HOMES partners with local organizers and nonprofits like City Life/Vida Urbana to support tenants’ rights, fight eviction, and empower students to creatively apply their legal education in the housing justice movement.

This meeting is a chance to connect with other law students who share your passion for justice, learn more about HOMES’ work—from weekly Know Your Rights trainings to collaborative community advocacy—and see how you can get involved. Whether you’re brand new to this space or already experienced, all are welcome! Food will be provided. Register here!

HELP DEFEND BLANCA FROM DEPORTATION
Join immigrant justice and community organizations from across Massachusetts at an accompaniment and gathering at ICE Headquarters (1000 District Avenue, Burlington, MA 01803) this Tuesday, September 16th at 7:00 am in solidarity with our community member, Blanca, to demand a stay of deportation." The community showed up for Blanca in Burlington in August. Now, one month later, Blanca is being ordered to return to Burlington ICE headquarters where again she faces the risk of being detained on the spot or being given a 2-week notice to self deport. 

Her check-in comes right in the middle of another surge where masked and violent ICE agents flood our state to carry out mass arrests in heightened numbers. Blanca’s case is one of thousands of immigrants in Massachusetts alone who have been kidnapped by ICE or are at risk of being detained in just the last few months. Another kidnapping trap, ICE check-ins now carry increased risk of being detained on the spot. These federal actions do not make our streets safer, but rather terrorize us all. We need resources for what actually makes us all safe - housing, education, healthcare and good jobs

Blanca’s situation is especially acute because she is a survivor of childhood polio living with physical disabilities and mobility issues. Countless detainees describe being denied the medicines and medical care they rely on daily while in detention. Her potential detention or deportation would not only mean being ripped from family and community but probable physical suffering or even death without medical treatment." RSVP here. Click here for more information. Click here for information on contacting the Boston ICE Field Office Director and local elected officials.

MUTUAL AID IS MAGIC 101: SKILL SHARE FOR MOBILIZING DIRECT AID
"We know things are increasingly overwhelming for our communities ♥️ And, we are not helpless and can support each other in mobilizing and organizing around supporting folks in getting their needs met! Whether you’re someone who wants to make an ask on behalf of yourself, or you’re someone who wants to support others with their asks: this space is for you. <3 We’re gonna go over the basics of making a community care ask, and have space to practice and support each other IN the workshop!" Find more information and register here!
Tuesday, September 16, 6 pm ET on Zoom

BOSTON DSA: SOCIALISM 101 READING GROUP
"Everyone new to socialist organizing and/or Boston DSA is invited to a three session intro reading group on the basics of socialism and DSA. The group starts on Tuesday, September 16 and runs for four weeks (9/16, 9/23, 9/30, 10/7). All sessions are 7:00-9:00 PM on Zoom. Register at bdsa.us/Soc101." Click here for more information.

LEXIS IS SELLING YOUR INFORMATION TO ICE
For more information, check out the linked Zine by the End the Contract Coalition, which is pushing LEXIS+ parent company RELX to cut its ties with ICE. For more information on the disappointing results of a recent lawsuit against Lexis for unjust enrichment upon selling customer data to ICE, click here. Further, click here to review an article by the University of Colorado Law School Law Review that investigates the basis of unjust enrichment claims for Lexis's cooperation with ICE.

Here are some more upcoming events that might be of interest to you all:

Take care!

In solidarity,

BU HOMES
Boston University School of Law
Sarah Birkhaeuser, Co-President
Josh Palackal, Co-President
Greg Bowe, Vice President
Angel Yi, Treasurer
Chloe Buck, Secretary
Zoie Valencia, Director of Community Partnerships
Eliza Thorpe, Outreach Chair

Have you joined our GroupMe?
If not, click here to stay updated on important events and communications.


Sign up for City Life/Vida Urbana’s Action Alert emails!
Stay up-to-date with City Life’s organizing by joining their mailing list here. City Life sends out emails in both English and Spanish with time-critical event information.

Do you know who your landlord is?
If not, click here for more information on how to find out.

Want to check your landlord's housing code compliance?
Or do you just have some free time on your hands? Check out the following Housing Code Checklist. If you notice any issues, remember you have a right to unionize.

For more information on unionizing (either joining a pre-existing tenants union or building one with your neighbors), check out the Greater Boston Tenants Union here.

Did you know?
Law students who identify as transgender are ineligible to work for the Judge Advocate General (JAG). Despite their fundamentally transphobic policies, JAG will be present at multiple law school events throughout the tower this week. Read OutLaw's statement on JAG's presence on campus here.

HOMES General Body Meeting on Tuesday, 23 September 2025 At 1:00 PM. No image description provided

EVENT

HOMES General Body Meeting

clock Tuesday, September 23, 2025
1:00pm - 2:00pm
Location pinPrivate Location (sign in to display)
CalendarAdd to Google Cal, Outlook, Yahoo, iCal

Interested in housing justice, movement lawyering, or just finding community with other students who care about advocacy? Join BU Housing, Organizing, and Movement Empowerment Society (HOMES) for our first General Body Meeting of the year! HOMES partners with local organizers and nonprofits like City Life/Vida Urbana to support tenants’ rights, fight eviction, and empower students to creatively apply their legal education in the housing justice movement.

This meeting is a chance to connect with other law students who share your passion for justice, learn more about HOMES’ work—from weekly Know Your Rights trainings to collaborative community advocacy—and see how you can get involved. Whether you’re brand new to this space or already experienced, all are welcome!
REGISTER
Author Talk: Michael Glass on Debt and Inequality in Suburban America on Wednesday, 15 October 2025 At 12:30 PM. No image description provided

EVENT

Author Talk: Michael Glass on Debt and Inequality in Suburban America

clock Wednesday, October 15, 2025
12:30pm - 1:30pm
Location pinBoston Public Library - Commonwealth Salon, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116, United States
Link
CalendarAdd to Google Cal, Outlook, Yahoo, iCal

Join Boston College historian Michael Glass for a conversation about his new book, Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America. The book explores how home mortgages and municipal bonds helped build postwar suburbs while also making them financially fragile, and how these tools entrenched disparities that still shape American life today.

Lunch will be served and registration is required to attend.

Michael Glass is an Assistant Professor of History at Boston College. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and previously worked as a public high school teacher in New York City. A political and urban historian of twentieth-century America, his work focuses on the intersections of race, metropolitan development, and capitalism.

His research examines how financial systems—such as credit markets, property taxes, and home insurance—generate inequality and shape everyday life, from housing and education to environmental risk. By making complex economic and policy systems tangible, his writing reveals their human consequences and historical roots.

In discussion with Glass is Lizabeth Cohen. Cohen is the Howard Mumford Jones Research Professor of American Studies and a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of History at Harvard. From 2011-18 she was the dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In addition to Saving America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age, which won the 2020 Bancroft Prize in American History, previous books include Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939, also winner of the Bancroft Prize and a finalist for the Pulitzer, and A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America.

She is also co-author with David Kennedy and Margaret O’Mara of a widely used college and advanced placement United States history textbook, The American Pageant. Her writings have appeared as well in many edited volumes, academic journals, and popular venues, including The Atlantic, New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the American Prospect.
VIEW EVENT
Beyond Exclusion: Redlining in the Suburbs on Monday, 27 October 2025 At 1:00 PM. No image description provided

EVENT

Beyond Exclusion: Redlining in the Suburbs

clock Monday, October 27, 2025
1:00pm - 2:00pm
Location pinPrivate Location (sign in to display)
CalendarAdd to Google Cal, Outlook, Yahoo, iCal

Building a working knowledge of the law requires understanding the historical underpinnings of the structures of the present. To this end, BU HOMES and ASPIRE welcomes Professor Michael Glass to campus to discuss redlining and racial inequality in housing. Professor Glass is a political and urban historian at Boston College and the author of Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America. If you have an interest in housing justice or want to gain insight into the context of the current housing landscape, please register for the event and join us on Monday, October 27 in Room 204 from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm. Pizza will be available!
REGISTER
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