Highlights from the Housing Justice Team
About this blog
This is a part of an ongoing series to highlight members of the Housing Justice Team, a group of people with lived experience of housing instability or houselessness who want to change our collective housing future.
The group started without a predetermined outcome, and what emerged organically was a space where advocates across the country chose to rely on each other for support and shared-learning while dreaming up our own and our collective impact on our world. Too often, the experience of being someone with lived experience in this work can be isolating and difficult, and we sought to carve out a space where we could dream about a future where we each could grow, make change, and thrive.
Grace Lee Boggs reminds us, “We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it's never a question of 'critical mass.' It's always about critical connections.”
We’ve had the opportunity to experience it together– it’s through these critical connections that we get to live into a part of justice in our time.
About Alexander Rey Perez (Ifa Segun Fumi):
Alexander Rey Perez (Ifa Segun Funmi) knows the power of manifesting a healed world through sovereign solutions and conscious conversions backed by tangible ethical action. Alexander is a spiritual leader utilizing his lived expertise and connection with source energy to assist in creating a healed world. Alexander is a creatrix, a homie, and his word is bond. Follow him on instagram at @Lexlyrics and @andrxgenisis for more! You can also email them at lexp893@gmail.com if you are interested in bookings, speaking engagements, workshop building, consulting, or any of the other services they offer. To support his valuable work, you can find him on Cashapp at $AlexanderReyPerez and Venmo at @Lexflex893.
Hear about Alexander’s project, Alchemizing Survival IG Live Series Hosted By @AlexanderReyPerez:
Alchemizing Survival is an energy of unconditional love for where I was, who I was, and what I needed to both do and be to come out of extreme houselessness.
Many of us healed and healing from extreme instability can see that the issues started long before the actual experience.
This series is spirit-led and guided by lived expertise as well as my professional work in the world of Social Justice.
On my journey I learned that the experience of homelessness is deeply energetic and WAY more than simply not having a place to stay.
The pain myself and many of my peers share is interwoven in a meticulous fabric meant to keep us thinking we are powerless.
That when we do not have sacred communion with our inherently abundant worth we see this manifest in our perceived realities.
It is so that these systems have been rigged for a long time for people to get caught up in a trap.
This isn't unique to the United States, this is a global issue where we see the manipulation of powers used to keep certain communities oppressed... The difference now isn't a secret; And if we decide to act like it isn't real we are making an active choice to give our power away.
We have come far and still coming even further into the truth that we are all abundant and there is more than enough for everyone to THRIVE.
The world has changed and there is no stopping!
As many of us realize that energy is everything, we are being called to take responsibility for our frequencies and enliven each other with the tools of liberation.
Here in these segments I shed light on the heart, mind, and soul centered topics that allow people to awaken from this deep slumber of worthlessness.
It has been too long that communities have been speaking about the cosmetic issues of homelessness (while also important) it's time we bring intentional conscious healing to the table.
A house means nothing if you are not at home with yourself!
I cultivated these instagram lives so that together we can reflect on how we've cultivated scarcity in our societies. How we get to the root of sovereign solutions for us all through conscious conversations.
Hear about Alexander’s reflections on being part of the Housing Justice Team:
Working on the Housing Justice Team has made room for me to flourish. Working with a unit of beings whom honor my worth, time, lived expertise, and spirit opened my eyes to seeing the value of my own work. It's also shown me how we can show up intentionally and integrate the value everyone brings to create something even more expansive! I've always been a powerhouse when it comes to working in community but something had been missing in many of the spaces I'd worked in. I'd been looking for a space that truly knew what it meant or at least was willing to learn how to not just take from people coming from lived experience; To also amplify us and give us the resources to thrive beyond the context of HJT. It's been incredibly affirming to work in a space that reflects my own integrity.
Working in this space has been different than anywhere else because I was honored and valued when my accessibility wavered. Everyone showed up to their fullest ability and that was enough. We were truly met where we needed and not penalized or made to feel untrustworthy for it. Instead when I needed time because of struggling with my own instability and hardships I was asked to take the time I needed and continued to get paid. This is sooo important... because if we are to honor them huge disparities we must truly think of parity and what it really means to help individuals thrive and show up to this work with a full cup. It has too often been the case where organizations state they want to empower people of lived experience or different capacities and at the sametime gatekeep the necessary tools and resources for said people to succeed beyond what they are using them for. I am grateful for this time spent learning and I am excited to incorporate these practices into the work I continue to do.