Housing as a Human Right: Homeless in Hotels Launch + Dwelling Justice Forum

City Limits

First up on the program, Kevin and Zeb speak with Spike Chiappalone and Kelly Whitworth, co-hosts of the former 3CR peer homelessness show, Roominations, and Homeless Persons Union Victoria co-founders.Together, they talk to us about about the upcoming launch of Homeless in Hotels, a 3-part radio series documenting life in hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic and discussion on what to expect from the series, including the rollout of Victorian Government initiatives during lockdown, safety, stigma and substance use, public housing and injustice, and more.The series premieres on 3CR, this Thursday 28 July at 12pm, and you can listen back online here.Later on the program, activist-scholars Libby Porter and David Kelly come on the program to discuss the upcoming Forum for Dwelling Justice, bringing together various groups and activists in a discussion of housing injustice with relation to sovereignty and land justice, as well as abolitionist movements.They discuss importance of galvanising a broader dwelling justice movement by bringing together interrelated movements and shifting the narrative to a wider one of disposession and what that means for discussions of public housing on stolen land. They also speak on their experiences as activists working as academics within colonial institutions, misdirected government resources, incarceration, and more. The free event will be held 1-7pm on Friday 26 August 2022 at the Capitol Theatre, and involves:Three facilitated panel conversations on how abolitionism, resistance to state violence and anti-racism intersect with housing struggle and sovereignty, andTwo sneak-peek film screenings (Bendigo St, and Things Will Be Different) and discussion with filmmakers and guests with lived experience of homelessness, displacement, squatting and public housing. For more information and to book tickets, go to www.cur.org.au/events/dwelling-justice/