<p>AJ Withers draws on their own experiences as an organizer, extensive interviews with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) activists and Toronto bureaucrats, and freedom of information requests to provide a detailed account of the work of OCAP. This book shows that poor people\u2019s organizing can be effective even in periods of neoliberal retrenchment.<\/p> <p> <em>Fight to Win<\/em> tells the stories of four key OCAP homelessness campaigns: stopping the criminalization of homeless people in a public park; the fight for poor people\u2019s access to the Housing Shelter Fund; a campaign to improve the emergency shelter system and the City\u2019s overarching, but inadequate, Housing First policy; and the attempt by the City of Toronto to drive homeless people from encampments during the COVID pandemic.<\/p> <p>This book shows how power works at the municipal level, including the use of a multitude of demobilization tactics, devaluing poor people as sources of knowledge about their own lives, and gaslighting poor people and anti-poverty activists. AJ Withers also details OCAP\u2019s dual activist strategy \u2014 direct-action casework coupled with mass mobilization \u2014 for both immediate need and long-term change. These campaigns demonstrate the validity of OCAP\u2019s longstanding critiques of dominant homelessness policies and practices. Each campaign was fully or partially successful: these victories were secured by anti-poverty activists through the use of, and the threat of, direct disruptive action tactics.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
<p>The first full length book on the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, one of Canada\u2019s most significant poor people\u2019s activist organizations.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":48744,"template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[11045],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-64526","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","5":"product_language-eng-fr","6":"product_subjects-social-science-fr","7":"product_subjects-social-work-fr","8":"biblio_share_tag-social-science-social-work-fr","9":"product_cat-decouvrez","10":"entry","12":"first","13":"instock","14":"taxable","15":"shipping-taxable","16":"purchasable","17":"product-type-simple"},"yoast_head":"\n