Urban Poor Associates - Stated Activities

Stated Activities

• It educates poor people about their housing rights.
• It organizes people being evicted forcibly and illegally to resist in non-violent ways, for example, by going to court, seeking the help of prominent people, including church leaders, going in delegations to the mayor, using the media, or getting help in other ways.
• Once demolitions are stopped, UPA works to find permanent land and housing solutions for poor families, such as, in-city relocation and on-site upgrading.
• UPA engages in research and advocacy work. It monitors evictions and violations of the housing laws and produces annual reports, such as a demolition monitor. It researches such matters as the effects of evictions on women and children and on the economic life of the evicted families.
• It has a full-time media person to make sure poor people's matters are covered in the papers and on radio and TV. UPA has a one-hour award winning program each week on Radio Veritas for this purpose.
• UPA heads a poor people’s water campaign that helps very poor communities get inexpensive, piped water. This saves families P100-200 a month since without piped water, they pay two to three times the legal rate to itinerant water vendors or better-off neighbors.
• UPA works with the priests of St. Joseph’s Vicariate, Quezon City to discover how urban parishes can serve their urban poor parishioners. It is also beginning similar work with the priests of the Vicariate of Sto. Niño in downtown Manila.
• UPA works very closely with LOCOA, an Asian Community Organization network, and Eviction Watch, an Asia-wide anti-eviction service.
• UPA has initiated the St. Thomas More Law Center.
• UPA operates throughout the Philippines. It has established Quick Reaction Teams in Mindanao, Bicol and the Visayas to educate the poor about housing rights and eviction and to help them cope with eviction problems. It coordinates the teams and provides staff development sessions.