Since March 22, 2023, the Sacramento Central Labor Council has been hosting bi-weekly meetings at SEIU 1021’s Sacramento office to discuss Sacramento’s housing affordability and homelessness crisis.

More than 50 rank-and-file union member leaders have been attending, including from AFSCME 3299, California Faculty Association, Firefighters Local 522, Professional Engineers in California Government, UNITE HERE, SEIU 1000, SEIU 2015, SEIU USWW, and SEIU 1021.

The meetings have been emotional — tears regularly pour as union leaders share their stories of housing instability and homelessness.

“The point of these meetings,” SEIU 1021 member leader Bruce Boyer explained, “is to bridge the gap between the union and the community. By engaging in the deepest felt issues that Sacramento currently faces — housing and homelessness —​ we not only build community support for the labor movement, but we improve the lives of our members when they clock off work and engage in the community.”

There have been six meetings of the Sacramento Central Labor Council’s housing and homelessness committee to date. During the first two meetings, union members shared their stories regarding housing and homelessness. During the subsequent two meetings, union members listened to policy experts about housing and homelessness. And during the most recent two meetings, union members developed broad guiding principles to determine the Sacramento labor movement’s approach to the housing affordability and homelessness crisis.

These guiding principles include ideas like, “Homelessness is not an individual moral failing but the result of a series of structural failures that will take collective will to change.”

The next meeting of the Sacramento Central Labor Council’s housing and homelessness committee — during which the committee will be finalizing its guiding principles — will take place on Wednesday, June 14, at SEIU 1021’s Sacramento office (5450 Power Inn Rd, Suite F, Sacramento, CA 95820) from 6-8pm.