Rights! Action! Power! (RAP)
Making progressive change to ensure everyone has a safe, healthy and affordable home requires an army of advocates working throughout Washington.
We have a new name: Rights! Action! Power! (RAP) and a new purpose: the RIGHT! to use our voices, by taking ACTION! around tenant protections, equitable housing, and unhoused issues, and the POWER! of the people to make changes when we all come together.
Rights! Action! Power! (RAP) is a program of Washington Housing Alliance Education Network, and supported by Bridge to Power (B2P).
About RAP
RAP started in 2015, about a year after the Emerging Advocates Program, and was called the Resident Action Project. At that time we partnered with Community Change as part of their Housing Justice Network and worked alongside Residents Organizing for Change (ROC) in Oregon, Residents United Network (RUN) in California, and Resident Organizing Louisiana (ROLA) in Louisiana.
Today we are part of Bridge to Power national coalition with Action NC (North Carolina), CAJM (South Carolina), Detroit People's Platform (Michigan), Freedom ROC (Akron Ohio), New Hampshire Tenants Union (New Hampshire), MORE Justice (South Carolina), Residents Organizing for Change (Oregon), Residents Organizing for Housing LOUISIANA, (Louisiana), Residents United Network/Housing California (California).
We are a statewide organizing network and are led by people who live in low-income/affordable housing, and those with lived experience of housing injustice, housing instability, and/or homelessness. We also have allies that support our work.
We are building a cross-race and cross-class movement statewide to work on housing justice. We do this through storytelling, organizing, and civic engagement. We also do this by building power to help change local, state and federal laws and policies.
We know that too many of the people with lived experience are Black, Indigenous, and people of color, those who identify as LGBTQIA2S+, those with disabilities, immigrants & refugee, formerly incarcerated, older adults, those aging out of foster care, veterans, and single parent families just to name a few. We also know that housing is also part of a larger system of oppression that we are addressing in our organizing work and which we are trying to dismantle.
We believe that "Those closest to the problem are closest to the solutions, but furthest away from the resources and decision making tables." by Glenn E Martin. RAP says no more. We believe that solutions are best when we are centering the voices of those with lived expertise. We do this work so that everyone has a safe and equitable place to call home.
To learn more or join the movement, sign up here!
Stay connected with the new RAP across our social channels:
Thank you to the RAP sponsors!
Vancouver Housing Authority