Alumni Profiles Soloman "Sonny" Greene (Stanford, '96) Mission Housing Development Corporation (MHDC) profile by Rahul Young What was your first involvement with community organizing? Sonny worked with Empty the Shelters in the summer of '94, after his sophomore year of college. ETS is an organization dedicated to forming coalitions among youth and the homeless in an attempt to fight anti-homeless policies. ETS is a single-issue, membership-based organization. What have been your subsequent involvements? STOP 187--A Stanford-campus student organizing effort dedicated to building coalitions within Stanford and off-campus to prevent the passage of Proposition 187--a California proposition banning immigrant rights. RAGE (Resistance, Action, Grassroots Organizing, Education)--a multi-issue Stanford student group dedicated to organizing progressive students. Public Service Scholars Honors Thesis--Sonny studied the impact of Atlanta Olympics redevelopment on homeless populations, and also interacted with Empty the Shelters in Atlanta, organizing for the homeless. MHDC--Sonny current job is with the Mission Housing Development Corporation. He works in Community Relations--supporting organizers, and developing strategy for neighborhood organizing for affordable housing. What was your initial motivation? Sonny felt that he wasn't motivated by community organizing; instead he just wanted to deal with some social issues. Organizing turned out to be the best way to achieve this goal. Some motivation comes from his upbringing in a family with a strong sense of social responsibility. Sonny was raised by his single mom, and they were occasionally on welfare and food stamps. This allowed him to develop an empathy for the poor. Sonny was motivated to not get trapped in the Stanford "ivory tower". As far as a hero or mentor, Sonny named Nadinne Cruz, for helping him to think about the interplay between academics and social change What has sustained you in this work/commitment? The most important factor has been peer support: Sonny has been most productive and thoughtful as a student/organizer when he has worked closely with a core group of people (e.g. STOP 187--friendship, having fun). The camaraderie and shared goals were what has kept him going. Organizing satisfies his need for intellectually challenging work. He also has always felt a need to work for social change What did you call your work (if not "community organizing")? Just "working for a cause", "getting the job done", doing "political work". How would you characterize your involvement? Sonny feels that his main goal has been to work for social justice, and thus his involvement has been whatever is necessary to get to this goal. Sometimes it means organizing, sometimes it means advocacy, sometimes it is community relations. His involvement is to be part of a greater movement for change. How did you theorize about your work? What were your theories in action, i.e. the theories that shaped or informed your organizing work? Sonny feels that he doesn't really theorize much about his work. His present job with MHDC allows him to think a lot about underlying philosophy, unlike the time he spent in the Mayor's Office, which neglected any kind of deep questioning. However, his many responsibilities with MHDC don't leave him time any more to write about work or read, outside of grant applications. Sonny feel like he is often just trying to get the grant, meet goals, and deal with a specific issue, rather than theorizing about any of it. Occasionally, Sonny does refer back to his Stanford education; specifically, he feels that his thesis work provides him with experience as well as a theory/framework. Sonny's underlying theory about his organizing is that it stems from a fundamental desire to provide healthier and more human environments for poor people. Why did you choose organizing for your work? Sonny felt that it would be hard to work if he couldn't directly see the helpful impact of his work with people. He needs to have an explicit goal to correct social injustice--there's just too much urgency for him to do anything else; he realizes the difficulty of putting all your passion for change in your job, and that he may be setting himself up for burnout and frustration. But he feels very satisfied. His most fulfilling work has been unpaid, just coming out of dedication. His present job has been a good balance between fulfilling his goal of urgent social change and paying the bills; Sonny feels very lucky to be in this situation. What barriers/ challenges have you faced and continue to face now? This is a huge question with too many answers to list, but the most pressing problem is the conflict of pushing one's own agenda vs. letting the agenda come from constituents of the organization. Example: SF affordable housing developer umbrella organization.--came out of need/organizing, but has since become a group of entrenched nonprofits, and thus may be losing the connection to the community. Currently, a main issue has been dealing with advocacy for more national funding for affordable housing. But this is not an immediate concern of MHDC's residents, because they already have housing. There has to be a compromise. The organization must try to go in both directions--they need to pursue their long-term campaign, but must keep listening to constituents. What concerns do you have about community organizing as it is now being practiced? The term "community organizing" is so ambiguous--there are so many different models. Community organizing is usually not taught in schools, and is hard to describe. As a result, there is a lack of knowledge about what it takes to do good community organizing--there are lots of good theories, but not a lot of strategizing because the university environment doesn't reward it. This absence often leads to misdirected, uninformed organizing A final problem is fragmentation--some organizing happens in isolated circles. There needs to be more recognition about organizing around shared principles and coalition building.