Neighborhood Action Collective
Our collective power to change the world comes from the grassroots, not from the state. From coronavirus, police terrorism, ecological collapse and economic exploitation our current government structures only make these problems worse; instead, time and time again it has been grassroots efforts by communities that have pushed back with real solutions. We keep us safe. When we pull together with our friends, neighbors and fellow workers we can accomplish anything. Rather than just surviving we want a world rooted in social, economic and environmental justice values. To get there we have to build relationships, communities and institutions that reflect our values conversation by conversation, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood.
What is a NAC?
Neighborhood Action Collective (NACs) are neighborhood based affinity groups. They are autonomous communities of people who live within a shared proximity. They are formed by friends and neighbors who come together to take direct action and build alternative community resources to free our neighborhoods from state violence and dependency on exploitative economic institutions. NACs work from the shared principles of Abolition and Decolonization, Consent Based Decision Making, Gender Freedom, Social Ecology, Solidarity Economy/Mutual Aid and Municipalism.
The Vision
We envision a city where there is no need to call the cops. Instead, neighbors organize community conflict intervention and mediation services. We envision a city where there is no reason to throw your life away for a meaningless job. Instead, we liberate each other from pointless work by building a solidarity economy and pushing back against bosses. We grow our own food, develop our own community health clinics, and build our own housing. We envision a city where there is no fear of ICE raids, or racist and gendered street violence, because we have organized our own alternative neighborhood watches to keep us safe, and where there is no need for a mayor or city council to make decisions on our behalf. Instead, we will build a wealth of neighborhood-based directly democratic assemblies; places where all neighbors come to have equal say over the decisions which affect their lives. In this city, there is no possibility of displacement or gentrification because the land has been decommodified. Housing is recognized as a human right, and it is the people who live in a neighborhood who control their collective destiny rather than outside business owners and city bureaucrats.
How to Form a NAC
To realize this vision we see the need for the formation of a city wide dual-power by organizing NACs in neighborhoods across the city. NACs act as the kindling for neighborhood self-organization and self-governance. They can start small and focus on one or two actions or projects at first. NACs can then join with other's in their area of neighborhood to form Neighborhood Communes that can meet multiple needs in the community. From there Neighborhood Communes can choose to work together to form Neighborhood Coalitions.
Step 1
Find 2-4 friends who live close by.
Step 2
Get folks together for an initial conversation, make some ground rules and discuss how you want to work together.
Step 3
Take action!
Join Others Forming NACs in Their Neighborhoods
NACs are added to the map on a voluntary basis. Dependent upon what type of activities your NAC is taking up you may or may not choose to list it.
If you would like to start a NAC in your area shoot us an email or sign-up to join Symbiosis PDX.
Let's Build Power Together
Neighborhood Organizing
Neighborhood organizing is about shifting the focus from appealing to those in power for change, to building the new world in the shell of the old for ourselves. It’s an approach embodied by the slogan “all power to the people!”. It’s about redeveloping our communal social fabric. In a world where humane society has been destroyed and replaced with a materialistic, individualistic consumer culture, where people are treated as disposable and we aim to build roots and fight where we stand. Social change is a slow process and without it revolution will only ever be a changing of the guard of the same old oppressive system.
Through focusing our organizing efforts in the areas where we live and work, places where we spend most of our days, we can begin to revolutionize our everyday lives. Through building relationships with our neighbors, community members and fellow workers and communicating our values through our actions and deeds we can expose the possibility of a new world beyond a dependence on capitalism and the state. Mutual-aid programs, based in our neighborhoods can begin feeding our neighbors, neighborhood assemblies can begin to give neighbors a voice and a place to start making changes in the world around them. The relationships we build can form the base of restorative justice programs to make the police obsolete. Together we can take direct account to defend our community from those who wish to commit violence against us.
Neighborhood Organizing starts with communicating with our neighbors, through conversation, art, direct-action, bloc parties, and more. It is about building long term roots in a community. It's about sticking it out and fighting together.
Resources and Guides
Points of Unity
Points of unity are important because it reaffirms the social, ecological and economic justice values that we in commonhold. Our principles guide the actions, projects and programs we embark on together. Our shared points of unity ensures that all of our efforts are working together towards common goals of systemic social change.
Our points of unity are as follows.
Abolition and Decolonization
The city of Portland sits on the traditional lands of many tribal groups who made homes on the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers, including Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, and Molalla. We seek to work directly in solidarity with indigenous peoples for sovereignty, autonomy and equitable land redistribution. Additionally, we must work to dismantle the oppressive punitive prison industrial complex, the carceral mentality and white supremacy at large.
Consent Based Decision Making
Everyone deserves to have their voice heard and leverage over decisions that impact them. Together we can co-create a society where everyone has an opportunity to shape the world around them where we reclaim control over our collective destiny from the destructive course set by those in power.
Gender Freedom
Patriarchal violence is the root of oppressive social structures. We oppose the patriarchy in all forms and collectively work to disengage from this form of acculturation towards a full and free expression of gender in all its diversity.
Social Ecology
We recognize that our ecological problems are rooted in our social problems. As such we must become stewards of the land and see ourselves as interdependent with the natural world.
Solidarity Economy & Mutual Aid
Through building grassroots economic institutions we can grow our own food, build our own housing and develop ways of communal physical, mental and emotional care beyond the isolated individualistic drudgery of our current capitalist economic system.
Municipalism
The political and economic self-determination of our communities and the autonomy of our municipalities is essential. By developing new forms of popular civic engagement on a local level, such as neighborhood assemblies and councils, we can begin shifting power over municipal governments from serving the interests of a powerful few to full community control.
How NAC's Can Work Together and Scale Up: Neighborhood Communes and Coalitions
NACs are autonomous neighborhood affinity groups of a few dozen people at most. NACs are flexible, it is up to those involved to decide on the scope of their activity and the area they will cover with their actions. There are no set boundaries. The level of formality of your NAC and the actions you will take on is up to you. We envision in the future a wide diversity of NACs in neighborhoods across occupied Portland, each taking on unique and important roles to meet the organizing needs of their communities; however, to build our community power we have to scale up.
As is the nature of the NAC itself NACs can work together on a decentralized model based on neighborhood affinity. At least three NACs who choose to come together can form a “neighborhood commune”. A neighborhood commune is a collection of NACs who exist to fill a diversity of organizing needs for community members within a self-selected geographic area. It is recommended that each neighborhood commune should work to hold regular neighborhood assemblies which can inform their collective work. If there exists at least two Neighborhood Communes they can then choose to join together through forming a Neighborhood Coalition. To facilitate the interworking of Neighborhood Communes and Coalitions we recommend utilizing sociocratic facilitation and organizational processes.
To transform society we must also move beyond our local context. Symbiosis PDX is an international federation of organizations working towards revolutionary municipalism. By forming a NAC you have an opportunity to apply to join Symbiosis in this effort if you choose.
Choose an Action
Take Direct Action
Direct action gets the goods. There are so many different ways that you can choose to take action in your neighborhood. From organizing a demonstration or march, putting together a reclaim the streets party or even more stealthy endeavors against your target of choice. Choosing a direct action is a great place to start with your NAC. Check out all of our great resources filled with ideas and tips on how you can start to make a change in your neighborhoods.
Resources and Guides
Build Alternatives to Police
The rise of mass incarceration, the systemic federal de-funding of mental health services and low-income housing since the 1980's and the historic role of the police as the enforcers of a violent white supremacist capitalist system have created a society rittled with massive social inequality that is unable to take care of its own people. Meanwhile the state's bureaucratic legal system assumes the role as the primary mediator of conflict between oppressed peoples in society. Parallel to the systemic defunding of social services we have seen a ballooning of police budgets. As they have become more militarized they have been expected to take on the role of warrior social worker for the capitalist class.
Yet because of this lack of alternatives everyday hundreds of people in the city call the police in response to community members in mental health crisis, conflicts between neighbors, and experiences of all kinds. Often this leads to regrettable outcomes for those who have made the call.
It's time to build alternatives to the police and prison industrial complex. To do this we must build community based conflict resolution and direct violence intervention programs. For thousands of years communities navigated their internal conflicts themselves. We can do it again. Resources listed here such as the Creative Interventions ToolKit provide extensively researched practices designed for community members with no formal training to begin practicing just that.
Lets make the police irrelevant. It starts with us.
Resources and Guides
Advance Community Defense
Community Defense is about building long-term community projects that focus on defending a community from violence. The self-defense of any community is an essential element in protecting their identity, dignity and self-determination. Today the state maintains a "monopoly on violence" that it shares with its fascist goons and lone-wolves it consistently lets off the hook for murdering and killing oppressed peoples.
In this atmosphere we cannot rely on the state, the police or the military to keep us safe. It's up to us to watch each-others backs, patrol our own streets and build the self-defense skills individuals in our communities need. Here we present a few different resources on how to build community defense projects in your area.
Resources and Guides
Form an Assembly
At their core assemblies are a form of gathering or meeting where people in a shared community come together to discuss the issues that have a common impact on all. In the assemblies people discuss solutions to problems and decide on a course of action. They are inclusive gatherings of neighbors and community members open to all who share common social, economic and environmental justice values. Think of them as alternative anti-racist and directly democratic version of a neighborhood association. It is a place to build a broad base of neighborhood dual-power to make structural and systemic change in our community.
Neighborhoods are not neutral de-politicized places. Today conservative's dominate many of Portland's grassroots civic institutions. PTAs and Neighborhood Associations have real power. In many parts of the city they are vital places of grassroots support for racist and classist policies. To collaborate with "community policing" strategies that target communities of color and the houseless many neighborhood associations dominated by middle class white people openly invite police into their meetings. Neighborhood Associations also have the power to review all development plans in their areas and so they can become bases of grassroots support for gentrifying development practices and businesses that result in displacement of low-income residents. PTAs can also become influential places where advocacy for conservative educational curriculum or the funding of school "resource officers". In these spaces dominated by white supremacist and upper middle class voices marginalized peoples and any expression of social, economic or racial justice views are often vehemently attacked and isolated.
Assemblies present a solution to this problem as an alternative form of social organization that can help us build grassroots political power for oppressed communities to push back against conservative domination in these institutions and to begin building alternative structures of support and connection beyond them. Community assemblies could organize their own community gardens, support for striking workers at a local business, host their own educational events or more. The options are endless. Building a neighborhood assembly is be a big step towards towards the long-term empowerment and autonomy of our communities from the state and capitalism.
Resources and Guides
Construct a Solidarity Economy
A solidarity economy is the idea that we can organize to take care of our own needs permanently. Imagine a network of cooperatives, community supported agriculture projects and mutual-aid initiatives all working together to each provide for a different need in the community. From growing our own food, cooking and preparing meals to distribute to the community, sharing our tools and manufacturing our own essential items such as PPE or clothes we can reduce our reliance on the destructive capitalist system.
Your NAC could begin anywhere from starting a community garden to distributing food to the houseless. By plugging into a solidarity economy network our efforts can build off each-other as we build a wide web of community support.
Resources and Guides
Promote Popular Education
We have to push back against the mainstream narrative that wished to discredit our movement. Instead of focusing and debating the tactics of protestors we want to make sure to keep the conversation centered on the systemic issues of racism, capitalism and state violence we came here to address. It's critical that we communicate and educate our communities that the surface level problems such as police brutality have their roots in the systemic issues of white supremacy, capitalism and the state. There are so many ways your NAC can communicate its message from banner drops, wheat pastes to street canvassing and talking to your neighbors.
Resources and Guides
