Right to Thrive with Philly Thrive

Philly Thrive organizes for Environmental and Social Justice since our start in 2015 organizing to shut down the PES oil refinery. Our organizing efforts won its closure in 2020. Since our beginning, we’ve been dedicated to community investment and health for residents of Grays Ferry, and in turn Philadelphia as a whole, not only in receiving the Right to Breathe, but the Right to Thrive! We do this by holding the developer who purchased the refinery land, Hilco, accountable to the community. We also do this by organizing for Housing Justice — because we know winning community investment from Hilco is a win when affected residents get to stay in their homes as well. 

In this teach-in, you will hear our two-pronged plan to address these injustices: the People’s Environmental Justice Enforcement Agency and our Home Repairs housing justice campaign. 

First, hear how Philly Thrive formed the People’s Environmental Justice Enforcement Agency: Hilco may be able to breeze through approvals from our government, but that is not the case with the Environmental Justice Permit that we,the people, have the power to authorize or deny. Hilco is failing the community by moving forward with construction (despite leaving community demands for environmental justice unfulfilled for 3 years), marking a turning point in the struggle for healing & repair at the former PES oil refinery land, obtaining permits from our government that allow them to drive the redevelopment forward more than a year ahead of schedule…while environmental justice is left in the rearview. We know what this is about: corporations taking the quickest path to a profit, while our government rubber stamps their plans, just as we know it is often done with the gentrification housing issues of our neighborhoods. 

Then, hear how we have started our Housing Repairs campaign. Housing justice IS environmental justice and we all deserve safe, green, and affordable housing! At Philly Thrive, we’re making sure that long-term residents are able to thrive by staying in their homes, by advocating green home repairs, which include weatherization and clean energy. Green home repairs make our communities safer, more resilient, and more sustainable! 

We hope to have you join us in this important opportunity. We will learn how building our capacity towards self-sufficiency and community resilience is done by organizing together for the environmental and community justice we deserve, and by creating housing programs that enable us to take care of ourselves outside of the ways the systems fail us!

This event is presented in partnership with Da Vinci Art Alliance’s Everyday Futures Fest. DVAA’s month-long art and sustainability festival includes all-ages programming throughout Philadelphia for the month of April. For a complete list of events, please visit the www.EverydayFuturesFest.org website.