Hyde Park Mutual Aid is a mutual aid project affiliated with Tenants United that is part of a network of local mutual aid hubs around Chicago. To get in touch, email hydeparkmutualaid@gmail.com
As our network grows, we hope to collectively explore and build on these sets of principles, and hold one another accountable to the values they represent. We recognize this will be a long and iterative process, and that we will all make mistakes, but our hope is that we can be accountable to learning and growing along the way.
Our shared principles include:
Centering the leadership and needs of those most impacted by the COVID-19 crisis through interpersonal dynamics within HPMA efforts, and connecting with Black-led South Side organizations to be accountable to their leadership.
Mutual aid based on solidarity, not charity. Big Door Brigade and Dean Spade provide useful comparisons of mutual aid work versus charity work.
Decolonial anti-racism based on the points from "Outline of Ten Theses on Coloniality and Decoloniality".
Disability justice principles from Sins Invalid.
Horizontal leadership and consensus-based decision making based on the organizational principles from "The Tyranny of Structurelessness".