We Live Here Detroit Eviction Defense and the Battle for Housing Justice

A graphic novel featuring uplifting stories of combatting—and beating—calls for their eviction in Detroit, showing how everyday people are fighting to stay in their homes, organizing with their communities, and winning.

We Live Here! is a graphic novel biography of the members of the local activist group Detroit Eviction Defense combatting—and beating—calls for their eviction. By illustrating the stories of families struggling against evictions, the book gives a voice to those who have remained in Detroit, showing the larger complexities at work in a beleaguered city. These are everyday people fighting back, organizing with others, going into the streets, and winning their homes back.
 
What will Detroit look like in the future? Today cheap property entices real estate speculators from around the world. Artists arrive from all over viewing the city as a creative playground. Billionaires are re-sculpting downtown as a spot for tourism. But beyond the conventional players in urban growth and development, Detroit Eviction Defense (DED) members—like others engaged in place-based struggles all over the country—are pushing back, saying in effect, “we live here, we’ve been here, there is no Detroit without us.”

JEFFREY WILSON is an activist-scholar and author of several graphic novels that are interview-based and deal with issues of social justice, housing and immigration. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Counterpunch, and World War 3 Illustrated, and he is the author of The Instinct for Cooperation: A Graphic Novel Conversation with Noam Chomsky, illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia (Seven Stories Press, 2018). He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

BAMBI KRAMER is a comics author and illustrator based in Rome, Italy. She has participated in festivals, events and exhibitions around the world, her work has been exhibited in Rome, Cape Town and Madrid, and her illustrations and comics have been published by international magazines.