Street Democracy was established in 2008 to provide a broad range of legal services to impoverished persons and communities. We began by providing direct legal services to the homeless and hungry at a Detroit soup kitchen.
In 2010, we evaluated our first two years of work. We realized that we were spending too much time chasing clients who were not ready to be helped. And while we were achieving results for individuals, we were not creating the systemic change needed to address the causes of their condition. We had a choice to make: continue to represent clients on individual matters or use our time to institute programs and structural reforms to try to fundamentally change the way society works for those with the least.
We chose the latter.
It is thus our mission to eliminate the root causes of homelessness and poverty.