We Live Here

We Live Here is a graphic biography of Detroit Eviction Defense, a local activist group that helps to combat — and beat — corporate attempts to evict longtime residents of Detroit.

Compiled here by Jeff Wilson and Bambi Kramer, these are stories of families struggling against evictions, offering a unique view of the complexities at work in the 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.”