United Parish is an active member in the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), an interfaith coalition focused on making true, systemic changes to support social and economic justice in our local communities. Founded in 1998, GBIO is a broad-based organization that works for the public good by coalescing, training, and organizing people across religious, racial, ethnic, class, and neighborhood lines.
GBIO is dedicated to making our city a better place for all of us to live and thrive. For more than 20 years, GBIO has worked to improve housing and healthcare, reform our criminal justice system, address racial disparities in our city, and rebuild schools and neighborhoods, among other issues.
As a proud member of this coalition, United Parish seeks to bolster the power of GBIO by bringing its work to our community. If you are interested in learning more about United Parish’s work with GBIO, please contact our congregational liaisons listed below.
David R. and Connor I., GBIO Co-Liaisons – gbio@upbrookline.org.
Housing Justice Campaign:GBIO’s multi-faceted, statewide Housing Justice Campaign focuses on public housing, affordable rental and homeownership opportunity, and housing access. We define Housing Justice as the ability for all people to have safe, healthy, and clean homes in their communities, and so are seeking to improve housing access and quality for groups that have been unfairly denied it, and to support financing, zoning, and ownership policies that help to close racial and class disparities in the housing market. These campaigns all originate from the lived and recognized experiences in GBIO’s base of 60 member congregations and organizations, representing some 107,000 individuals in Massachusetts, and are centered in our commitment to promote racial and economic justice. See here for more details about GBIO’s Housing Justice Campaign.
Update on Housing Justice 10/27/23
In 2021, United Parish joined an interfaith coalition focused on making true, systemic changes to support social and economic justice in our local communities. The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) brings together faith-based communities like ours to lead and participate in actions to advocate and influence humane, progressive legislation.
United Parish voted to join the 58 churches, synagogues, and mosques of GBIO. To prepare for this vote, our Stretching into Justice Ministry Team answered common questions about GBIO in the informational video below. If you’d like to learn more, feel free to navigate to the video time stamps listed next to each question.
Our Stretching into Justice Ministry Team answered common questions about GBIO in the video below. If you have a specific question, feel free to navigate to the video time stamps listed next to each question.
1. Why should United Parish join GBIO? [0:04-7:24]
2. What can we do with GBIO without joining? [7:24-9:36]
3. What is the financial commitment involved in GBIO membership? [9:36-22:08]
4. How does GBIO spend its money? [22:08-23:14]
5. Why join a collective effort instead of stepping out on our own? [23:14-25:32]
6. What would being a formal member of GBIO require of UP members? [25:32-28:47]
7. Can an individual be a member of GBIO? [28:47-31:36]
8. What is the geographical area that GBIO focuses on, and how does it balance local and state politics? [31:36-33:44]
9. How would the Stretching into Justice team interact with GBIO? [33:44-35:55]
10. What is the demonstrated impact of GBIO’s actions? [35:55-42:58]