Randy Shaw

A completely revised and updated edition of the original book, bringing the principles of activism into the Obama era. The book describes the tactics and strategies of the immigrant rights, marriage equality, and other movements that grew in strength in the 21st century. "Randy Shaw’s Activist’s Handbook is a book with legs. First published in the early 1990s, it has now been updated as a guide to “winning social change” in the new millennium. If you’re a long distance runner in any U.S. social movement—or trying to figure out how to become one—this is the training manual for you and your track team."

In 2018 he published a book on the urban housing crisis talking about how skyrocketing rents and home values are pricing the working and middle classes out of urban America. Several points he emphasizes in his book are:

“In ‘The Tenderloin’ Randy Shaw offers an incisive history of one of the nation’s most underappreciated neighborhoods. From its wild swings through vice and repression, surprising presence at the heart of the domestic Cold War, unique role as the locale where today’s transgender movement began out of a strange mix of federal anti-poverty programs and faith-based political organizing, and as the landing pad for refugees from U.S. wars in Southeast Asia, San Francisco’s Tenderloin is an historic neighborhood whose stories unfold at an astonishing pace. Shaw’s thoroughly documented, and profusely illustrated work will be a basic resource for scholars and urban investigators for years to come.” —Chris Carlsson, co-director Shaping San Francisco, editor of Reclaiming San Francisco and Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-78

Contribution to the section on SROs to the 2012 Encyclopedia of Housing (Second Edition, SAGE Publications).

Building the Labor-Clergy-Immigrant Alliance is included in the book "Rallying for Immigrant's Rights" (UC Press 2011)

Described by UFW community and labor organizer Fred Ross Jr. as a "powerful and moving account of how the UFW transformed people's lives, instilling a lifetime commitment to social justice, Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century also traces the roots of Barack Obama's 2008 election outreach model to the UFW campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s, and the electoral strategies that UFW alumni brought with them to 21st Century campaigns.

In 2007, Randy initiated the effort that resulted in the creation of the national Uptown Tenderloin Historic District, which is included in the National Register of Historic Places. The District covers over 31 city blocks and over 400 contributing structures. Shaw helped form Uptown Tenderloin, Inc. to help economically revitalize the neighborhood, and is currently its executive director. Uptown Tenderloin has restored historic advertising signs, developed murals on neighborhood history, gotten nearly 100 historic plaques on Tenderloin buildings, and installed nine "Lost Landmark" plaques on Tenderloin sidewalks. See uptowntl.org for more details.

Founded in April 2004, Randy is the editor of the online daily news service Beyond Chron which covers local, state and national politics.

In 2000, "There's No Place Like Home" was authored for In These Times, which was a study on how the U.S. media ignores the nation's housing crisis was voted the 9th most censored study for 2003 by Project Censored.

In May 1999, an innovative approach to housing homeless single adults was launched through the Department of Housing Services, called the hotel leasing program . THC became San Francisco's leading provider of permanent housing for homeless single adults, and the leasing program was the foundation of the San Francisco's Care Not Cash program which began in 2004.

In 1999, Housing America (HA) was founded to build national pressure for increased federal affordable housing funds and co-authored the study, There's No Place Like Home: How America's Housing Crisis, Threatens Our Children, which generated several widespread media coverage.

Reclaiming America: Nike, Clean Air, and the New National Activism (UC Press 1999) argued that local activists needed to also focus on the national issues that increasingly shape local communities. Medea Benjamin, political activist and Co-Director of Global Exchange, said of the book "Randy Shaw provides the definitive account of the historic national campaign to reform Nike's labor practices. Reclaiming America is a must read for everyone seeking to achieve greater social and economic fairness in the 21st Century."

A guide to making social change happen, The Activist's Handbook: A Primer for the 1990s and Beyond(UC Press: 1996, 2001, 2013) is described by Howard Zinn as "enormously valuable for anyone interested in social change. It is practical in its advice, and inspiring in its stories of ordinary people successfully confronting powerful interests."

In 1988, Randy proposed San Francisco to adopt a modified payments program (MPP), enabling homeless single adults receiving welfare to obtain permanent housing. He talked to hotel owners and found that many would be willing to charge rents affordable to welfare recipients if they could ensure rent payments. Under the MPP, welfare recipients agreed to have their checks "modified" so that THC was also named on the check. These two-party checks would be delivered to THC's offices, and THC would then deduct the rent from the check and give the tenant the balance.

The incoming Mayor Art Agnos Administration implemented the MPP on a trial basis, and that if it worked, the city would fund it. With a small grant obtained for THC to start the program in 1988 and it proved successful. By 1989, over 1,000 formerly homeless single adults were living in permanent housing through enrolling in the MPP. The program is still used by housing providers throughout San Francisco's extensive supporting housing system today.

Randy then went on to work with tenants on new police rules preventing illegal lockouts of tenants in lieu of legal evictions. In 1984, a campaign against Guenter Kaussen was launched. Guenter Kaussen was known as the "worlds biggest slumlord.". Overcharging rent to Cambodian immigrant tenants in the Tenderloin led media to investigating the West German-based real estate mogul. At the time, Guenter Kaussen was the Tenderloin's largest apartment owner; this led to a story on 60 Minutes CBS-TV February 3, 1985 and Kaussen's suicide.

In 1982, the "heat-less hotel" scandal was exposed whereby thousands of San Francisco's SRO tenants were living without heat. The story rocked San Francisco and was front-page news for a week, ultimately resulting in the emergency enactment of tough new heat and hot water laws which he helped author.

Randy Shaw is an attorney, author and activist who lives in Berkeley, California. He is the executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, a non-profit organization in San Francisco that he co-founded in 1980. He has also co-founded and is on the Board of Directors of Uptown Tenderloin, Inc., a nonprofit organization that spearheaded the creation of the national Uptown Tenderloin Historic District in 2009. Uptown Tenderloin, Inc. is also the driving force behind the Tenderloin Museum, which opened in the spring of 2015. Randy is also the editor of Beyond Chron, and has written six books on activism.

Working on tenants rights campaigns in Berkeley, led to helping open the Tenderloin Housing Clinic (THC) in 1980. where Randy quickly became active in tenant rights, particularly the Tenderloin's struggles against luxury hotel development and the conversion of single room occupancy hotels (SROs) for tourist use.