Draft:Matt Hern

Matt Hern is a community organizer, public intellectual, writer, and activist based on unceded and occupied xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory/ Richmond, British Columbia. Hern is known for his work in solidarity economics, radical urbanism, community development, social ecology, and alternative forms of education.  He has founded a wide range of community projects, initiatives and institutions. He is currently the co-founder and co-director of Solid State Community Industries which is building a network of workers' co-operatives with newcomer and racialized communities. His writing has been published into seventeen languages.

Early life and education
Hern was born in Victoria and grew up in rural British Columbia. After attending Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, he worked in journalism in New York City before moving to East Vancouver working as a sportswriter for a number of years. Hern was a student at the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield, Vermont where he completed an MA working closely with Murray Bookchin, and shortly after became a faculty member. Hern holds a PhD in Urban Studies from the Union Institute and University.

Community organizing
Running parallel to his scholarship and writing, Hern has a long history of founding and directing community institutions. These include alternative community schools, youth centres, youth exchanges and a solidarity-economy incubator. Currently Hern is co-directing a project he co-founded in 2017: Solid State Community Industries, a co-op of solidarity economy co-ops built by and with newcomer and racialized migrant communities. The project derives inspiration from co-operative and autonomist movements, and is building a network of workers co-operatives and enterprises.

Hern has also founded a number of other community projects and initiatives, the best-known of which is Car-Free Day Vancouver. He founded it in 2005, shepherded its growth to four major Vancouver neighbourhoods and an annual event that draws 400,000 people annually to call for an ecological city.

In 2021, Solid State Industries was featured in an episode of the CTV reality series Holmes Family Effect.

Personal
Hern lives on a houseboat on the Fraser River with his partner and family.

Editor

 * Stay Solid: A Radical Handbook for Youth, AK Press, 2013.
 * Everywhere All The Time, AK Press, 2008.
 * Deschooling Our Lives, New Star, 1996.