On the Home Front

In our last On the Home Front blog post, we interviewed tenant-advocate Sandra Barksdale about her experience advocating for safe and healthy living conditions for tenants at her apartment complex in Virginia. Among other things, Sandra has focused on establishing tenant groups to propel advocacy efforts. “The most important thing was having resident voices heard,” says Sandra. “Step one was speaking to people one-on-one. From those conversations, I learned that there is a knowledge gap – residents don’t know what to do, who to call, what is happening. I understood that residents need a voice for their concerns because there is fear involved with advocating for themselves. I always stress community connection in the work. My ultimate goal is a healthy and safe community environment.”

Tenant groups play an essential role in housing advocacy. In part, this is due to a simple fact: there’s greater strength in numbers. Advocating by yourself, for yourself, can be difficult, isolating, and anxiety-inducing. Contesting an exorbitant rent increase on your own is often scary, while finding an attorney to help push management to make necessary repairs to a property can be downright impossible.

For a tenant group, it’s a different story. Tenant groups can more effectively negotiate to keep rents reasonable or find an attorney to help resolve disputes or push for building maintenance. Moreover, as Sandra explains, “it’s beneficial for tenants and advocates to have connections with other advocates” because “we don’t have to get involved with all the business or technicalities of every property, but there could be something I don’t know that another person knows that could benefit my situation. This could be relationships with leaders or ways to foster respect and build trust in that community.” By forming a group, individual tenants can benefit from the skills, talents, and networks of those in the group as a whole.

How do you go about participating in a tenant group? In general, there are three basic types of group you can join or form: the National Alliance of HUD Tenants (NAHT), statewide resident networks, and tenant associations. The first is national, the second state-specific, and the last building-based.

NAHT is an alliance of tenant organizations that advocates for the 2.1 million low-income families in privately owned, multi-family HUD assisted housing. Its aims range from implementing stronger tenant protections and empowering tenants to promoting resident control and ownership and improving the conditions of HUD assisted housing. Members include building-level tenant unions, area and state-wide coalitions, tenant organizing projects, legal service agencies, and other housing-related tenant organizations. These groups convene bi-weekly via Zoom meeting. To get more involved with NAHT, you can e-mail naht@saveourhomes.org.

Statewide resident networks bring together renters in specific states and empower them to push for affordable and accessible housing. If you’re interested in creating a statewide resident network, it can be helpful first to find a statewide housing/homeless nonprofit or service to help spearhead the effort. You also need to be strategic about deciding whom to include in the network and in what parts of the state to focus on building advocacy power. You should also spend a good deal of time training and providing leadership development for residents and tenants. Much can be learned from New York’s Housing Justice For All Group, which has fought for tenant protections in New York state since its formation in 2017.

Tenant associations bring together tenants in particular buildings or apartment complexes. Your building might already have an association, but if it doesn’t you can consider creating one yourself to help push for maintenance, keep rents affordable, or support other tenant advocacy goals.

The first step is to conduct research – about the problems experienced by residents in the building, any affordability programs affecting the building, whether renters already have pre-existing protections in place, whether there are state and local assistance programs supporting tenants, who governs and regulates these programs, and so on.

The next step is to start knocking on doors. Making sure to bring a copy of any regulations ensuring your right to organize in case you’re confronted, start visiting other residents in your building to talk about problems, get a sense of interest, identify potential leaders, and build connections.

After that, you can start planning and holding meetings. Begin with a small group and brainstorm about underlying problems, possible solutions, strategies, and aims. Then set the date for a building-wide meeting with a larger group. Establish an agenda, distribute tasks, find leaders, and prepare for the meeting by considering everything from talking points to logistics. Consider implementing a survey of residents to gather a sense of their thoughts about their experiences before the meeting.

At the first building-wide meeting, make sure you stick to the agenda, encourage free expression of all views, and explore the challenges and solutions available. Try to build consensus around shared goals, and determine the next meeting place and time, as well as next steps that need to take place before the next meeting. Make sure all action items are assigned to somebody specific.

Over the course of meetings, develop an action plan. Do you plan to write a letter to your landlord, for example? What will you say, and what will your aim be? Who will write the letter, and what will you do if there is no response? At what point will you go to local media or try to involve local tenant advocacy support services?

Finally, you’ll need to hold elections and develop by-laws. Determine your leadership structure – will you use a committee structure? a president and co-chairs? a non-hierarchical arrangement? – and develop an approach to elections. As a group, come up with basic rules to guide your operations and make sure to stick to them. Rules provide structure to your group and prevent fractures, which can impede power.

For more information, check out NLIHC’s Advocates’ Guide, which includes a detailed discussion about how to go about joining – or creating your own – tenant groups.