Guía en español disponible aquí
Click on image above for a link to the full toolkit PDF
Union at Home Tenant Organizing Toolkit
Is the rent too high? Is your landlord refusing to make repairs? Are you tired of watching your neighbors get pushed out? We made this toolkit because we believe that organized tenants have the power to change these conditions. Across the city, organized tenants are winning lower rents, better housing conditions, and the respect we deserve!
When San Francisco tenants won new rights under the Union At Home ordinance in April 2022, we saw both a need and an opportunity. The law gave many tenants new legal tools to organize their buildings and get their landlord to the table to address key issues like repairs, rent, evictions, and more. As tenants and organizers ourselves, we wanted to create a resource to accompany this legislation and support new organizing that is strategic and purposeful. We drew on the many existing organizing traditions that have taught and inspired us to offer a framework for why building tenant power matters.
HOW TO USE THIS TOOLKIT:
Do what works for you. You can read it from beginning to end, or jump around between sections depending on what feels most relevant.
Read this toolkit with someone you want to organize with! If you want to organize a tenant association in your building, we highly encourage you to invite one or more neighbors to read the toolkit with you as early as possible.
We are up against a huge system: real estate accounts for two thirds of all global wealth! But landlords’ profit comes from their ability to collect our rent, refuse to make repairs, and displace us from our homes and communities when they see the opportunity to make more profit another way. With strategic fights and high levels of solidarity, we can make their speculation less profitable, bringing down rents and the cost of land. Since the passage of the Union at Home Ordinance, tenants in San Francisco have won millions of dollars in rent reductions or refunds, major repairs, dropped and reversed evictions, agreements for landlords to communicate with tenants in the languages they speak, and the sale of a building to a land trust, ensuring the building remains permanent affordable housing. Organize! Stay! Win!
