Getting Organized

Why Organize

Although tenants in Massachusetts have many rights, it can sometimes be difficult to enforce those rights on your own because landlords often have more resources and more power. One way to level that playing field is to join forces with other tenants. By working together, tenants can overcome many different types of housing problems and have successfully organized against rent increases, bad conditions, evictions, harassment, and foreclosures. Tenant unity can be a powerful force.

Some examples of what tenant groups have accomplished include:

In 2003, a new owner bought a run down multi-family building in Roxbury, refused to make repairs, and tried to raise rents by more than $1,000 per unit. Tenants refused to pay the rent increase and organized, demanding negotiations with the landlord over the physical conditions of their apartment and future rents. Although this effort took three years, in 2006 the tenants successfully negotiated a collective bargaining agreementthat required the landlord to completely renovate ("gut rehab") each of their apartments and to temporarily relocate the tenants while the work was being done. Two years later, with the renovation work completed, the tenants negotiated a second collective bargaining agreement that required the landlord (or anyone to whom he sold the building) to keep the rents at levels more than $1,000 per month below market rent for the next ten years.

In 2005, a new owner bought a building on South Street in Jamaica Plain and immediately notified all of the tenants, some of whom had been living there for over 30 years, that he would not renew leases and that everyone would have to leave. Although he refused to admit it, the landlord's plan was to convert the building to condominiums. Some tenants resisted and the landlord then began eviction proceedings against them. The tenants formed a tenant association and organized to stop the evictions. Eventually the landlord backed down, dropped the eviction cases, and signed agreements permitting each of the tenants to remain in her apartment at the same rent for the next five years.

While working in a group does not always result in such a neat victory wrapped up in a written agreement and while group work takes time and patience, tenants are, increasingly, reaching into their community for support. With organizers, lawyers, and other community advocates, tenants are successfully negotiating new leases and agreements that keep their apartments affordable and improve their housing conditions. In some cases, tenants are even able to negotiate the purchase of their property by a nonprofit developer that will keep it affordable over the long term.

Challenging a landlord, however, can feel frightening. As a tenant, you may be afraid that your landlord will label you a troublemaker. Or you may be afraid of retaliation or losing your home. The best way to protect yourself is to find out your rights, figure out your options, and fight the battle with others, not alone. Imagine if you were a landlord and more than one tenant came to you as a group with a complaint. There is more power in numbers, and organizing changes the power dynamic.

As a group, tenants have the power to define what is happening as a moral issue about a group of people's homes, not just a legal issue about an owner's investment. For example, while the law does not prevent a landlord in the private unsubsidized housing market from doubling rents, organized tenants have taken a stand against excessive rent increases and won fair rent increase schedules.

The key is not to let a landlord discourage you from trying to organize to improve your housing. If you let landlord pressure keep you from moving forward, you are only helping her instead of yourself.

The purpose of this chapter is to pass on the lessons that organizers and tenants have learned about how to organize. Being able to organize is a valuable skill. By working collectively, and not alone and in isolation, tenants can shift the balance of power such that the housing needs of people in a community can compete in a real estate market that continues to drive up the cost of housing.