Tenant-led & member-funded union in the Bay Area. Down with the housing market!
@atun_rsia
member 🏢 Office Hrs: Tues. 5:30-7:30pm, 2940 West St. (510) 671-5747
Hey Bay Area renters👋 A few of our Locals have made adjustments to their meeting consistency. We encourage all tenants of private landlords (even the UC!), unhoused people, and public housing to join us in our fight against commodification of housing & rising gentrification.
Sadly, Prop 21, which would have allowed cities to enact rent control, has failed. This is the second consecutive failure of this kind. Waiting for another election season won't cut it. We need to build material power in our everyday lives, outside of the election system.
Alameda Sheriffs use military grade weapons to defend a speculator’s empty house while thousands of people languish in homelessness nearby. This is capitalism at its most honest, the housing market at its clearest. If we do not fight like hell, it will only get worse.
#escalate
Berkeley landlords attempted to "celebrate" the return of their eviction powers. Our union had other plans. But crashing landlord events is just one small part of the strategy. Here's how tenant unionization works and how you can help build the movement.
If we are expected to use the COVID19 stimulus money on rent, who is the government really supporting? If the money ends up in our landlords bank accounts, then its the landlords who benefit, not us.
Yes, we disrupted the Berkeley landlords' vicious "celebration" of the resumption of evictions. The crisis of high rents and homelessness is a direct effect of their business model. We stand by our action and we stand with all tenants facing evictions.
Quarantine without rent suspension is almost genocidal: it means forcing those in the lowest class rungs to go out and inevitably get sick. Meanwhile, the top 10 percent get to stay safe at home.
An Oakland landlord is trying to show an apartment building to prospective buyers during this pandemic. Not going to happen.
Tenants' formed a tenant council (aka tenants association) and are refusing access.
Our health is more important than profits.
This is the city of Oakland's mayor, Libby Shaaf. The pain and suffering that she has endured because of this "vandalism" does not come close to even one-tenth of a percent of the pain that she has presided over during her mayoral tenure.
We're in midst of a pandemic, and on the cusp of a potential economic crisis. Those who can't pay rent should not be forced onto the street. We need two simple things.
1. Rent Suspension.
2. Rent Forgiveness.
Read our full statement here:
Every time your landlord raises rent, sends you a threatening notice—or even collects rent—you're under attack.
The landlord-tenant relationship is part of the class struggle. We need to treat it as such.
There is no distinction between the tenant movement and the homeless movement. Landlords rely on homelessness as a threat for unruly tenants who demand quality, affordable living. Solidarity forever!
Today the Berkeley Property Owners Association is hosting a "party" at Freehouse Pub to "celebrate" the end of the eviction moratorium. We’ll be hosting an alternative celebration of tenant power on the sidewalk out front with picket signs, banners, chants, and pizza. Turn up!!
Tenants in Oakland: beware of landlords asking for documentation of non-ability to pay AND any forms to sign about repayment or non-payment of rent. You are not legally required to do either at this time. And it can put you into a bad position to do so.
Rent-striking tenants at Merritt on 3rd are facing intense repression and harassment by new landlord FPA Multifamily/Trinity in tandem with Oakland police.
One arrest so far, followed by unit "inspections" carried out with an armed, self-identified off-duty cop.
Oakland city council passed the Encampment Management Policy (EMP) last night. Under the guise of "health and safety," EMP banishes encampments in 98% of Oakland. Landlords and developers are surely salivating: this policy delivers new powers to push gentrification forward.
HOT OFF THE PRESSES!
TANC Members began our first ever TENANTS IN MOVEMENT training this last week and we have the first volume of the accompanying READER 📚📖 for all those participating!
Did you know the spiral binding encourages both left and right hand note taking!!!????
🤓
Once again, the working class's back is against the wall. This is similar to what Obama did during the 2008 crisis in which millions of working class people lost their homes. Now Trump oversees an eviction landslide. We must learn to defend each other right now.
HAPPENING NOW: A US militarily vessel destined to take military equipment to Israel is currently at the Port of Oakland. Communities currently protesting and we call on everyone to come out to the port to say enough is enough. No more US weapons to Israel for genocide!
Victory! The
@smc_tenants
had their 15 day notices rescinded by the landlord. This comes after a large car protest, where people visited their leasing office and other relevant locations. Tenants who fight collectively can win! Let’s keep pushing! 🚩✊
Today we marched on Oakland slumlord Marta Depierris with the MDP Tenants Council. Tenants refuse to allow for public walk throughs and endless inspections during a pandemic!
It's the 5th anniv. of the devastating Ghost Ship Fire. That night is forever engrained in our memories, & we extend our love to those affected by the negligence of the LL & bldg owner for creating the conditions that led to the loss of 36 because of greed & disregard of safety.
Let's transform the eviction crisis into a political crisis for the landlords and their politicians. Join your local autonomous tenants union. Together we win!
Truth is, elections aren't a shortcut to power. Voting is no substitute for mass tenant unions that can throw weight against real estate capital. This is not an argument against voting—it is an argument against the investment in elections as the place where we build our power.
Step 1: Organize building
Step 2: Organize all landlord's tenants into a tenant council
Step 3: Link with other tenant councils, form One Big Tenant Union
Step 4: Demand across the board rent reductions, housing for every person in city, limits on landlord profitability...
Waking to the somber news of a union sibling being killed on the
#DeereStrike
picket line and the murder of a tenant in Kansas City by his landlord after demanding a repair.
A reminder that the class struggle consumes whole lives. Solidarity is the only solution.
If you have been laid off and/or cannot pay rent, we are prepared to help you. Let's demand rent suspensions for all. Rent strikes if need be. DM's open.
#1u
There’s a housing crisis in East Bay, and it will be that much worse here due to COVID-19. We need a moratorium on evictions immediately.
That’s the bare minimum.
Yesterday, TANC members picketed in front a luxury apartment’s leasing office. The apartment—17th & Broadway, owned by LMC—has a 35% vacancy rate and 0 affordable units. While they seek top-dollar rents, hundreds of houseless tenants sleep all around this area.
Far-right mobilization has made autonomous tenant unions more important than ever to build up. We need a real answer to the far-right that isn't based in centrists' accommodation of the more "acceptable" versions of far-right movements. We need our own vehicles and paths.
The exchange of rent for a place to live is not an equal one. The power of an individual tenant and an individual landlord are not equivalent. In addition to rent, a tenants add considerable value to a home. All of this value is captured by the landlord in addition to rent.
A local landlord is threatening a tenant with an illegal inspection and eviction during a pandemic. The tenant is a runaway queer youth with no family to return to, and is waiting for the Shelter in Place order to be lifted so they can return to work. Let's defend their home!
It should be easy and straightforward for a landlord's holdings to be seized for tenants in need. Leaving homes empty in wait for high-income tenants is a criminal act of the worst kind: an offense against the dignity of life for the pursuit of profit.
Today we marched on Oakland slumlord Marta Depierris with the MDP Tenants Council. Tenants refuse to allow for public walk throughs and endless inspections during a pandemic!
Why do we stand with
@moms4housing
? Because the housing market is designed to produce racialized poverty, and overall inequality by empowering landlords & speculators. Their takeover isn't only just, it is necessary. Perhaps it's time to help spread vacant property takeovers.
We are with the George Floyd uprising. While our government spends monumental amounts of money on militarized police who continue to enforce racial divisions, a litany of other social problems are allowed to fester. Housing is one of those problems. Fuck the Curfew!
A word to our comrades in the housing movement: Let's make sure that we are not acting as a conservative force in this very urgent moment. Yes, rent strikes are difficult. But our job is to educate about those risks, not dissuade people from taking militant action.
We unanimously approved our political platform yesterday. Our platform is the culmination of over a year of fighting landlords, speculators and venture capitalists. We make no excuses for our enemies. From the preface:
"Landlords should not exist."
Solidarity with the Oakland Teachers and community members who shut down the Oakland school board meeting tonight. The board—which is funded by the billionaire charter school lobby—is trying to shut down dozens of schools.
The system of rent extraction upholds today's the police state. Landlords and developers rely on the police to enforce their will. The threat that armed men will carry out an eviction is an essential element for landlords' power.
Our cities are being gentrified, our friends and families forced to move far away, our neighbors made homeless, all because of landlord greed. And you have the audacity to ignore all of that and focus on how “both sides” are wrong. A shameful and complacent statement here.
Joint Statement Denouncing Violence at Berkeley Property Owners Association Party (with Councilmember
@RashiKesarwani
and Councilmember
@MarkHumbert
)
We unequivocally condemn violence of any kind in our community.
(1/6)
Let's learn from Prop 10—the capitalist class is well organized. We need a tenants' movement that can meet them in kind. We need a movement with teeth. We must become powerful enough to scare our enemies into giving us what we want.
⚡️ RENT STRIKE ⚡️
The Merritt on 3rd Tenant Council refuses rent Sept. 1. until the landlord addresses chronic habitability issues.
Rally Tues., Aug. 30, 6pm at 1130 3rd Ave. to support the council and ratchet up pressure on Kennedy Wilson!
On Saturday, we a few hundred tenants gathered to make it clear that our lives come before our landlords’ profits. This was TANC’s first ever demonstration. Here are some moments from the rally.
Solidarity with tenants in Berlin, Germany! The German Supreme Court killed a radical rent control bill (sounds familiar) resulting in thousands of tenants hitting the street in protest.
We’re out here supporting the occupation in West Oakland! For every one houseless person we have FOUR empty homes in oakland. DM is if you want to do a watch shift!
Important to note that housed tenants in California and the Bay Area are still protected by state and local moratoria.
Unhoused tenants, however, have been pushed out of and around urban areas and the sidelines the entire pandemic.
We demand safe housing for ALL!
The federal eviction moratorium has now expired.
For the last year tenant organizers across North America have been working together in
@atun_rsia
to identify shared conditions & viable strategies to end evictions, harassment, & unsafe housing.
Join your local tenant union!
The housing crisis isn't a local problem. Today's capitalist actors use homes as assets—storage containers of wealth. Just as finance capital is not geographically bounded, neither is the fight against the housing market and its beneficiaries.
We're happy to report that we've just voted to affiliate with the Autonomous Tenants Union Network,
@atun_rsia
. This will be the first national organization representing tenant-operated and funded anti-capitalist tenant unions throughout the US. ✊🚩
There is no purely legislative path towards housing for all. Housing will never be a human right unless tenants force the state to make it so. We need to build up our ability to collectively struggle, and then push the limits and force a change.
We’re inspired by the Oakland teachers who went out on a wildcat strike today. Our collective power starts with defiant and unsanctioned acts. We can’t play by the bosses rules!
Air filtration systems should be provided to all tenants free of charge. Certainly the landlords have already bought themselves air purifiers with our rent money.
This is what tenant power looks like! More than 100 community members showed up yesterday with just hours’ notice to chant, dance, and make sure the landlords of BPOA could hear us from the patio. No more eviction parties in Berkeley — when we fight, we win!
The federal eviction moratorium has now expired.
For the last year tenant organizers across North America have been working together in
@atun_rsia
to identify shared conditions & viable strategies to end evictions, harassment, & unsafe housing.
Join your local tenant union!
We need power. Power is what will allow us to determine how housing is planned, built, allocated and managed. Anyone who skips the question of power is either mistaken themselves or is intentionally misleading.
Trump's posturing towards the housing crisis, using dog-whistle words like "filth" is beyond alarming. This is why we need to build militant mass housing organizations. We need to organize and fight.
Since New Year's, the Coliseum Connections Tenants Association have fought against loss of cars, psychic & economic strain, & living cramped in hotel rooms while the landlord Michael Johnson denies responsibility. Alexa Johnson calls tenants' courage to fight back "difficult."
Is your new years resolution to help strengthen a working class tenants movement in the Bay Area? Are you a TANC member?
Sign up for our 6 month training Tenants in Movement for organizers of all levels to grow and share together!
Some in the left call elections a "terrain of struggle." This is true, but it's an extremely uneven one. In elections, our enemies have the home court advantage: landlords have more money, and they currently have a hold on the "common sense" of our time.
Here it is: GOP plan on unemployment insurance, confirming our reporting this morning
Cuts $600/week benefit to $200/week -- in October, replace $200/week w/ 70% replacement of lost wages
States can request a waiver if cannot make the switch
We desperately need to build the capacity to defend any advances that we make. Because we, tenants, do not have money, there's only one road for doing this: building our own mass tenant organizations. So don't despair. Join the union!
2020 was a hard year, but it was also empowering. We’re looking forward to building a stronger, bolder, and more strident union in 2021. In the meantime, let’s look back at the year that was. (1/17)