This is the first installment in a new series of serialized interviews
that we are calling Anarchists in the Tenant Movement. ----- In thisinterview, we speak with E, an organizer with the San Francisco Bay
Area's Tenants and Neighborhood Councils (TANC) in its East of Lake
local. ---- Like our other series Anarchists in the Labor Movement, this
series presents insights and perspectives from anarchists who are active
in tenant organizing. Some of those we speak to are organizing through
established tenant unions, others are building new unions, while others
still are launching initial campaigns without a formal union yet.
For Black Rose / Rosa Negra (BRRN), mass organizations like tenant
unions play a central role in our strategy. It is through these kinds of
organizations that people create and apply their collective leverage
against structures that dominate and exploit us, such as landlordism and
private property. By engaging consistently in everyday campaigns,
members of mass organizations grow their collective confidence and
power, enabling them to take on ever bigger fights and ultimately to
challenge the very existence of these dominating structures.
In part, the aim of this series is simply to shine a spotlight on the
presence of anarchist militants in the U.S. tenant movement. More
substantively, we ask participants to critically reflect on their
experiences, including both successes and failures, to draw out
generalizable lessons.
Some, but not all of those interviewed in this series are members of
Black Rose / Rosa Negra.
Answers have been edited for clarity and length.
E - Tenants and Neighborhood Councils (TANC)
Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN): How would you summarize your political
perspective in one sentence?
E: We live in the moment of the decline of empire. It's uncomfortable
and we're alienated. While I have ideas about what could help things, I
think the most important thing is to work with lots of different kinds
of people, but[especially]people who are most impacted by the stress
points of the decline of empire.
BRRN: How is your tenant union organized?
E: TANC is organized in a pretty standard democratic union structure.
Monthly or every other month we hold Assembly for unionwide decisions,
things like spending on something, starting a working group, or
endorsing a coalition. There are also elected roles in the larger union
called coordinators who meet and make budget decisions.
TANC contains various locals[by neighborhood geography]. Each local is
organized pretty autonomously. They all have their own culture and
processes. For example, East of Lake local doesn't have roles; we tend
to share a lot of duties in terms of reproducing the union, whether
that's[running]meetings or weekly office hours.
In theory, each local contains various tenant councils or organized
buildings made up of base members. Base members are working-class people
and buildings who are the most impacted by either exploitative
conditions or displacement[which]we identify as the front line[for]the
union to build the most. Within the councils, decision making is a
little bit more enigmatic. It depends on the culture of the building and
leadership in it, which is different for different buildings.
BRRN: What are some of the things you do as a tenant organizer?
E: Over the last four to five months in the East of Lake local, we have
been going through a strategic plan and analysis that looks back at how
some of the things we planned over last summer are working[and]if we
wanted to refine any of those strategies. It's been really beneficial
for getting collective buy-in in our local for trying to pursue
strategies that are going to grow the union and our local and engaging
base members.
We also host weekly office hours where tenants can come speak to TANC
members in a nearby cafe that's central to the area that our local
covers. We also canvass and organize buildings when tenants come to us.
I also facilitate Kitchen Table through the Autonomous Tenant Union
Network with organizers from Crown Heights Tenants Union, Sacramento
Valley Tenants Union, LA Tenants Union, and Puget Sound Tenants Union
that brings together tenant unionists from all over the US and Canada.
In the last year I've grown a lot and benefited from it very much.
BRRN: What campaign are you currently involved in?
E: The main organizing project in the local right now is a SRO (single
room occupancy hotel). A lot of the people who live there are single men
of various ages. There are a few women and a small family that lives
there as well. It is approximately under half occupied.
It's owned by a notorious slumlord in Oakland who has profited off the
foreclosure crisis and used a lot of legal loopholes to try to get units
off rent control. In addition to regular habitability issues like mold
or lack of heat, the landlord is taking the unoccupied rooms and cutting
them up into smaller rooms. The landlord is also getting rid of
collective spaces like a large living room and communal kitchen to turn
into separate units. They're also trying to get tenants to electively
move out of their rooms for remodeling.
Residents have been in touch with us about the conditions in the
building since 2021. We met several residents through office hours.
All[of them]said that they didn't think it was possible to organize in
their building, that they felt alienated, and that nobody else wanted to
do anything because it was just them that had this problem.
In line with that strategic plan (described earlier), we canvassed this
building for the first time recently. Once we got in, we found that the
tenants were immediately receptive to and interested in support and
organizing, and they had a lot to say about what was going on. That
narrative changed quickly. They just had their first meeting about a
week after a round of door knocking. That's really fast, so it is quite
validating that this is something that they really want and need.
In that first meeting we brought them a landlord dossier[that
explained]this is who they're dealing with. It included things like how
many units of housing the landlord owns in the area, how he has
capitalized off foreclosures, how he has used these loopholes, how much
money he has made-five million dollars-from simply refinancing the
property.[We were]showing tenants why it's still more valuable for the
landlord to have empty units that he can rent at a market rate at
different intervals than have the entire place full, even while it's
going through a transition.
So, we're bringing two groups of people together: tenants in the
building and organizers from TANC. It's been remarkable how quickly that
tenants have come together on fighting their landlord and trying to
figure out what to do.
BRRN: You mentioned we're living in a moment of decline of empire, and
that tenant unions are a way to bring people together to improve their
lives. How do tenant unions fit into a broader strategy aimed at
revolutionary social transformation?
E: Kawasi Balagoon talks about a vision of block-by-block
organizing[by]building localized and regional capacity to take on the
failures of empire and the state.
The fact that we don't have basic needs like food, a sense of security,
economic benefits, and healthcare and that they are even further under
attack by the current administration, the previous administration. We're
not offsetting what the state needs to do[and]we're not making that
accommodation for them. We're noticing that these things are being taken
away from us and we're using that politically to grow that group of
people who can organize their block, that can organize their
neighborhood, that can organize their building, to meet that need.
Particularly around the questions of immigration enforcement in the
country right now, I think that's really the only saving grace. You
cannot really have a rapid response network that isn't right there,
where it needs to be when it needs to be there.
BRRN: What advice would you share with anarchists looking to organize or
become active in a tenant union? If you were just starting today, what
do you wish you would have known?
E: I wish I had known that the ultimately productive, helpful,
beneficial thing was to work with people totally different than myself.
Right now, in the tenant movement there's a culture that really excludes
many working-class people from participating. I think I could have spent
less time training people who already see tenants as a political subject
on how to organize, or politically articulating something within the
tenant union without that meaningful base membership of other
working-class people who are the most impacted by these conditions and
housing.
BRRN: Is there anything else that you'd like to share with the world?
E: Join a tenant union. You don't have to be an expert or know
everything that you're doing to try to do it. There's a lot of space for
different kinds of creativity and knowledge to contribute to it.
We still have a long way to go. Neighborhood organizing is integral to
fighting back against ascending fascism. It's not irrelevant. It's not a
single issue. It really is about organizing the whole person and not
just parts of them that are impacted.
Are you an anarchist involved in the tenant movement? Would you like to
participate in this series? Email us at eec@blackrosefed.org
https://www.blackrosefed.org/anarchists-tenant-movement-1/
_________________________________________
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