Spurred in part by COVID and by a growing housing affordability crisis, tenant organizing is picking up in not just expected places like New York, but in mid-sized cities like Austin and Baltimore, and even smaller cities like Louisville, Kentucky, and Portland, Maine. Increasingly, tenant organizing is not just winning battles against landlords, but changing public policy. For instance, rent control was passed in Portland, Maine, last November.

In this 90-minute webinar, cosponsored and co-moderated by NPQ and Shelterforce, tenant activists will share their stories, both in direct tenant organizing and policy advocacy.

Anneke Dunbar-Gronke works at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. They live and work in Baltimore, representing tenants, supporting tenant organizing, and developing community land trusts and housing cooperatives.

Jess Falero is a homeless advocate, Harm Reduction Outreach Specialist, and cofounder of the Maine Peoples Housing Coalition.

Gabriela Garcia is Project Coordinator at BASTA (Building and Strengthening Tenant Action) based in Austin, Texas.

Josh Poe is a tenant organizer with the Louisville Tenants Union and a co-founder and Co-Principal Investigator at the Root Cause Research Center.

This webinar will explore:

• What is tenant organizing and what is the work that tenant organizers do? 
• How do tenant organizers build power? 
• How do location and political context affect tenant organizing?
• What role can tenant organizing play in changing city and state housing policy?  
• What kind of demands can tenant rights organizations bring to city leaders and eviction courts to provide protections and relief for tenants? What messages resonate with local elected officials? 
• What would be the best advice to give to anyone facing the threat of eviction? 
• What kind of tools can tenant organizers use to organize against private equity owners in the real estate market?
• How can other sectors connect with tenant organizing?

Whether you’re a nonprofit leader, board member, or engaged in community-based organizing, this webinar will provide you with real-life examples and lessons learned that can inform your work in your own community.

Register to learn how nonprofits and movement activists are advancing strategies to address the economic and social inequalities of our time!

The moderators for this webinar are NPQ Economic Justice Senior Editor Steve Dubb and Shelterforce Editor in Chief Miriam Axel-Lute. Steve has worked with cooperatives and nonprofits for over two decades and has been both a student and practitioner in the field of community economic development. Miriam has been an analyst of housing justice and community development issues for over 20 years (to hear more from Shelterforce, subscribe to their newsletter here).

You can send your questions to webinar@npqmag.org to have them answered during the web event.