Tenant
Organizing
Our neighborhood has more housing code violations than any
other in New York City, including failure to provide heat,
lead paint violations, rats and other vermin, water
infiltration, non-functioning bathroom fixtures, failure
to provide adequate building security, broken windows, and
collapsing ceilings. More and more, landlords are leaving
apartments in disrepair in hopes of pushing the residents
out and capitalizing on the neighborhood’s skyrocketing
real estate market.
We hold monthly workshops for tenants interested in
forming tenant associations. At any one time, our
Community Organizing Department works with around two
dozen tenant associations in Washington Heights and Inwood.
These associations are organized in buildings with
hundreds of housing code violations each, with landlords
who do not respond to simple pleas for repairs. We educate
tenants about their options to force landlords to repair,
and help tenants pursue the strategies they choose. These
can include commencing administrative actions for the
State to order repairs, lawsuits in housing court to
obtain a court order for repairs, or rent strikes.
In addition to organizing tenant associations in
Washington Heights and Inwood, since 2009 our tenant
organizers have also assist tenants in Harlem, with the
support of the City’s Department of Housing Preservation
and Development, inspecting buildings and addressing
individual tenant’s concerns.
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