US, blackrosefed: STANDING TOGETHER: REPORTING FROM THE
PORTLAND RENTER ASSEMBLIES (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
The Renter’s Assemblies have been something that people in housing justice circles have
been hearing rumbles about for a while. Rumored to be coming out of the Right to the City
Coalition, which deals with progressive solutions to economic and housing problems, the
assemblies were meant to have an open air of possibility for tenants from around the
country to come together locally and talk about both problems and solutions. In Portland,
Tori Abernathy and Nick Caleb began promoting the first Renter’s Assembly in Portland,
Oregon, looking to discuss the rising difficulty of being a working-class tenant in a city
that is being driven by “creative class” gentrification. There was a sequence of three
renter’s assemblies in February, where tenants could share their experiences and local
organizations that deal with housing issues would discuss their projects and ideas for the
future of local housing justice. A discussion would then form where people could reflect
both on the experiences that were shared and the organizing proposals that they heard,
with the hope that we could eventually head in the direction of something tangible.
From the beginning, the assemblies were driven by an almost base level of emotion as
people shared stories of almost universal exploitation. People reported about being forced
out of their homes of more than a decade by developers gentrifying the area. Renter’s
almost forced on the streets after having their requests for repairs answered with an
eviction notice. Discussion went towards how the older working-class communities of the
city were being forced out of the city center and into the fringes, being pushed further
and further away from the city that had held their heart for years.
After the success of the first sessions, the Renter’s Assemblies were organized again for
April 21st and 26th, with an organizing committee forming of people both coming in as
individuals as well as those who are already involved in housing groups. On April 21st,
the Socialist Alternative began by presenting their vision for working towards rent
control in Portland. Following the model established by victories in Seattle, they want to
follow up Portland’s $15Now campaign, which is fighting for a $15/hr minimum wage, by
pushing into rent control, just like was done in Seattle after their minimum wage battle
was won. They discussed the centrality of affordable housing to class struggle more
broadly, saying openly “a renter is crisis is a worker in compliance.” This draws on the
fact that when housing is unstable, it can often force workers to be less willing to
challenge orthodoxy and organize.
Next, Living Cully, a community non-profit made up of four organizations dealing with
low-income communities of color in the Cully Neighborhood, discussed their multi-faceted
campaign. While working on infrastructure development in the area, they are operating with
the knowledge that this can often allow for displacement of the communities they are
working with. This draws on the clear contradiction between the idea that housing is a
human right with the fact that housing is currently a commodity. Their goal is then to
work towards two distinct endgames: decommodification and regulation. They cited that in
many other countries around 30% of housing is considered “social housing,” which would be
the equivalent of public housing. In the U.S., our numbers are closer to 1-2%. One of the
tools they want to use to take housing out of the market is the community land trust
model, where people own their home but the land can’t go on the open market and
affordability restrictions can be put in place. Another option for them is the limited
equity co-op, where ownership of the property goes directly to the tenants in a
co-operative fashion. They are engaging in a coalition to influence the Portland
Comprehensive Plan, which is a long-term plan for the city to develop its physical
geography. This can often lead to the kind of “urban renewal” programs that are pilots for
developers to decimate local communities. They are additionally working towards renter
protections, including rent control, renter intimidation restrictions, and ending no-cause
eviction.
At the April 26th assembly, presentations began with the Portland Solidarity Network
talking about its structure for tenant campaigns. These use a “direct action” format,
where a renter who has been exploited by a landlord determines exactly what material
damages and results they would like to see and then they collectively develop an
“escalation plan” to fight towards that goal. In the long-term, PDXSol discussed the need
to develop tenant organizations in neighborhoods and rental buildings, with unionization
and assemblies being a way of maintaining tenant control no matter what legislation or
politicians come through City Hall. Here, things like rent strikes and tenant action can
be the pressure point that will get results, and can have the same effect in housing that
the labor movement had in workplaces. One of the primary barriers to long-term tenant
organizing is no-cause eviction, and it is possible to target this specific issue with
mass tenant mobilizations and anti-eviction actions. While it is illegal to evict someone
for organizing in Oregon, the burden of proof is on the tenant rather than the landlord.
This means that any long-term organizing can be subject to no-cause eviction, which means
that landlords can just evict everyone organizing without much effort to conceal the
intentions. In general, no-cause eviction keeps tenants in an incredibly vulnerable place,
and organizations like the Community Alliance of Tenants have noted that no-cause eviction
can actually be the target that the elimination of which can lead to rent control.
Nick Caleb, former City Council candidate, followed up PDXSol and reiterated much of the
discussion about rising rents and displacement, again echoing the need for tenant
mobilization and direct action.
For all of the assemblies, the bulk of the time was spent sharing stories and ideas.
Tenants stood before the room and spoke of their own personal experiences, where property
management companies that treated them like small numbers on a large spreadsheet stripped
their safety and dignity. The conversations very quickly moved into the organizing sphere,
as the dozens of people at each assembly were clearly there to turn experience into
action. Two primary ideas began floating around, which were, in some ways, also reflected
in the organizations that presented. Rent control and no-cause eviction seemed to stand
out as the two primary ideas that people were identifying, with groups like Socialist
Alternative and several of the non-profits primarily looking towards rent control and
PDXSol and others advocating tenant organizations looking at no-cause eviction. This was
all discussed in very complimentary way, especially how to integrate the two demands, with
possibly having one being a stepping-stone to the other. The idea of mass tenant
mobilization was brought up with a great deal of energy, starting possibly with open
events that brought broad ideas like “housing is a human right” or “tenant power.” This
could then be the starting point of shifting the Renter’s Assemblies to larger goals and
long-term organizing efforts.
The assemblies themselves are still in the early stages, but that is what makes them so
exciting. At every point the discussion had a clear anti-capitalist dimension, and the
ideas all had a tinge of political radicalism. This was not just a room made up of
long-time activists and organizers, but a representational make-up of the city’s tenants.
There was a readiness towards action that was palpable, and it came directly from the fact
that the conditions in the city were changing in a way that was going to force people into
organizing. The material conditions were driving theoretical perspectives, and
constructive anger seemed to be what were fueling people to go further with their ideas.
This is a project that many are committed to sticking with, both locally and nationally.
With the possibilities that something like this has, it can act as a “seed organization”
both to draw people into existing housing organizations and to form something wholly new.
But more importantly, what it has the potential to do is to kick start a tenant-focused
housing movement, one that was sorely missed with the foreclosure-centered housing actions
that came out of the financial crisis. Today, many of our major cities are becoming
unlivable for those on limited incomes, and the time has come to take our neighborhoods
back. Today, we started by simply talking to each other. Now we have the relationships we
need to move things from the conference rooms into the streets.
Black Rose Anarchist Federation
http://www.blackrosefed.org/standing-together-reporting-from-the-portland-renter-assemblies/
