How Tenants Together is Fighting for Renters' Rights in California

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to dislodge thousands of tenants, California has been faced with an ever-worsening housing crisis. In addition to severe housing shortages, tenants in California have to contend with rent hikes, stagnant wages, high unemployment rates and the lobbying power of the real estate industry. 

In light of these struggles, many of the state’s nearly 17 million tenants are turning to renters’ rights organizations for support. 

But while local organizations can—and often do—improve the lives of renters at the micro-level, a larger statewide initiative is needed to achieve widespread and effective change.

That’s where Tenants Together comes in.

As the only statewide renters’ rights coalition in California, Tenants Together comprises about 50 member organizations and works to advance, defend and advocate for housing justice throughout the state. Through education, organizing and advocacy, Tenants Together strives to help renters at both the local and statewide level.

Tenants Together supports the radical belief that housing is a human right, not a commodity. Some of the key issues it focuses on are code enforcement, consumer protections, fair rent, protection against retaliation and discrimination, and just cause for evictions. 

“We are dealing with a rolling crisis of eviction and displacement in California and nationwide that COVID-19 has only made worse,” said Tenants Together’s communications and legislative coordinator, Shanti Singh. “We’re fighting a vicious cycle where tenants aren’t protected legislatively, and that makes it harder to organize the kind of change on the ground that we need in order to win protections.”

At the local level, Tenants Together helps tenant unions by creating replicable models for tenant organizing. In addition to free organizing toolkits and know-your-rights resources, Tenants Together also runs a hotline that offers tenant counseling. 

“We really prioritize sharing our knowledge through technical and organizing assistance, and sharing our 45 member organizations’ knowledge and experience with new formations,” explained Singh.

One of Tenants Together’s more unique programs is its Tenant Lawyer Network. Participating lawyers provide legal representation for tenants in “housing discrimination, habitability, retaliatory eviction and other tenants rights cases.”

In order to build a strong renters’ rights movement, Tenants Together brings renters groups together so that they can develop a shared strategy, share which methods have worked best for them and create a unified front. 

“We believe that strong local tenant organizations, united across the state, are the cornerstone of the tenant rights movement and are essential for progress toward housing justice,” Tenants Together states on its website. 

Additionally, Tenants Together shares its understanding of state advocacy, legislature and politics with member organizations. It also monitors legislation and court cases, files amicus briefs and intervenes in legislation when necessary. 

Like many 501(c)(3) nonprofits, Tenants Together also has a 501(c)(4) arm—Tenants Together Action Fund (TTAF). This is the political action side of Tenants Together, through which it endorses candidates, backs legislation and engages in lobbying for renters’ rights. 

Its areas of focus are rent control and anti-eviction policies, holding candidates and elected officials accountable, and building support for statewide policy reform. 

For example, in 2019, Tenants Together co-sponsored a measure that would prevent landlords from retaliating against tenants who form tenant unions or associations. Retaliation practices include excessive rent hikes, uninhabitable living conditions, harassment and even eviction.

“Every Californian has a right to a union at work and a union at home,” said Lupe Arreola, executive director of Tenants Together, in a press release. “Tenant organizations are often the only thing standing between marginalized communities and displacement.”

The bill ultimately failed in the California State Senate.

Although voters rejected Prop 21, the local rent control initiative that would have overturned the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995, Tenants Together remains resolute. 

"While we are very disappointed that Prop 21 failed to pass, our work remains on track," said Singh. "We've always felt that fostering sustainable local organizations to advocate for renter protections at the municipal level is the key to strong statewide efforts long-term, whether at the ballot or in the capitol."

“Our strategy has always been rooted in local power-building,” said Singh. She later added, “We're taking the bad with the good and moving forward accordingly.”

Some of Tenants Together’s legislative successes, according to Singh, include helping to pass a bill that prevents discrimination against tenants based on their immigration status (AB 291) and another bill that amended the state’s fair housing laws to prevent discrimination against renters who rely on the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program, known as Section 8 (SB 329).

Tenants Together is funded through a mix of foundation, member, partner and ally donations. Between 2008 and 2020, Tenants Together received almost $1.5 million in foundation contributions. Grantmakers include the San Francisco Foundation, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Equal Justice Works and the Elkes Foundation.

Member donations are based on a sliding scale depending on the organization’s budget. Member organizations with a budget of under $250,000, for example, contribute $100 annually.     

Their member organizations include Affordable Housing Advocates (San Diego), Berkeley Tenants Unions, Burbank Tenants’ Rights Committee, Coalition for Economic Survival (Los Angeles) and Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights.

At the macro-level, Tenants Together seeks to address the root causes of housing insecurity. It isn’t enough to stick a Band-Aid on California’s housing issues; it needs to be attacked head-on and in collaboration with other progressive movements. 

“We also know that we cannot do this alone and that the struggle for housing justice is intimately connected to broader movements for racial, economic and social justice. A strong tenant movement acting in coalition with allies will realize a world where renters are treated with dignity as equal members of the community,” writes Tenants Together. 

“Tenants don’t live single-issue lives,” explained Singh. “We’re workers, kids, parents, seniors, students, disabled—and people of color and structurally marginalized groups are disproportionately renters.”

Tenants Together seeks to collaborate with other progressive movements, including those that focus on racial, gender, economic, environmental and disability justice, LGBT liberation, and indigenous sovereignty.

Some of the other groups it works with include the Regional Asthma Management and Prevention (RAMP) Coalition, Latino Health Access, California Alliance of Retired Americans, the Concord Raise the Roof Coalition, Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, Sunrise Movement and Courage California.

During Tenant Together’s Renter Power Hour podcast, Arreola said, “As tenants and as renters, we have political and economic power, which we need to be more strategic about using, and that we need to use to build better conditions.”

“We’re really hoping to expand this sort of collaboration and build a common progressive agenda in the state legislature,” added Singh.