The Crown Heights Tenant Union (CHTU) is a tenants union created in October 2013 to unify old and new tenants against the gentrification of the neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York City. The CHTU has pushed for local collective bargaining agreements between tenants and landlords to be written into the deeds of buildings that would regulate rent increases and codify repair and renovation standards. They also assist individual tenants, educating them on their rights and how to enforce them, lobby in Albany for better rent laws, and participate in direct action, targeting predatory equity real-estate companies they believe to be involved in illegal evictions and harassment tactics.
Founding The CHTU was founded in October 2013 by approximately 12 residents and community organizers, including activists who'd been part of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), longtime Black and working class Brooklyn tenants, and labour and tenant organizers. Joel Feingold, then a graduate student who had lived in the area for four years and been involved in OWS, started the CHTU with the goal of uniting newer and older tenants. By April 2016, the CHTU had 60–70 buildings with tenant associations connected to them, and formed at least 6 local chapters. Over 700 residents have attended meetings and demonstrations, with the core membership consisting of about 50 attendees. In the early planning stages of the CHTU, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board played a large role in organizing new and existing tenant associations and amalgamating them with the CHTU.
Goals, strategy, and structure CHTU organizers would like to see neighborhood-wide collective bargaining agreements between property owners and residents written into the deeds of rented buildings. Such agreements would include codified standards on repairs, fair prices on buyouts, and protections against unfair rent increases and evictions. Organizers with CHTU have said that the Crown Heights neighborhood has been disproportionately affected by "predatory equity", a term for when corporations acquire buildings with many rent-regulated units with a plan to convert them to market-rate rentals, as well as multinational and Wall Street-backed landlords.
The CHTU targets landlords through direct action, picketing their offices, homes, and banks. They also organize marches to rally tenants and march on store-fronts landlords rent out to high-end bars and boutiques. They provide tenants with assistance, accompanying them to housing court, and educating them about their rights and methods to enforce them. They consider landlords to use divide-and-conquer strategies which pit old against new tenants and Black and non-Black tenants against each other; The CHTU considers all tenants as having shared interests that can only be achieved together.
The CHTU is organized into three levels. The first is the autonomous tenant associations of each building, the second is the CHTU locals, which organize tenant associations with the same landlord, and the third is the General Membership Meeting, where new proposals for action and strategic questions are proposed. The Organizing Committee intersects all three, wherein locals and tenant associations democratically set the agenda for the General Membership Meeting. The CHTU holds monthly meetings to discuss and vote on proposals; the meetings also educate tenants on legal and practical issues such as finding units' rent history, how to organize tenants, and how to report landlords for overdue repairs.
Activities Tenant associations In February 2014, the CHTU held a rally outside of 1059 Union Street, purchased in June 2013 by the private-equity real estate company BCB Property Management, which had purchased 13 other properties within the neighborhood within the last two years according to an analysis by the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. After the purchase, BCB began to renovate vacant apartments and offer the tenants buy-outs. Tenants had contacted the Crown Heights Assembly, formed a tenant association, and filed numerous complaints to 311 that caused the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to include it under its Alternative Enforcement Program, a list of the city's 200 "most distressed" residential properties. Local tenants took notice and formed their own organizations, eventually merging into the CHTU.
In January 2016, residents of 80 New York Ave. formed a tenant association with the help of the CHTU and MFY legal services after being left without heat. The tenants rallied outside the Brooklyn Supreme Court and in front of their building and hung signs in the street-facing windows that spelled out "SLUMLORD: DON'T RENT HERE". Two years later, tenants at 174 Clinton Avenue organized a rent strike with the CHTU in response to being left without heat or hot water for a month, which also resulted in widespread damage due to burst pipes. The tenants filed almost 50 complaints, leading Department of Buildings inspectors to issue a violation to the landlord.
In 2019, residents of 1151-1155 Dean Street formed the Dean Street Tenant Union and filed two suits against their landlord, Renaissance Realty, alleging they had illegally inflated rent in renovated units and ignored dangerous conditions in unrenovated ones. They sued Renaissance for overdue repairs, rallied outside their buildings, and picketed the landlord's home. Feingold had served as an advisor for the tenants. In August 2020, the CHTU helped rally an eviction defense at 1214 Dean Street which gathered approximately 100 people after being notified of forced entry by a landlord by Equality for Flatbush. Tenants stated that they had been subjected to months of threats and harassment by the landlords.
In December 2021, members of the CHTU attended a rally outside 283 Albany Avenue organized by the tenants against their landlord, Shamco Management Corp. The tenants had filed a complaint against Shamco to the New York City Housing Authority for ignoring months of tenant requests to install a ramp. The tenants accused the landlord of delaying the repairs, with elderly residents having written explaining their conditions and referencing the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The CHTU supported the Robinson-Torrain family against what they claimed was an illegal forced eviction by Mandy Management from the home they had owned from 1951 to 2015 at 964 Park Place. The CHTU, Brooklyn Eviction Defense - Tenant Union, and local tenants kept a 24-hour eviction watch for 18 days outside the home until a court order on February 28, 2022, restored the Robinson-Torrain family's ownership as they continued the deed theft case. Attorney Adam M. Birnbaum signed a letter supporting the case, describing it as a "foreclosure rescue scam". The CHTU and Robinson-Torrains maintain that the signature on the deed, which was not notarized, was forged.
In March 2022, the CHTU represented tenants at 567 St. John's Place, asking supporters to call HPD and demand that ownership be removed from the landlord. The landlord had neglected to attend to pest infestations, collapsed ceilings, and lead paint. In June 2021, the tenants had filed a complaint to the Brooklyn Housing Court asking for the landlord to be removed, due to being a "slumlord" who had allowed 400 violations to accrue. In April 2022, an HPD representative told the Gothamist that they supported the complaint. In June, the housing court ruled in the tenants' favor and ordered the landlord be removed from ownership of the building by July 14.
In May, CHTU organized in tandem for members Janina Davis and Joyce Webster, who had been subjected to criminal court proceedings and arrests by their landlords and the NYPD's 77th Precinct in attempts to evict them. The CHTU said the situation matched a pattern of police and prosecutors aiding the abuse of tenants, particularly Black women, and held multiple rallies, phone banks, and speak-outs to draw public attention to the case. The CHTU stated they would escalate political action if the charges against the two members were not dismissed and if the landlords did not agree to restitution.
In November, the 900s Park Place Block Association, aided by the CHTU and Crown Heights CARE Collective, began organizing regular community meetings on their immediate block. Dozens of them organized to defend a neighbor against eviction from 972 Park Place, which had hundreds of active violations including multiple leaks, mold intrusion, faulty wiring, and structural flaws. The tenant threatened with eviction had suffered escalating harassment after refusing a buy-out, including repair refusals, breaking and entering, threats, destroying locks and doors, leaving garbage and sewage on his stoop, and verbal and physical harassment of teachers at the daycare across from the street.
Rent legislation and electoral politics
In 2015, the CHTU was involved in protesting NYC's rent laws at the state capitol (which controls the city's rent laws). CHTU members held a rally outside the governor's office demanding a repeal of pro-landlord rent laws that were passed sinced the 1990s. That same year, the CHTU convinced Diana Richardson to run for the New York State Assembly; she ran on a platform of expanding tenants' rights and rejecting real-estate money. Richarson won overwhelmingly on the Working Families Party line. Cea Weaver, a tenant advocate who helped found the CHTU, helped craft the pledge to reject real-estate money and convinced Richardson to sign. In 2020, Phara Souffrant Forrest was elected to New York's 57th State Assembly district; she had joined the CHTU in 2017 to organize the tenants in her building. Her campaign was supported by the Democratic Socialists of America and she ran on a platform of tenant rights, education, immigration rights, climate change, and health care.
From December 2021 to January 2022, the CHTU and other organizations—including Brooklyn Eviction Defense, Flatbush Tenant Coalition, the NYC Democratic Socialists of America, and Housing Justice for All—organized marches to push for the eviction moratorium to be extended from January 15 to May 31, 2022. They also called for a permanent end to winter evictions and the passage of the "Good Cause" Bill, which would prevent landlords from removing tenants without a court order, cap rent increases at 3%, and permit tenants to challenge unfair increases. One march began at the Manhattan Housing Court, stopped at the State Assembly office, and ended at Trinity Church, where the organizers asked the clergy to sign a letter supporting the reforms. Another march started at the Brooklyn Housing Court and went to the Manhattan Housing Court, stopping along the way to protest law firm Slochowsky and Slochowsky for representing landlords known for their high number of eviction cases. An organizer with the CHTU said the CHTU believed the Good Clause eviction protection is important but doesn't go far enough as approximately 200,000 people, including tenants in 5 buildings represented by the CHTU, would be unprotected due to missing rent payments.
Protests against building developments