Building Tenant Power in the Bay Area
Regional Tenant Organizing (RTO) Network
The Regional Tenant Organizing Network (RTO) brings together local organizing efforts from over sixteen jurisdictions across six counties that fight for tenant rights. The coalition membership ranges from new organizations that have emerged as the housing crisis spreads to the region’s suburbs and smaller cities to more established base-building organizations.
History
The Regional Tenant Organizing Network (RTO) started in 2015 to advance tenant protections and resist growing regional resegregation in the Bay Area. The RTO is currently composed of over 16 base-building organizations across the Bay Area. RTO members are directly engaged in grassroots community organizing. The RTO builds the capacity of grassroots organizers by providing ongoing training, supporting organizers, building tenant power and connecting tenants through convenings such as the regional tenant assemblies, and operating a small grants and mentorship program.
Strategies
Convening
Connecting organizers from across the region to network, share skills and experiences working with frontline communities. The RTO hosts an annual regional tenant assembly.
Technical
A ssistance
Providing ongoing technical support and resources to tenant organizers and emerging tenant associations including a mentorship and small grants program
Aligned Organizing and Direct Actions around Strategic Targets
Organizing in multiple parts of the region that share similar housing conditions, ownership type, financing structure to amplify organizing efforts
The RTO is led by a steering committee that is composed of organizers from tenant rights groups representing low-income renters and communities of color from across the Bay Area
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Alameda Renters Coalition | Alameda, CA
Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco | San Francisco, CA
Latinos United for a New America | East San Jose, CA
North Bay Organizing Project | Sonoma County, CA
Tenants Together | Contra Costa County, CA
Youth United for Community Action | East Palo Alto, CA
Who We ArE
