Jamaica Plain Parent Organizing Project (JPPOP)Tenant Organizing Program (TOP)
Organizing residents to fight displacement, preserve their homes, promote the development of permanent affordable housing, and build solidarity.
Organizing low-income, Spanish-speaking parents of special needs students for a strong, cohesive parent voice and to get accountability from the Boston Public School system.
Healthy Homes/Healthy Families
Works to provide linguistically and culturally appropriate services to achieve stable, healthy housing for at-risk patients of four community health centers partnering with City Life/Vida Urbana.
Working closely with a range of community organizations and financial institutions to provide comprehensive homebuyer education in Spanish to first-time Latino homebuyers.
Organized Tenants Fight Back and Win
Tenants form unions and bargain collectively for the same reason that workers do. Ordinary people need to be organized when dealing with powerful interests.
City Life’s Tenant Organizing Program (TOP) organizes residents to protect their homes and fight for the development of permanently affordable housing. TOP organizes tenant associa tions in Boston neighborhoods to protect individual families from displacement and to increase participation of at-risk tenants as leaders in affordable housing policy discussions.
"Our new landlord is increasing the rent $300 per month."
"My apartment has no heat and a broken floorboard, but I’m afraid if I complain, the landlord will raise my rent."
"The owner wants to evict everyone in order to sell. What can we do?"
These are the questions City Life/Vida Urbana hears from tenants every day as people are forced from their homes to make way for ever-increasing demands for real estate profit. Our response:
“Don’t move, don’t panic, ORGANIZE!â€
In 2001, the new owner of a building on Elm Hill Avenue in Grove Hall wanted to raise rents by $500 per month on each of 27 units. Residents, working with City Life/Vida Urbana, organized and began bargaining with the owner. The tenant association negotiated an agreement that obtained Section 8 certificates for some tenants and limited rent increases for the others to $30/year for 5 years.
Similarly, tenants all over the city who have organized with City Life/Vida Urbana and resisted displacement have won victory after victory:
99 years of affordability for 151 apartments at Nazing Court and 284 apartments at Benchmark, both in Grove Hall, Roxbury.
An 8-year contract renewal at Forestvale in Jamaica Plain, after a two year struggle which included a sit-in at the property owner’s office.
3-5 year collective bargaining agreements in Roxbury, Egleston Square, Mattapan, and Mission Hill, which limit rent increases to a modest amount.
Purchase of organized buildings by tenants or non-profits.
Collective Bargaining
Since 2000, City Life/Vida Urbana has made widespread use of collective bargaining to secure protections for tenants in building after building. This method borrows a page from the labor movement. Tenants who are faced with severe rent increases, mass evictions, conversion to condos and luxury housing, or bad conditions start by organizing a Tenant Association. The Association then seeks to negotiate with the owner for a multi-year contract that responds to their grievances.
City Life/Vida Urbana has helped negotiate contracts covering over 500 units in the last few years and been part of bargaining that affected another 400. These contracts generally last from three to five years, but in one case covered 99 years! They limit rent increases and allow eviction only for cause. Many of them also protect Section 8 tenants by limiting their share of rent to 30% of income, a very important provision in these times of government cutbacks. Some landlords settle quickly and amicably, understanding that their self interest is served by a negotiated settlement. In some cases, long protracted campaigns, and even civil disobedience, have been necessary to achieve contracts.
Such organizing has been supported by the city of Boston through designation of personnel at the Rental Housing Resource Center who mediate disputes between our tenant associations and landlords. The City Council has passed frequent resolutions supporting individual tenant associations right to bargain. We are now asking the City Council to pass a home rule petition which would guarantee tenant associations the right to organize and bargain.
TOP helped to organize tenant associations in more than 40 buildings in the past three years alone!
Tenant Organizing Committee (TOC)
The leaders of this growing citywide tenant movement gather monthly at City Life/Vida Urbana offices as members of the Tenant Organizing Committee (TOC) to support each other, increase their knowledge, plan for actions, and work for changes in housing policies. The TOC has held demonstrations and rallies every month to protect people’s homes. And it contributed huge support to the Boston Tenant Coalition’s effort to restore rent stabilization (see "Victories in 2004").
Says Roberta Jones, a tenant leader from Elm Hill, "It's important for me to connect and see the broad range of people that are in the same struggle as myself at the TOC meetings. We have a tendency to think it's all just one group of people, but it's not. There is strength in numbers. When you see that diversity, you know it is important. It motivates me not to give up, because I know I'm not out there alone."
Section 8
City Life/Vida Urbana has long defended the right of working class tenants to receive needed subsidies, whether public housing, Section 8 or state voucher MRVP. After all, far more subsidy money goes to the rich through tax breaks, loopholes, corporate welfare, etc., than goes to our constituents. In fact, more housing subsidy goes to those making over $100,000 per year than all housing subsidies for low and moderate income people combined.
In April 2004, HUD announced that 2000 households would lose their vouchers in Massachusetts in order to save $3 million. At the same time, the Bush administration announced that it intended to cut 250,000 families off the program in FY05. Local and national organizing momentarily defeated these cuts. City Life/Vida Urbana decided it was vital to start a Section 8 organizing campaign to bring together isolated voucher recipients to defend their homes.
Since that time, we have mailed critical information to 8,600 Section 8 and MRVP voucher holders. We've held 5 neighborhood meetings in Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Hyde Park, Mattapan, and Dorchester. About 300 people attended or called in. We formed a Section 8 Tenants Committee, which meets monthly. We helped sponsor a rally at the Statehouse in April 2005, protesting Governor Romney's cuts in MRVP that drew almost 200 participants.
Where possible, we organize Section 8 tenants with their brothers and sisters who do not possess subsidies into common tenant associations. We also are making links between Section 8 voucher holders and public housing tenants for the coming budget fights.
If you want help to get organized, call City Life (617) 524-3541.
Tenant Organizing Staff:
Cheryl Lawrence, Tenant Organizer x315
Rosa Machado, Tenant Organizer at Urban Edge x315
Steve Meacham, Tenant Organizing Coordinator, x310
Claudy Rateau, Tenant Organizer
Mauro Reyes, Tenant Organizer X313
Mary Wright, Tenant Organizer
As Tenant Organizing Committee tenants stand together to struggle to preserve their homes, JPPOP parents stand together to struggle with the bureaucracies of the Boston Public Schools and the State Department of Education.
Jamaica Plain Parent Organizing Network (JPPOP) grows from a multi-racial network of 400 parents of Boston Public School students, organized to increase grassroots participation on a number of BPS initiatives - the Student Assignment Task Force, School Site Councils, and in discussions with the Mayor and Superintendent.
Specific issues that JPPOP parent leaders addressed include the affect of proposed budget cuts on local schools, the impact of the loss of bilingual education, challenges posed by MCAS graduation requirements and the need for parent coordinators at all BPS school sites. JPPOP also works with diligence to eradicate racial discrimination in the Boston Public Schools.
JPPOP Parents and Students following Smithfield Demo.
Signs read "Smithfield Free Zone."
JPPOP is now a strong grassroots parent organization representing the interests of special needs students in the Boston Public School system. These parents are community members fighting to improve the schools their children attend and, to change the systems at the city level and the state level that hold public schools and their students back.
JPPOP joins parent leaders in discussion and analysis of the Boston educational system and how parents can influence the system for positive social change. JPPOP parents meet together regularly, attending trainings and workshops throughout the year to acquire skills and knowledge to participate in advocacy campaigns and contribute to the parent organizing efforts of JPPOP and the citywide Boston Parent Organizing Network.
As part of their organizing strategy, JPPOP parents have identified specific issues that demand attention, which include:
Negative labeling of students with special needs that undermines efforts to build on strengths;
The need to overhaul the BPS Individual Education Plan process for children with special needs to include real parent input at all steps of the process;
A lack of appropriate professional development and certification for all those working with children with special needs;
The need for appropriate translation and interpretation services for parents in all forms of communication with the school system;
A lack of a comprehensive parent handbook translated into all languages and explicating all available BPS programs and services;
Other barriers to consistent communication with classroom teachers;
An ill-conceived suspension policy and unproductive disciplinary procedures for children with special needs;
The need for guaranteed seats for all special education students in after school and summer programs; and,
The need for onsite psychologists for every 5 schools.
Actions carried out in coalition include:
2002 - Mobilization in support of bilingual education - "NO ON UNZ" in Massachusetts. JPPOP creates alliances with groups in Worcester, Springfield, and Holyoke working against this issue. The ballot issue is passed but the city of Boston votes it down.
2003 - Working as a member of Boston Parent Organizing Network, the two groups form alliances during the fight against school budget cuts, which is won.
2005- The state Department of Education proposes regressive changes to its special education policy but a first round of testimony from mobilized parents is powerful enough for the DOE to back off.
2005 - JPPOP is at the 2005 BPS budget hearings where JPPOP parents and members of the Boston Parent Organizing Network speak forcefully on the need for parent coordinator positions at every school in the system.
2005 - JPPOP organizes immigrant teens from local high schools to stand up for their educational rights as non-English speaking students. The JP Bilingual Students United is founded and JPPOP parents work in solidarity with the teens.
2006 - JPPOP parents hold monthly trainings to increase knowledge and skills. Work closely with Boston Parent Organizing Network.
2006 - JPPOP goes to New York City to protest the War in Iraq.
2006 - JPPOP protests Smithfield and declares CLVU a "Smithfield Free Zone".
Justice for Smithfield Workers! JPPOP parents are in solidarity with other struggles as they struggle for a better future for their children.
Contact:
Lucia Santana, JPPOP Coordinator 617.524.3541 X308
The Healthy Homes / Healthy Families program was one of the first in the country to address the connection between health and housing issues. Since 1988, City Life/Vida Urbana’s Healthy Homes/Healthy Families program has worked with four community health centers to assist low-income Latino tenants in using self-advocacy and legal routes to solve housing problems that adversely affect family health, such as asthma triggers and crowded living situations.
Healthy Homes partners are: Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center; Martha Eliot Health Center; Brookside Community Health Center and Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury. City Life/Vida Urbana offers on-site housing counseling to patients that are referred by social workers, doctors and nurses at each of the health centers.
Over the last 15 years, we have helped over 4,000 families. Each year, Healthy Homes/Healthy Families housing advocates educate between 600-800 low-income Boston tenants about their rights and work with families to prevent evictions, helping them obtain safe, stable, affordable housing.
In addition to helping families avert crises, Healthy Homes/Healthy Families has a dynamic prevention component, providing education and workshops on asthma triggers and lead paint awareness. The Healthy Homes program works closely with City Life’s Tenant Organizing Initiative so that tenants can join with others to protect themselves and fight for fair housing practices. Healthy Homes clients are beginning to mobilize. After attending one of the new tenants’ rights workshops at the Martha Eliot Health Center, 10 women came to a hearing at City Hall to voice their support for renewed rent regulation.Latinos Comprando Casa, a comprehensive training and counseling program for low-income first-time homebuyers, was inspired by the need of aspiring Latino homeowners for accessible homebuying training and assistance in Spanish.
One of City Life/Vida Urbana’s greatest victories of the 1990s was exposing discriminatory lending practices that blocked Latinos from homeownership. Out of that campaign, the banks involved agreed to increase loans to Latinos each year by 25% and further commit funds to start a first-time homebuyer program for Latinos.
That program is Latinos Comprando Casa. The flagship Homebuying 101 course consists of a 15 hours of classes and one-on-one counseling. All course materials and presentations are in Spanish, with classes scheduled during evenings and weekends, and there is childcare available to help working families attend the classes. Seven years after our organizing victory, Latinos Comprando Casa has graduated over 450 potential homebuyers!
LCC graduates’ individual housing searches confirm that there are very few homes on the market within the price range of low-income and working-class families. And so, just as City Life/Vida Urbana has found that negotiating with landlords is best done collectively, the process of buying a home is no longer an individual matter but a struggle most effectively waged by a united community.
In partnership with the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation, the graduates of Latinos Comprando Casa have formed the Homebuying Committee for Social Justice, to create affordable ownership opportunities and buy their first homes by working together. Following its first meeting 2 years ago, the committee demanded more city resources for cultivating alternative ownership opportunities such as Limited Equity Cooperatives and Limited Equity Condominiums.
Latinos Comprando Casa continues to grow in response to community need and feedback, recently adding workshops on financial literacy that teach about credit and managing personal finances. Other workshops such as those on predatory lending in minority communities, and one’s responsibilities as a landlord have been added to the program too.
Classes are held nine times a year – sign up today.
For more information, call Gloria Rosario at (617) 524-3541 x302.
Latino Leaders Making a Difference in the Community
The Latino Leadership Program (LLP) promotes Latino activism and leadership through popular education, skills training and mentoring, as well as by initiating and leading community organizing campaigns to defend parents’ and immigrants’ rights.
Lucia Santana came to the U.S. from Puerto Rico when she was 18. She had three young children and the equivalent of a 9th grade education. Lucia spent the next 13 years at home raising her family (now numbering 6 children), not believing she had anything to offer her community.
Magalis Troncoso of City Life / Vida Urbana, who met Lucia in 1999, believed otherwise and urged Lucia to join City Life’s Latino Leadership Program (LLP). Hearing the diverse stories of other program participants inspired Lucia to believe that she too had something to give. Of her participation in the LLP, she says, "Before, I thought nobody cared about me and what happened to me, but I realized that is not the reality." Now Lucia is a full-time organizer with City Life, supporting the Jamaica Plain Parent Organizing Project (JPPOP, a collaboration with the Hyde Square Task Force). She helps parents learn to advocate for the educational rights of their own children and all children, and to see themselves as potential leaders.
Through the Latino Leadership Program, City Life works with community members like Lucia to develop the confidence and skills to contribute to our neighborhoods. The program’s monthly workshops cover a broad range of topics from the basic principles of community organizing to specific issues affecting the Latino community. Outside of the workshops, participants gain real life organizing experience within other City Life initiatives-JPPOP, the Tenant Organizing Initiative, or organizing to increase voter registration and mobilization among Latinos.
In 2002, LLP participants organized and participated in rallies and forums on issues such as education and immigration. In August last year, a delegation of parents and advocates met with Mayor Menino and won the restoration of $10 million dollars that the city had cut from education.
Another high point was a massive mobilization of Latino voters in fall 2002. In this joint effort between City Life, the JPNDC, and the Hyde Square Task Force, LLP graduates registered and mobilized voters in the Hyde Square precincts of Jamaica Plain. Thanks in large part to the participation of these new leaders, there was a dramatic increase in Latino voter participation in the the targeted precincts. The skills gained-public speaking, confidence and assertiveness, how to develop campaigns and strategies-and the visibility of Latino activists are lasting victories that strengthen our community and move us forward in building a multiethnic grassroots movement for social and economic justice.