Regal Management, a corporate landlord in Brooklyn, has a portfolio of more than 20 buildings located primarily in Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Its tenants have the same complaints as most renters in Brooklyn: namely, high rents and subpar maintenance.
In March, after COVID-19 hit New York City, Regal sent a form letter to residents. “We are aware that you might be in a tight situation; financially, due to the heavy impact the Corona Virus is leaving on us all,” it began. Unfortunately, it seemed there was little Regal could do to help.
“Since April’s rent is coming up, we’d like to reiterate, that tenants are obligated to pay their rent fully at this time,” the letter continued. “In fact, we did not cut our services but increased them to keep the properties clean and sanitized during this difficult period. We, therefore, cannot afford any rent breaks now, As landlords are totally responsible for all property expenses, mortgages etc.”
The best Regal could do, according to the management team, was to offer a “one-time $50 bonus” to households that paid on time in full – a small subsidy, functionally, for the tenants least in need. Regal tenants dispute the landlord’s claim of expanded cleaning services, but either way, many of them weren’t going to pay: after losing their jobs, they simply didn’t have the resources.
A Regal tenant, who asked to remain anonymous, noted that, while his own work had been “affected,” the earnings of one of his roommates had dried up to such an extent that they had fled the city. “Now we have an empty room that we’re trying to fill, and we can’t,” the tenant-related. “Leading up to April, we had emailed Regal about that and how we needed the price of that room deducted from our total payment, and they sent us back the same form response that they were sending to everyone, that they were demanding full payment.”
Solidarity in the era of social distancing
The tenant, who had “done some organizing in the past,” came up with the notion of forming a tenant union, which he called the Regal Tenants Council (RTC). He approached some of his neighbors, whom he’d never met, and they volunteered to help get the concept off the ground.
“Some of us went around and knocked on doors, wearing masks and keeping a six-foot distance and using hand sanitizer as well, but still making contact and speaking to people and actually getting to hear what’s going on with them and also getting to express what the power of banding together can be at this moment,” the organizer recalled.
The campaign wasn’t limited to one building – the tenants visited Regal properties all over Brooklyn. “People were really on board with the idea of starting a tenant council for this crisis and beyond,” the organizer described. “If a landlord has a large number of buildings, it only makes sense that folks be able to speak to the needs that they have when these large development companies, these large LLCs, are commonly not even considering them.”
Tenant unions, also known as tenants associations or TAs, serve as a collective voice for renters who may desire protection from unsafe living conditions, unjust evictions, or rent hikes. Anyone can start one.
“Things moved pretty quickly,” the organizer said. Before long, the RTC had a group chat, a weekly Zoom call, and a shared Google Drive.
“It’s been a noticeable difference, organizing through digital means,” the tenant observed. “That said, it’s proved to be not a stumbling block as much as I thought it would be. You still need to be in contact with each other and keep up with each other.”
Let’s make a deal
The RTC collaborated on a list of demands intended to protect residents who, to varying degrees, had lost the means to pay rent. These included a universal rent abatement of 50 per cent across all units, a pause on late fees, a complete rent waiver and forgiveness for tenants especially affected by COVID-19 (as established by a submitted attestation form), and guaranteed lease renewals.
On April 30, Regal Management received a letter signed by 123 leaseholders, representing 58 units in 16 buildings. “We will not go hungry or forgo medical attention to pay rent,” it stated.
The letter promised that if the landlord did not accede to its demands, the tenants – including those who were still financially solvent – would withhold all rent. It urged Regal to make use of “small business relief aid” and “opportunities for landlords to restructure and renegotiate the terms of their mortgages” to compensate for the proposed reductions in payments. By the organizer’s account, Regal didn’t take it well.
“They immediately reacted by attempting to harass tenants,” he alleged. “They came around within the hour. They sent the building manager around to several apartments to knock on the door, trying to find out who had started this, and trying under false pretences to get into the apartments, saying they were looking into maintenance issues and things like this.”
Later on, the landlord directed texts and phone calls to some of the signatories. On May 6, the RTC responded with an “official notice that you must immediately cease such aforementioned behavior and all acts that constitute harassment and intimidation under the Real Property Law and the NYC Administrative Code. Such harassment may be subject to civil penalties.”
Heads in the sand
For a landlord, avoidance can be as powerful a tool as open hostility. Ultimately, Regal’s representatives emailed the rent strikers with a promise to “make every effort to discuss in a friendly manner on how to satisfy and ease your rent burden” (which the landlord had declined to do upon request in March), but they refused to acknowledge the formation of the tenant union.
“This is a tactic used by landlords to try to break the links and get individuals to start doing their own mini-negotiation,” the organizer explained. “That would presumably be only minor concessions, compared to what we’re asking for as a collective, and won’t keep those who can’t pay at all safe.”
Subsequent emails from Regal’s team acknowledged the RTC only insofar as to assert “that they don’t recognize the tenants association as being valid. They’ll only communicate with you individually.” Tenants fielding inquiries pointed Regal to the official email account of the RTC, which so far sits empty.
Achieving recognition may be the hardest hurdle to clear for most tenant unions. While laws protect the act of tenant organizing, those laws don’t require landlords to negotiate rent increases or maintenance standards with the tenant union thereby formed – in other words, there is no equivalent of the National Labor Relations Board that would, by card check or a supervised election, certify a TA and compel its landlord to engage in collective bargaining.
Although tenant associations ostensibly operate on the same principle as labor unions – that is, strength in numbers (a landlord can easily evict one noncompliant tenant, but none wants an empty building) – their informality tends to make them less formidable. Some settle for operating primarily as social clubs and community information hubs.
The Regal organizer proudly noted that the RTC, too, had strengthened ties among neighbors and built relationships in buildings where, previously, “nobody knew each other.” But its members still have bigger dreams.
“Our hopes are that they come to the bargaining table,” the organizer said. “We’re not asking for anything more than what is the necessity for basic human decency and justice to be seen here.”
A busy period at SWBTU
Balanda Joachim, a community organizer at the nonprofit Carroll Gardens Association, heads the Southwest Brooklyn Tenant Union, an umbrella organization for “about five” small TAs in buildings in neighborhoods like Red Hook and Boerum Hill. Its usual monthly meetings have become weekly Zoom calls during COVID-19.
“We’ve been supporting folks, giving them information in regard to what’s happening on the state level, and also helping them in their own buildings,” Joachim said. Since the coronavirus, she’s observed an increase in tenant militancy not only among renters with empty bank accounts but also among those whose landlords have long ignored their requests for repairs.
“I would say, on my radar, a good five to eight TAs are new and because of this have formed,” Joachim reported. Only one of TAs with which she’s in contact, however, has successfully initiated collective negotiations for abatements with its landlord.
Elsewhere, letters have been ignored and demands rejected. “These things take time,” said Joachim, who noted that she’d heard some success stories from “other groups in Brooklyn, but those are groups who’ve been organizing a little longer.”
Joachim acknowledged the challenge of persuading tenants to hold the line in a rent strike. Had she ever seen a TA that had successfully sustained mass noncompliance even among tenants who could afford to pay?
“Successfully done it? No,” she admitted. Under COVID-19, so many tenants can’t pay rent that, in many buildings, rent strikes take place by default, but their power to win concessions lies in withholding that which might – given those concessions – be granted.
“This is a time for folks to fight, and in some places, it’s reluctant: we need folks to stand in solidarity, and they aren’t, necessarily,” Joachim lamented. (The RTC, however, has affirmed knowledge of tenants who’ve withheld rent by choice, not by necessity.)
Until June 20, Governor Cuomo’s eviction moratorium protects all rent strikers – accidental or otherwise. After that, the moratorium will continue in a weakened form until August 20, defending only tenants who can prove “financial hardship” on account of the coronavirus.
Activists are pressuring Cuomo and the New York State Legislature to cancel rent statewide for the duration of the crisis. To this end, small tenant unions and large political organizations within the Housing Justice for All movement have worked hand-in-hand. “I think that making housing a human right can only happen through people starting to organize their own tenants associations to put pressure not just on their landlords but also on politicians, beyond this crisis and during this crisis as well,” the Regal tenant commented.
The RTC expects to stick around for a long time. For tenant advocates, a legacy of vigorous TAs established all across New York City could be a small silver lining to the coronavirus, but Joachim isn’t totally sure what will happen once the crisis has ended.
“Folks are working together and coming together, and it’s cool, and it’s fun,” she said. “Will they last after the pandemic? That is the question. I only say that speaking from an organizing perspective – understanding that this fight doesn’t end. I think for the most part they will continue, but I guess it’s a matter of how and under what circumstances.”
In conclusion, she struck a positive note. “Overall, I think it’s just been a really good response, especially because a lot of people are learning more about their rights as tenants, understanding that they do have rights, and it really makes them want to push forward.”
