About the Oneonta Tenant’s Movement

Oneonta is a city where renters make up a majority of the population. Despite this, our voices are drowned out in public life by those of landlords. To have our own perspectives count, we need a movement that brings together tenants in pursuit or our own cause as a class and is based on our unique economic leverage. Tenants need to have independent organizations and outlets that allow us to put forward our interests clearly. This website is a small part of that.

This site exists to be a platform for tenants to share their perspectives, learn about the issues of the day, and work together on our common desires as renters in Oneonta.

Oneonta Tenant Movement – Points of Unity

  1. Landlords and tenants have fundamentally opposed interests

The goal of landlords is to maximize profits which can only be made at the expense of tenants in the form of increasing rents, hoarding of housing, poor maintenance, and other measures to get the most value for the least effort. Tenants want to have affordable, abundant, and well maintained housing for themselves and their families as a basic human right. These different interests inevitably produce conflicts.

  1. Tenants have the right and responsibility to organize in defense of our own interests

Landlords, being a property owning class, organize and take action to secure their interests through collusion with each other and the government. In turn tenants, as an exploited class, must organize to take action with each other to defend ourselves from the power of the landlords.

  1. Tenants must rely on our own strength

In the fight for decent housing tenants cannot rely on the institutions of government which are set up to serve rich and powerful classes like landlords. We must make decisions and act on our own, using our numbers and unity against their wealth.

  1. The greatest tool in the hands of tenants is the mass rent strike

The strongest tool the landlords have is the obedience of tenants in the paying of rents. In turn, this rent is the greatest leverage tenants have over the landlords. The rent strike, an organized refusal to pay rent while staying in our homes, directly empowers tenants to impose our demands on landlords.

  1.  An injury to one tenant is an injury to all tenants

All tenants are connected through the housing market. Therefore, the unfair treatment of even one single tenant shifts the status quo in the favor of the landlords, undermining the security of all tenants. The defense of the individual tenant is therefore in the interest of all tenants.

Our Immediate Demands

These are the basic demands we are advancing on the city government and the landlord class:

  1.  Passage of the good cause eviction law with the following changes
    1. Reducing the number of rental units needed to be considered a small landlord exempt from the law from 10 to 1.
    2. Changing the year of certificate of occupancy issuance necessary to qualify for an exemption from 2009 to 2025.
    3. Reduce the amount of years needed for the law to apply to new buildings from 30 to 5.
    4. Require landlords with exemptions to provide written notification to tenants.
  2. Greater limitations on the ability of landlords to rent out units short term as airbnb, especially through transforming student housing into short term rentals
  3.  Restoration of unused dwelling units in Oneonta as housing available to tenants
  4. The right of tenants to organize and assemble without fear of retaliation in any form
Get Involved!

Oneonta Tenant’s Movement Structure

At Large Members

Membership is open to any tenant who agrees to our points of unity. A tenant is anyone who does not own their housing. This includes renters, whether they live in private or public housing, along with students in dorms and apartments, and the homeless. Everyone who is exploited by today’s housing market is welcome into the ranks of OTM.

Building Cells and Associations

The basic units of OTM are the tenant associations and building cells. Building cells are the groups of two or more tenants who live in separate units of the same building who work together as part of OTM. A building cell becomes a tenant association when it either 1. has a membership of the majority of the tenants in a building, or 2. Has a membership of at least 10 tenants in the same building, whichever number is smaller. 

It is the role of the cells to organize in their own buildings. This can come in a variety of forms, but we give special emphasis to calling for building wide gatherings that allow tenants to share their concerns, demands, and plan for action. Beyond that, building cells also organize petitions and other actions. The biggest task of a building cell is to form an association with the aid of the rest of the movement. Once an association is formed, they are given autonomy in calling for strikes to win immediate demands. The associations are self-governing. Building cells and/or associations are expected to meet to discuss tenant union work at least once a season.

Neighborhood Locals

The next level up from the building based groups are those organized on the street, block, or neighborhood level, the locals. The locals can form from the affiliation of building cells/associations, and/or the affiliation of at large members who share the same street, block, or neighborhood within the same ward. The locals carry out most of the day to day organizing work and coordinating actions between tenants in the same neighborhood. To count as a local, a neighborhood group must have at least five members and representation of at least two buildings. The neighborhood locals are also entitled to elect their own working groups to help tenants with specific issues. Student members who live in dorms can also form school based locals. The locals are expected to meet at least twice a year.

city-wide union and ward sections

All the locals, at large members, associations , and cells are brought together in the city wide organization. Members can call for actions which are voted on across the organization for the coordination of strikes and protests. Locals are entitled to elect delegates to coordinate action across the city. If necessary, this can also occur on the level of the wards. All decisions made by the elected delegates must be approved by a vote of the membership to be made official.

The city-wide union should have a yearly congress to decide on its direction.

Organizing committee

This structure will not form itself. It must be organized intentionally by tenants willing to stand up for themselves. Until this structure is built out, the organizing committee is made up of tenants who have taken the responsibility to create it.