Flatbush Tenant Power 2022

Almost two years into the pandemic,  Flatbush Tenant Coalition continues to lead the fight for tenant power in central Brooklyn and across the city!  As the lead Brooklyn organizing group in the Right to Counsel Coalition, and together with tenant groups across the state, we’ve:

• Stopped almost all evictions in New York for more than 21 months, with just over 70 families evicted since March 2020, compared to 18,647 households evicted in 2019 alone.   We are now fighting to win a permanent Winter Eviction Moratorium and Statewide Right to Counsel for All!

• Forced the city to make tenant organizing part of the Right to Counsel (RTC) law so the city has to work with trusted tenant organizing groups to spread the word about RTC so tenants know about this right

And our FTC tenant leaders also continue to be a force right here in Flatbush:  Together, we:

• Provided organizing support to more than three dozen tenant associations, assisting with everything from rent reductions and rent strikes, to fighting for repairs and stopping tenant harassment

• Celebrated, together with Legal Services NYC - Brooklyn, a victory at Ms. Noel’s former building where long-term residents finally won their right to stay in their homes… it was a years-long battle that Ms. Noel, our departed tenant leader, started!

• educated more than 8,500 tenants on their rights and available resources

• Connected over 2,500 tenants to legal, immigration, rent support and other services and resources

• Trained over 130 NYC housing attorneys about the history of the tenant movement, and the fundamentals of movement lawyering & working with community organizers

• Together with other members of the Flatbush African Burial Ground Coalition, forced the city to officially revoke its plan to sell a local  burial ground for enslaved Africans to a private developer!  The FABGC continues our fight for a REAL community visioning process and community stewardship of the sacred land!

• Celebrated the official release of our FTC Youth Storyteller’s “The 2020 Diaries – Keeping Up with our Rona Lives” – a ‘zine created by our youth leadership group to share their experiences as young people of color during COVID-19 and to explore the social justice issues that the pandemic brought to the fore

• Held our first annual block party to recognize the incredible work of our tenant leaders! This year we honored leaders at 180 E 18th St for successfully organizing to return home after a fire displaced 18 families in their building almost 3 years previous!