Who are we?

The days of the meeting will be a fantastic opportunity to get to know each other and share with colleagues from different groups. As an introduction, we leave you a list of some participating groups and a brief description. There will be more of us than the ones that appear here, more than 80 groups, but we are sharing the information that some of you have sent us.

Networks

Many of the participating groups come to the meeting as part of broader networks.

European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing

housingnotprofit.org

The European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City is a convergence process between movements from different cities in several european countries fighting for the respect of these fundamental rights. After having campaigned independently for years, those movements (groups and, social movements composed by tenants, slum/ self-built neighborhoods dwellers, squat residents, victims of inadequate housing, victims of eviction or affected by indebtedness, professionals and researchers) felt the need to gather in order to strengthen this fight to take common action and common positions on European Housing issues.

EAC organizations participating in the meeting:

• Abitare Via Padova (Milan)
• Action logement Bruxelles (Bruxelles)
• Action network for the housing, the public space and the city – Solidarity for all (Cyprus)
• AITEC PARIS (Paris)
• Aslido (Prague)
• Bond Precaire Woonvormen (BPW)
• Bündnis Zwangsräumung Verhindern Berlin (Berlin)
• Căși Sociale ACUM (Social Housing NOW) (Cluj-Napoca)
• CATU (Dublin)
• Collectif Silure (Geneva)
• DAL – Droit au Logement (France)
• DAL Tournai (Belgique)
• Grad za sve (Ciudad para todas) (Belgrade)
• Habita! (Lisbon)
• Habitação Hoje (Porto)
• Halem (France)
• INN (tenants union) (Prague)
• London Renters Union (London)
• MGB – Mieter*innengewerkschaft Berlin (Berlin Tenant’s Union) (Berlin)
• Ort till ort (Stockholm)
• Plataforma de Afectadas por la Hipoteca (España)
• Pomorska Akcja Lokatorska (Gdansk)
• Pravo na grad (Right to the City) (Zagreb)
• Sindicato de Inquilinas de Madrid (Madrid)
• Stop Despejos (Lisbon)
• Union initiative against auctions (Athens)

Global Network of Social Movement Lawyers

movementlawlab.org/about/global

The Global Network of Social Movement Lawyers is a formation born in 2019, made up of lawyers and organizations from more than 25 countries around the world, who use law from a critical perspective at the service of social movements. The global network seeks to connect and socialize experiences, promote global solidarity actions and political and legal advocacy at the transnational level, and globally cultivate a view of law that, although understanding the limitations of the tool, serves to support social movements in their demands and horizons of justice and social emancipation, even more so in a context like the present of strong advance of neoliberalism, the far right, and similar threats promoted by common actors around the world.

Network organizations participating in the meeting:

• Center for Constitutional Rights (United States)
• Community Justice Project (United States)
• Movement Law Lab (United States)
• Movimiento de Trabajadores Excluidos (Argentina)
• Observatori DESCA (Spain)
• Socio-Legal Information Centre (India)
• Terra de Direitos (Brazil)
• The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa – SERI (South Africa)

Organizations with which the network collaborates that participate in the meeting:

• Abahlali BaseMjondolo(South Africa)
• Florida Rising (United States)
• Miami Workers Center (United States)
• Movimiento de Trabajadores Excluidos (Argentina)

Housing Justice for All

housingjusticeforall.org 

Housing Justice for All is a New York statewide network of over 80 grassroots tenants organizations united in our belief that tenants and homeless New Yorkers have the power to transform our housing system by uniting against the real estate industry. We are building power through mass campaigns that develop lasting tenant organizations, foster a shared tenant identity, and win exciting demands that improve the lives of New Yorkers. We fight in the electoral arena and in the State legislature to shift the balance of power between tenants and real estate. Our campaigns make powerful narrative interventions that shift the “common sense” on housing – from one that prioritizes private profit and exclusion to one that believes in affordable homes for all. We aim to create a 250,000-person-strong unified, powerful tenant bloc that can co-govern and shape the housing landscape in New York.

Urban Homesteading Assistance Board

• CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities
• Citizen Action of NY
• Citywide Tenant Union of Rochester
• For the Many
• Ithaca Tenants Union
• Make the Road NY
• Met Council on Housing
• Neighbors Together
• New Economy NYC
• New York Communities For Change
• NY Working Families Power
• NYC Democratic Socialists of America
• Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
• Tenants & Neighbors
• Urban Homesteading Assistance Board

Collectives

Beyond those groups that participate as part of networks, here we leave you the presentations of the groups that have sent us this information.

Abitare in Via Padova (Milan, Italy)

We are a Grassroots Group of Tenants based in Milan, in a multiethnical district called Via Padova. We organize some activities and demonstration (Urban Walking, Critical Mass, Sit in, Communication guerrilla, Popular Parties, Social dinner, Collaborative Lunch, Reaserch, Info Point, Public Assembly). We are promoter of Metropolitan Campaign called We Ask Home and National Network Housing Social Forum in Italy.

The Action Lab (EUA)

The Action Lab is a strategy center for social movements that sparks political and personal liberation. We provide rigorous and joyful spaces for organizers, leaders and artists to learn, to create, and to strengthen our capacity to win. We strive to build a powerful culture that lifts us out of the immediate and enables us to envision and realize our way to a just future. The Action Lab fosters cross-discipline, cross-movement approaches to enable us to lift out of the immediate, imagine our way decades into the future, expand our conception of what’s possible and build the connective tissue and collective muscle needed to drive towards that vision.

Organizations linked to The Action Lab that participate in the meeting:

• ACCE Institute
• American Friends Service Committee
• Center for Popular Democracy
• Citizen Action of NY
• For the Many
• Make the Road NY
• Mi Casa
• New York Communities For Change
• People’s Action
• Urban Democracy Lab

Action network for the housing, the public space and the City – Solidarity for all (Cyprus)

The name of our collective is Action Network for the Housing and the City – Solidarity for all. We currently have members in three cities, Nicosia, Limasol and Larnaca. Most of our members are of the libertarian communist and social anarchist realm, and some from a Trotskyist collective that appreciate horizontality in organization and dislike hierarchy. After the pandemic collapse of social activity we have successfully gathered our pieces together and now we are trying to form functional nucleuses where we have presence. At the beginning we worked solely on foreclosures and evictions but as things began being more complicated with the crisis hitting all the working people on the spot we had to enlarge our interest and enhance our struggle.

Aliança contra la Pobresa Energètica (Catalonia, Spain)

The Alliance Against Energy Poverty (APE) is a social movement that was born in 2014 to defend universal access to basic water and energy services. To achieve this, we put pressure on the administration to guarantee these rights and on large supply companies to assume their responsibility in different situations of energy poverty.

International Alliance of Inhabitants (Transnational)

Network of grassroots associations of inhabitants and territorial social movements, an intercultural, inclusive, autonomous, independent, self-managed, supportive movement, and open to coordination with other sister organizations that pursue the same goals.

Aslido (Czech Republic)

Aslido is the first association in the Czech Republic founded from below. Our mission is to talk about what is missing in social services in CR. our main topics are an act on social services, guaranteed housing, events for the public, discussions with politicians… simply support social policy from below.

Bond Precaire Woonvormen – BPW (Netherlands)

The Bond Precaire Woonvormen (BPW) was established with the purpose to claim the right to live in the city, where renting is increasingly becoming temporary, uncertain or too expensive. A risk that the growth of the precarious forms of housing entails is that the indefinite renting contract with full rental rights and a healthy, well-functioning social housing stock is under pressure to conform with the free market. As a result, the stock of available social housing units is gradually diminishing, and the rental contracts are now short-term. Home seekers are increasingly finding themselves in almost lawless situations. The Bond Precaire Woonwormen (BPW) has been an active voluntary association since 2010 and fights to keep the long-term social housing spaces available for everyone. Specifically, the BPW organizes tenants in solidarity networks, offers advice regarding legal issues and provides moral support to flex residents who want to stand up for their rights.

Bündnis Zwangsräumung Verhindern (Berlín, Germany)

The Stop Evictions alliance has been struggling since 2012 through many forms of civil disobedience for the right of housing. At the heart of our action is the issue of forced evictions in Berlin. In recent years displacement of people on lower incomes from the city centre has become a sad reality. The process is similar to many other cities, the speculative strategies of private owners, real estate and public housing companies who are trying to extract the maximum profit from their houses. Forced evictions have been increasing massively and finding a new house has become a challenge for many of us due to skyrocketing prices. More and more tenants are left behind in hopeless situations until the bailiffs come. Our group strives for a society based on mutual aid and solidarity, and organizes diverse and public protest against this together with those who have been affected.

Căși Sociale ACUM (Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

The group emerged under the name Social Housing NOW in 2017, from a campaign for social housing and prior actions against evictions and racism started in Cluj-Napoca since 2010. Objectives: (1) Raising political awareness about the causes of the housing crisis and how real estate development is linked to capitalism and the lack of public housing; (2) Supporting and mobilizing people in need of public housing. Areas of action: Campaigns, protests, direct actions, city tours, public debates, strategic litigation, research, publications. Current campaign in the context of 2024 elections: the alternative to homeownership is public housing, not private rental.

Community Action Tenant’s Union – CATU (Ireland)

A grass-root led tenant’s union with a national structure that facilitates community action in local spaces. We empower our members to organise themselves and their own communities, and facilitate ways members can take action suitable for their situation and conditions. The union nationally then runs campaigns congruent to fighting for housing rights, such as Public Housing Campaigns, and Anti-eviction campaigns.

Collective Initiative Against Auctions Athens (Greece)

Collective Initiative against Auctions Athens was founded in 2017 from different collectives around Athens and Greece against auctions. It provides counseling and hands-on provision and support regarding housing, auctions and evictions.

Community Justice Project (Florida, USA)

When communities organize, we have their backs. We are movement lawyers, researchers, and artists supporting grassroots organizing for power, racial justice, and human rights. We use innovative lawyering, advocacy, and creative strategies to advance justice and amplify the voices of directly impacted people. Based in Miami, and working statewide, Community Justice Project is deeply and unapologetically committed to the Black and brown communities organizing throughout Florida.

We are working closely with tenant organizers across the state of Florida. Through those efforts major gains were made to create tenant protections and advance local rent control. However, backlash to those wins resulted in state laws banning these local efforts. We are now exploring what direct democracy and other paths to combat this corporate landlord-fueled & funded repression we have available to us.

DAL – Droit Au Logement (France)

The DAL Federation organizes poorly housed people, homeless people, tenants, residents of shelters and accommodation centers, mobile homes, who face economic difficulties, discrimination, racism or any situation that prevents them from accessing or staying in decent, affordable and accessible.

Florida Rising (Florida, USA)

Florida Rising is a non-profit and non-partisan political organization that organizes, mobilizes and raises awareness about the most relevant and key issues for our community such as housing. Currently, we carry out a political program to mobilize the vote in the next presidential elections, and at the same time, maintain the campaigns on housing and climate justice, as in Miami, with the “Clean Air” campaign, which refers to how does having a garbage incinerator in front of their homes affect the community.

Front anti-expulsions (France)

We fight against the evictions of tenants and squatters. We firmly believe in the power of mobilization, which is why we try to create a network with the affected people to mobilize increasingly massively against expulsions.

Grad za sve (Belgrade, SERBia)

Grad za sve (City for all) is a collective that has been supporting other housing groups for years by doing projects, research, legal advice and similar things. Since the beginning of this year we have been working independently and trying to set up the first tenants’ union in Belgrade.

Habita! (Lisbon, Portugal)

Habita! is a Lisbon-based association dedicated to addressing the housing crisis through collective action. We aim to recognize, defend, and affirm the right to housing and the city as fundamental human rights. By sharing knowledge and experiences, we empower those affected by the housing crisis, from tenants and public housing residents to squatters and people in self-built neighborhoods. Habita! advocates for fair, dignified housing solutions and equal access to urban spaces, services, and active participation in city development.

Halem (France)

Born in a camp in 2005, Halem has been analyzing the dangers, stigmatization and invisibilization that people face in alternative housing, light or mobile, for almost 20 years. Through legal and legislative action and demonstrations of support, Halem strives to combat phobias and encourage the emergence of a different culture of light and mobile living.

INN (Czech Republic)

INN is a Czech tenants’ union. It is almost 2 years old, has around 300 members and operates in five cities. Our main tactics is tenants self-defense, but we also do education for tenants, media work, and participate in discussions about landlord-tenant laws. As we are a young union, our main goal is base building now.

Inquilinos Agrupados (Argentina)

Inquilinos Agrupados is an organization of tenants from Argentina that represents the sector at the national level, spreading our rights and working to expand them, in the face of abuse in the real estate market and political inaction. In 2016 we promoted the Rental Law, the only law of its kind in Latin America. This was approved in June 2020 and repealed by the current Milei government last December. In 2017 in the City of Buenos Aires we promoted a law so that the real estate taxes are paid by the landlord. Starting in 2018, we organized the sector at the national level, promoting the National Tenant Federation with tenant organizations in 14 provinces. We recently carried out campaigns to ban empty housing and regulate temporary rentals through Airbnb in the City of Buenos Aires.

Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia / Sky Without Limits Cooperative (Minneapolis, USA)

​​We are a tenant union fighting against large housing companies in Minneapolis. Through assemblies we bring together people affected by poor landlording and poor housing and we fight to create decent housing. In 10 years of our fight we have returned more than 13 million dollars to tenants and forced a landlord to sell five buildings, stopping more than 1,000 evictions. With these 5 buildings we are creating a housing cooperative where there is no owner.

London Renters Union (London, United Kingdom)

We’re a union that belongs to its members. We’re a community of renters that look after one another, using community organising to build power to change the housing system. We do local and national campaigns and support each other using direct action and peer support. We are currently working on getting UK rent controls as our main campaign.

Marmitas da Terra / Movimento de Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – MST (Brazil)

Marmitas da Terra is an initiative of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) that began during the pandemic. The objective was to produce meals once a week for the population in situations of social vulnerability. The project was extended to the creation of gardens and urban community kitchens in urban occupations at risk.

MGB – Mieter*innengewerkschaft Berlin (Berlin, Germany)

We are an initiative to build a union for tenants in Berlin. We want to fight collectively for our rights and interests and stand up together against profit-oriented landlords and unjustified rent increases. A tenants union can create the structures to realize collective tenancy rights, connect us tenants in the long term and enable a fight for more self-determination in housing.

Miami Workers Center (Miami, USA)

Miami Workers Center builds power with working-class tenants, workers, women, and families in Miami-Dade County. Through leadership development and grassroots campaigns, we seek to transform our workplaces and neighborhoods to win the respect, rights, and resources we all deserve. Our current campaigns are policy campaigns to win a Right to Counsel in eviction cases and a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights at the county level.

Movimento de Trabalhadoras e Trabalhadores por Direitos – MTD (Brazil)

The Movement of Workers for Rights (MTD) is a Brazilian urban movement with territorial action in the peripheries of Brazil, which has popular education as the main tool for guaranteeing and conquering the right to the city. Starting from the fight for decent housing – which corresponds to the set of guarantees for a decent life – in coordination with urban occupations and homeless families, it promotes a process of organization, training and collective struggle. The name referring to workers marks the social class that the movement builds, not by chance with the feminine word (Trabalhadoras) first in Portuguese, since women have been protagonists in these processes, and the movement has recognized and empowered this space for political action of women.

Movimento de Trabalhadoras e Trabalhadores Sem-Teto – MTST (Brazil)

Urban territorial movement, created in 1997, with the objective of fighting for urban reform and construction of popular power, through the organization of peripheral workers. It achieved important advances in guaranteeing the right to housing, carrying out large urban occupations and constructing social housing projects; ensuring food safety, with the experience of solidarity kitchens; and in the demand for organization and strengthening of the right to work of informal workers. It has developed articulations with other movements at the regional level (Latin America) and in other parts of the world.

Núcleo Piratininga de Comunicação (Brazil)

We are a training group in popular and union communication with 30 years of existence. We are located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, but we work with groups and collectives from all over Brazil.

Observatori DESCA (Spain)

The DESCA Observatori is a center for the defense of Human Rights that concentrates its efforts on dismantling the devalued perception of Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights – the rights to housing, work, education, health, food, a healthy environment – in relation to other rights considered fundamental such as civil and political rights and property rights. To achieve this, the Observatory combines political advocacy with research, advice and the organization of courses and conferences and strategic litigation. Thus, research and publications are promoted, seminars and trainings are organized, and popular demands and struggles are supported. All this, without losing sight of the importance of networking, both locally and globally, and participation in social campaigns.

Plataforma de Afectadas por la Hipoteca – PAH (Spain)

The Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) is a horizontal, free-of-charge and non-partisan organization that fights for the right to housing through mutual support.  It was founded in Barcelona, ​​in February 2009, with the intention of providing a citizen response to the situation of those people who were beginning to not be able to pay the mortgage and saw how the bank could demand a very high debt from them, even after losing their homes. Today the PAH has meetings in several cities in Spain and, through collective advice, responds to housing problems that are not only related to the mortgage.

Pomeranian Tenant Action (Pomerania, Poland)

Pomeranian Tenants Action (Pomorska Akcja Lokatorska, “PAL”) is an association established to protect tenants’ rights in the Pomeranian Voivodship, Poland. The association was formed at the beginning of 2023 by a group of loosely connected activists and tenants who worked together before to stop evictions in the area. We focus on working to create regulations that are favorable to tenants, supporting tenants in disputes with property owners and their organizations, as well as in dealings with central government and local authorities, facilitating tenants’ self-organization and cooperation, inspiring and taking part in direct action and mutual aid activities, blocking evictions, and running campaigns to put pressure on the authorities.

Pravo na grad / Right to the City (Zagreb, Croatia)

Pravo na grad is a non-profit organization engaged in research, advocacy and public campaigning in fields of urban justice, public goods and housing rights. It emerged in the early 2000s as a grassroots initiative fighting against the transformation of the city of Zagreb through commodification of public resources. With a strong focus on housing in the last eight years and following the research of legislative, institutional and financial framework of housing policies and housing inequalities, we are addressing national and local housing needs in a way to claim policies ensuring a right to housing for everyone, support tenants in the precarious rental market and advocate for stronger public and social housing.

Raval Rebel (Barcelona, ​​Spain)

Raval Rebel is an assembly in the Raval neighborhood that is based on the principles of mutual support. Although we are mostly focused on the area of ​​housing (taking cases of families/individuals, preparing campaigns, etc.), we also work on other areas that may affect the neighborhood, such as health and education.

Rassemblement Wallon du Droit à l’Habitat – RWDH (France)

The Rassemblement Wallon du Droit à l’Habitat seeks to mobilize all living forces so that all people, regardless of their income, can live in a safe environment and in relation to the material, immaterial and relational resources at their disposal. To this end, our association brings together associations, movements and groups active for the right to housing, with the aim of putting pressure on building an accessible, fair housing policy without any discrimination.

SAJE – Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (Los Angeles, EUA)

SAJE has been a force for economic justice in Los Angeles focused on tenant rights, healthy housing, and equitable development. SAJE builds community power and leadership for economic justice. SAJE strives to engage community members directly in the development of public policies to improve environmental health and create better neighborhoods without displacing current residents. SAJE Tenant Organizing Campaigns: 1. Right to Counsel; 2. Fare Abolition; 3. Keep LA Housed; 4. Los Angeles County Code Enforcement; 5. Development without Displacement: 6. Corporate landlords: Create transparancy & accountability from corporate landlords monopolizing the communities.

Sindicat de Llogateres de Catalunya (Catalonia, Spain)

We are an horizontal organitzation, based in Catalunya, who fights, primarily, for the rights of tenants and, ultimately, for the decomodifiation of housing on a greater scale. We exist since 2017 and we have grown since. we’ve managed to get some changes in the housing laws in Catalunya and Spain, and aim to end with landlord impunity. We know that for this to happen, we can’t fight alone, and that’s why we work along some other unions and housing organizations in Catalunya, and with other groups like labour unions, anticapitalists or ecologist groups.

Sindicato de Inquilinas e Inquilinos de Madrid (Madrid, Spain)

The Sindicato de Inquilinas de Madrid is a grassroots organization dedicated to defending the rights of tenants and fighting against housing speculation in Madrid. Our objectives include securing affordable housing, preventing evictions, and challenging corporate landlords, such as Blackstone, who contribute to the destabilization of the housing market. Our current campaigns focus on holding Blackstone accountable for unfair rent hikes, poor housing conditions, and illegal evictions, while advocating for stronger tenant protections and collective ownership models to combat housing precarity.

Stop Despejos (Portugal)

Stop Evictions is a collective fighting for an end to evictions, for the defence of the right to housing and for the collective, inclusive and fairer construction of our cities. In Portugal, most significantly in Lisbon and Porto, the neoliberal turn in policies adopted during the 2008-2009 crisis has triggered a major crisis in access to housing and the increasingly precarious labour market, resulting from the financialisation of housing, the gentrification of our neighbourhoods and the affirmation of the monoculture of the tourism industry. We defend the right to decent housing for all, the right to the city and the right for everyone to remain in their neighbourhood. We join the struggles of all those who are facing eviction or precarious housing,defending the creation of solidarity networks and the active and participatory construction of alternatives.