September Newsletter 2017
Sunnyside Manor Tenants Fight Eviction, ATU Block Party, Housing After Harvey, Housing Assembly & Lift the Ban Coalition
Sunnyside Manor Tenants Fight Eviction
The Sunnyside Manor Tenants Union continue their fight to be treated with dignity and respect. The tenants of Albany Park are facing eviction by neighborhood developer Silver Property Group.
Tenants held a press conference to highlight their stories as part of the displacement of low-income residents of color from Albany Park. During the past five years, Silver and its owner, Ron Abrams, have displaced an estimated 170 Albany Park families.
The Sunnyside Manor Tenants Union and made repeated attempts to negotiate with the owner of Silver Property, Ron Abrams, who continues to refuse to negotiate with the tenants as a group. They have requested assistance from Ald. Deb Mell, who has made empty promises while failing to arrange a meeting & refusing to publicly denounce Silver for displacing Ward residents.
Tenants will continue their fight against Silver Properties and fight for their right to housing in Albany Park.
ATU Block Party
On August 27, ATU was proud to host a block party with neighbors on the 4700 block of N. Central Park.
We had a great time with a bounce house, face painting, balloon animals, tenant’s rights workshops, and delicious food from community members. More pictures here!
Housing After Harvey
In the weeks following the devastation of Harvey, the media was awash with stories of tenants unable to get into their homes, or returning to heavily damaged and mold-ridden homes, who were still compelled to pay September rent. Landlords who decided the damage was too extensive to demand rent in good conscience delivered eviction notices instead.
Despite the fact that finding new housing in the wake of a disaster is a harrowing task, some tenants received five-day eviction notices because their housing was uninhabitable — not, however, without being charged rent for the month, though landlords generously waived the late fee.
“You aren’t the only ones in this situation,” one landlord told an evacuated tenant expected to pay rent and a late fee she couldn’t afford. In the wake of a disaster, beleaguered tenants are expected to sympathize with the landlord asking for their last dollar. The commodification of housing creates a parasitic landlord class whose livelihood depends on extracting wealth from poorer people.
Clearly, only a society where housing is treated as a public good is capable of providing real relief — not compounding problems — for victims in the wake of a disaster.
Friends from South Africa’s Housing Assembly
We were grateful to welcome comrades from Housing Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa to join us in Chicago in early September and contribute to our Social Justice Forum; bringing housing organizers together to strategize about our struggles.
Housing Assembly is a grassroots organization that is building a movement from below, organizing in 20 different communities in Cape Town. They fight for land and water rights, decent housing, education, employment and racial justice within the complex and oppressive climate in South Africa. We hope to continue building our relationship with them and look forward to collaborating on a global housing justice movement.
Visit Housing Assembly’s website to learn more about the work they are doing.
Lift the Ban — Rent Control for Illinois!
ATU is working in conjunction with housing organizations from all across the city to bring rent control to Chicago. Currently, rent control is prohibited by Illinois state law, so the Lift the Ban Coalition is working to influence state legislators to repeal the law. If you’re interested in getting involved with this campaign, please contact us at housing.atu@gmail.com.
The Autonomous Tenants Union (ATU) is an all-volunteer political organization committed to organizing from below and to the left. ATU is committed to an anti capitalist, anti racist, feminist, abolitionist, and working class theoretical and practical organizing model focused on intersectional justice. As a horizontal collective we take and enforce our rights and do collective casework to strategize how we will do so.
We believe in an abolition of private property, an end to all of evictions, access to dignified housing, community control, empowerment of tenants, highlighting the voices of those who have been historically excluded, and an end to exploitative relationships. By joining the ATU you will never be alone.
