The Mission of Tenants & Neighbors:

To build a unified and powerful statewide organization that empowers and educates tenants; preserves affordable housing, livable neighborhoods, and diverse communities; and strengthens tenant protections.

What We Do

Our core program is to help tenants living in affordable housing that is at risk of being converted to market rate or luxury housing take action to preserve the long-term affordability of their homes. We do this by providing the tenants with organizing support, training, and technical assistance. We typically direct our organizing resources to those buildings that are at greatest risk and that do not have a local community based organization in their neighborhood that can provide them with the support they need.

Recognizing that it is very resource-intensive to preserve affordable housing building by building, and that this approach does not address the root cause of affordable housing loss, we also engage in strategic policy and legislative advocacy at the city, state, and federal level.

In our advocacy work, we are committed to two key principles: 1) policy recommendations should always be linked to needs we have identified through on-the-ground tenant organizing work in at-risk buildings; and 2) the tenants we work with should always play leadership roles in determining and advancing our advocacy agenda.

About Tenants & Neighbors

Tenants & Neighbors is a dynamic grassroots organization that harnesses tenant power to preserve at-risk affordable housing in New York State and to strengthen tenants' rights at the local, state, and national level.

Through tenant organizing, education, leadership development, and grassroots mobilization, we are building a strong and unified tenant movement that has the knowledge and power to effect real change.

We are the largest state-wide tenants' rights organization in New York, and we have a thirty year track record of helping tenants become empowered to plan, implement, and win campaigns to defend their homes, communities, and their rights.

Our power comes from our members, so we constantly seek to build and diversify our membership base. Our members includes both individual tenants and allied organziations. If you believe in the right to decent, affordable housing, and want to be part of the exciting, crucial movement we are building, please become a member today.