ABOUT US
The Sonoma County Tenants Union (SCTU) builds tenant power through embedding anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and intersectional feminist principles in our work in solidarity with other movements for collective organizing. We strive for transformative change around housing rights, practices, and policies, and thus elevate the experiences, knowledge, and needs of those most affected by our current systems: low-income people of color, people with disabilities, trans and queer people, undocumented people, and unhoused people.
OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES
We actively transform and abolish current housing policies and practices that are rooted in white supremacist systems that continue to exploit and oppress people of color and indigenous people.
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We work to change the dominant narratives around property and housing rights to expand the realm of possibility for what housing means – to ​include​ more communal land ownership and living arrangements, including community land trusts.
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We demand reparations for the land that has been stolen from indigenous peoples in Sonoma County.
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We recognize that housing is not an isolated issue in people’s lives, and thus collaborate to build collective power with movements for environmental justice, racial justice, public health justice, trans and queer liberation, and indigenous sovereignty.
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We believe that all evictions are acts of state-supported violence and resist them through direct action and fighting the power of landlords in eviction courts. We resist all efforts to use law enforcement to remove people from their homes.
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We actively support safe housing options for displaced members of our community and collaborate with housing activists to address homelessness.
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We support tenants through direct action, mutual aid, shared resources, and other forms of collective organizing.
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We advocate for policies and actions that stabilize rents in proportion to people’s income.
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We provide opportunities for individual growth and collective empowerment through tenant leadership and mentorship.
