The Boston Tenants Coalition (BTC) is a coalition of grassroots tenant neighborhood groups, community development corporations, and homeless and advocacy organizations that promotes affordable housing in Boston, organized to defend and expand the rights of tenants, and to push city, state and federal government, as well as private industry to address the needs of low-income tenants. We operate from a core belief that more affordable housing needs to be both permanent and targeted to Boston's low-income populations.
We are currently in our eighth year of the 10,000 Affordable Homes campaign, whose main goal is the creation of 10,000 units of permanently affordable housing. We are also working in coalition with others on establishing new policies against the displacement of tenants and owners due to foreclosure and trying to capture foreclosed units for affordable housing.
This is a critical time in our efforts to:
- Mobilize to pass legislation on expiring use and will give tenants additional rights and help preserve the affordability of thousands of units, currently at risk of going to market;
- Work in coalition with tenants, homeowners, community developers, and governmental officials to pass stronger foreclosure laws to protect tenants and homeowners from foreclosure and developing new policies and programs to capture units once foreclosed for affordable housing;
- Coordinate a tenant-based voting project to register, mobilize, and educate voters on key housing issues;
- Launch a new project to greatly increase the capacity of immigrant tenant rights work in the Latino community by partnering with immigrant and community-based organizations.
In addition, we recently initiated a very exciting new public awareness campaign to improve the public's understanding about affordable housing and tenant rights! There is a significant need to shift public opinion on these issues and a more supportive environment will undoubtedly make our future work that much easier.
