Nonprofit Organizations
St. Nicks Alliance is a longtime North Brooklyn nonprofit that helps tenants fight harassment, organize for safer housing, and connect with resources like legal support, repairs assistance, and rent stabilization guidance.
For more, go to: https://stnicksalliance.org/
The Legal Aid Society is the nation’s oldest and largest provider of free legal services, offering New Yorkers—including tenants facing eviction, harassment, or rent overcharges—representation and advocacy to protect their housing rights.
For more, go to: https://legalaidnyc.org/
Met Council on Housing is a citywide tenants’ rights organization that offers a hotline, workshops, and advocacy to help New Yorkers defend their homes and fight for stronger rent protections.
For more, go to: https://www.metcouncilonhousing.org/
Government and Municipal Guidance
- NYS Attorney General Letitia James’ Residential Tenants Guide
- This guide walks readers through the various forms of rent regulation in New York, and what rights you have in relation to the law
- NYC Department of Buildings Lookup
- Use this link to get an overview of your building, including pas violations
- NYC Department of Buildings “DOB NOW”
- Use this link to see the schedule of occupancy and permits filed for your building
- NYC Housing Preservation & Development
- Use this link to see a complete list of 311 complaints and building violations issued to your building.
Tenants Unions
Tenant unions across New York City organize neighbors to fight landlord harassment, defend rent-stabilized housing, and build collective power—here are a few you can connect with:
- Bushwick Tenants Union: http://bushwicktenantunion.com/
- Tenants Union Flatbush: https://tenantunionflatbush.com/
- Crown Heights Tenant Union: https://www.crownheightstenantunion.org/
Books
Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis
More than 68 percent of the world’s wealth is held in real estate, and 79 percent of that is in residential housing. In 2019 alone, US landlords collected nearly half a trillion dollars of rent.
Half of the 100 million tenants in the US spend more than a third of their income on rent.
This book will walk you through the mind-bending economics of landlordism, how landowners prey on vulnerable tenants, and how people can defend against rent hikes and displacement.
From Haymarket books: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2443-abolish-rent
Ours To Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City
Amy Starecheski’s masterful social history of how East Village squats emerged out of the decay of post 1970’s neglect in New York City. She narrates with lucid scholarly attention to the bureaucratic and political hurdles that these squatters faced in attempting to hold together their communities in the face of predatory of landlord interests and of political indifference.
From University of Chicago Press: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo24550813.html