NAHT LEADS CAMPAIGN FOR RIGHT OF FIRST PURCHASE

From 1990 to 1996, HUD’s Title VI Preservation Program preserved more than 90,000 affordable apartments by requiring owners to refinance or sell their at-risk HUD developments as affordable housing.   Since Congress repealed the Title VI regulatory program in 1996, the US has lost more than 400,000 affordable apartments as owners have converted to market rate housing.  Click here for the full article.

2010 save our homes conference june 20-22

Will be held June 20 – June 22nd at the Washington Plaza Hotel in NW Washington DC.  Guests include Carol Galante, HUD’s Assistant Secretary for multi-family housing.
Watch here for registration information!

shelter force article features naht organizing efforts

The winter 2010 issue of Shelter Force magazine highlights the expiring mortgage crisis and successful  organizing by the Mass Alliance of HUD Tenants (MAHT) and NAHT in response. 
View the article here

NAHT wins full funding for section 8

On Friday, March 6, Congress sent the HUD budget for Fiscal Year 2009 to President Obama, which along with $2 billion in the Stimulus Bill fully funds Section 8 apartments for another year. The action closes a gap created by the Bush Administration in recent years, which quietly diverted funds from Section 8 to pay for other Administration priorities.

Section 8 landlords were forced to accept partial contracts for several months at a time, rather than the full 12 months originally promised by HUD. This led many owners to end their contracts with HUD and faced hundreds of thousands of tenants with the threat of displacement if HUD ran out of funds, which actually happened in summer 2007.

The NAHT Board uncovered the crisis in a meeting with HUD officials in September 2007. NAHT won a a Congressional hearing chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters, where NAHT Board member Carolann Livingstone gave dramatic testimony on October 17. HUD was forced publically to admit the shortfall.

Housing priority won in americorps expansion

On March 31, Congress adopted amendments first proposed by NAHT to add “housing” as a priority area for the planned expansion of Americorps from 75,000 to 250,000 Members.

This victory will enable NAHT to get desperately needed resources out to local tenant organizing groups and to rebuild NAHT. It will also aid a wide variety of nonprofit housing groups, including homeless advocacy, counseling, tenant organizing, CDC’s, foreclosure counseling, etc., at a time of shrinking foundation grants and resources.

NAHT signs on to G-20 Statement

In response to the global financial & housing crisis, NAHT has joined an international call for fundamental change of global financial architecture and financing habitat: G-20: Build a Global Social Pact for Equitable and Sustainable Habitat now! For more information on the statement, visit the campaign page of the Habitat International Coalition.

NAHT meets with NEW HUD SECRETARY

On March 13, the NAHT Board met with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. Donovan was supportive of NAHT's tenant organizing and agreed to continue to meet with NAHT as well as to work with NAHT to get $10 million in Section 514 out appropriately.

In the late 1990’s, NAHT board and staff met on a regular basis with Mr. Donovan in his role as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing, saving and improving tens of thousands of at-risk apartments and forging creative, pro-tenant policies. See NAHT's press release on the nomination of Donovan.

On December 8, 2008, NAHT representatives met with the Obama Transition Team for HUD to discuss immediate transition concerns affecting tenants in privately-owned, HUD assisted housing. Read the letter sent to the transition team, signed by NAHT and 29 of its affiliates across the country.

NAHT initiates campaign to win right to housing

Last December representatives from NAHT and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty met with Senator Kerry's office to ask that he take a leadership role in promoting the ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, also known as the Economic & Social Rights Treaty. The treaty defines the right to work, the right to social security, as well as the rights to food, housing, health, and education as fundamental human rights. Thus far 159 nations have ratified the treaty, but the US remains only an unratified signatory. For more information see the fact sheet on housing as a right and the letters to Sen Kerry and Congress.

NAHT promoted the ratification of the treaty in its Tenants' Rights Platform during the presidential campaigns last year, including in a meeting with Obama staffer Ian Solomon during last year's NAHT conference. (See coverage of this on Indymedia and listen to audio.) The campaign for the treaty's ratification by Congress is a continuation of this work to win the right to housing in the United States.

DON'T AGONIZE! ORGANIZE!

Forming a tenant union is the first step to solving problems in your building. Your right to organize a tenant union without interference from management is protected by federal regulations.

Not sure where to start? Have other questions about your rights? Visit our Tenant Organizing Resources to find tips, links, and resources you need for organizing!!