To assure that your tenants association is the officially recognized representative body for the tenants in your development, you may want to ask tenants to sign an authorization form appointing the tenant association as their official representative. This can also be a way to raise funds to cover the costs of flyers, postage, parties, etc. if you ask for modest annual dues.

Your association will be exactly what you organize ito be. If only three of the tenants are interested in getting something going, then those three tenants will be your development's first “tenants association”. Set realistic participation goals so that people won't be disappointed by the number of tenants who get involved. You probably won't get anywhere near full involvement. If you honestly think that you can get a forth of the tenants to participate, set that as your goal and be pleasantly supervised if you get more.

The first few members can get together and decide on some goals for getting more people involved and then work on a plan to expand the membership. Set a goal for how many people you want to come to your first meeting and agree on a strategy for getting them there, such as having each person contact a certain number of tenants by going door to door, phone calling, or passing out flyers. No law states how many people make up a tenant association. However, some of the new HUD resident home ownership and resident management programs require that a majority of the tenants participate to make the development eligible for some programs. Your local legal services office can tell you what the requirements are for each HUD program.
 
 
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