Here’s Video of Our Debate
Missed the debate? CCTV was kind enough to video!
Blog
Burlington City Council Questionnaire on Housing
Please check out our Burlington Council Candidate questionnaire in preparation for our housing debate tomorrow night! 6:30pm at City Hall. Free food, families welcome to attend.
Burlington Tenant Union’s Short-Term Demands to City Council
Recently the Community Development and Revitalization Committee was tasked with bringing ‘tenant protections’ to the city council. So members of the BTU got together and wrote some attainable, shorter-term demands. Please click the link below.
Our 5 larger demands:
- Increasing the Power and Scope of the Housing Board of Review
- A Code Enforcement Department That Works for Tenants
- Enacting Rent Control
- Enacting Just Cause Evictions
- Safe Parking, Safe Camping
Our 4 smaller demands:
- Ban the Box
- Increase the penalty on all improperly withheld security deposits
- Expand the retaliatory eviction ‘clock’
- Publicize the database of landlords, Certificate of Compliance, rental registration, and code violations
BTU Summit – What Did We Talk About?
Below are the many different conversations and ideas shared at the Burlington Tenants Union Summit back in November. Comment on what you’d like to see/help us with!
What’s most important short-term (end of session)
- Landlord licensing/database (ratemylandlord)
- Utility costs, etc
- Educate on rights, those with disabilities, simple English on govt and BTU docs
- Leases in different languages (common app)
- Income-based rent
- Rent Control
- Tenant Reference Support
- Tenant Walkthroughs + check out problems (without code enforcement)
- Moving parties and support during evictions
- Support tenants to reduce stress during evicted
- Funding for public housing/housing stock
- Housing that’s carbon neutral
BTU Disrupts Democratic Caucus as Mayor Weinberger Lies about…
Charles Winkleman of the Burlington Tenants Union led the protest with FaRied Munarsyah, the organizer of Proposition Zero, a grassroots group that wants to give residents the power to get binding questions on the ballot. Questions that currently make it onto the ballot by way of a citizen-led petition are considered nonbinding, meaning the council is not required to act.
In a press release issued before the caucus, the protesters said they aimed to call attention to “collusion and corruption” in Burlington Democratic politics.
Read more “BTU Disrupts Democratic Caucus as Mayor Weinberger Lies about BTU”
New Year, More Awesome
Hello fellow renters! We have missed you over the holidays, however we are excited to share a few new events including a City Council Housing Debate! More details to follow soon. In the meantime, enjoy this recap from WAMC about union members disrupting the Mayor’s ‘Housing Summit’.
Here’s our Summit Packet
Couldn’t make it to the summit but want to know what we talked about? Here’s some info we passed out!
November’s Tenant Union Summit + Organizing Training a Success
We were truly honored that 50+ tenants chose to spend several hours of their Sunday with us discussing tenant rights and the insecurity that we as renters face daily. Below are some photos from the event; faces and named withheld to protect renters from retaliation. Special thanks to Food Not Bombs Burlington for feeding all of us 🙂
Listen To Our Interview with UVMtv!
We had the opportunity to sit down recently with UVMtv and discuss some rights that Burlington renters have, why we are hosting a tenant summit on November 3rd, why we are organizing tenant power in Burlington, and how we can achieve housing as a human right.
