Join Us!
Burlington Tenants United is seeking organizers to join us!
We’re working towards a world where housing isn’t a commodity to be bought, hoarded, and sold; a world where we all have a safe and comfortable place to live. To get there, we need to build tenant power together!
Do you have a couple of hours per week to spare? Are you interested in building tenant power to bring housing justice to Chittenden county? Are you not a landlord? Join us! Take a moment to read about the different teams and ways you can plug in to support our ongoing projects below.
Don’t have that much time to spare? No worries! We welcome everyone to be part of Burlington Tenants United in whatever capacity you have. We regularly need help creating posters and hanging flyers! Contact us to sign up for small task alerts.
Have ideas about what we can do together? Need help? Want to join a team? Email btvtenants@gmail.com
Education Team
The Education team brings tenant-organizing workshops to our communities, including in languages other than English.
You can help by:
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Building relationships within neighborhoods and apartment buildings to find the shared needs across language and cultural differences
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Hosting workshops that provide accurate information to tenants about legal rights and ways to move forward when the law doesn’t act in our interest
Time Commitment: 1 hour a week to research and do relationship building and plan workshops. This team meets monthly to check-in.
Association Support
Association Support encourages the development of tenant-led associations within buildings/across multiple buildings owned by the same landlord that agitate for their shared demands and develop effective tools for their collective liberation.
You can help by:
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Identifying multi-unit properties and assisting tenants in organizing together. This may look like helping host/attending meetings facilitated by the tenants, and helping them identify their needs and navigate barriers.
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Recording interviews with members of a tenant association looking to platform their stories about a particular landlord (no fancy equipment required– even a cell phone and editing skills would help here!)
Time Commitment: 2-4 hours per week to communicate with Tenant Associations, canvass, interview, and plan events.
Outreach Team
The Outreach team builds a base of empowered tenants who can educate and support each other in addressing immediate needs while working towards thorough, far-reaching solutions.
You can help by:
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Following up with folks who reach out to BTU with concerns about their housing
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Tabling at farmers markets and community events, canvass and flyering
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Running the BTU social media
Time Commitment: 2-4 hours a week to check and respond to emails and have follow up conversations with tenants.The more people join this team the bigger we can build our movement and the more people we can help! This team meets monthly to check in.
Repair Squad
The Repair Squad helps tenants make minor repairs in their apartment and walk with them through the rent deduction process. As a mutual aid project organized as a part of BTU we intend to build lasting connections with tenants that will allow us to share skills and have more control over our own homes. The repair squad seeks to build a record throughout Burlington of deteriorating housing conditions that will contribute to our unionization effort.
You can help by:
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Learning about and teach others basic home repair skills
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Creating a zine with legal information on the process of deducting repair costs from rent
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Help coordinate and link tenants up with the repair squad
Time commitment: TBD! This team currently needs more members to be fully active
Tech Team
The Tech Team is building a website with information and interactive tools. We are looking for people with web development or computer science experience.
You can help by:
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Working with us through the process of developing accessible and practical tools for tenants who want to send us or view information on landlords.
Helpful Skills:
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Networking (http requests, web security, api endpoints, etc)
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Web technologies (HTML/CSS/Javascript, PHP, etc)
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Programming (algorithms, data structures, etc)
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Ability to learn (we’re all going to have to learn to use a bunch of tools we didn’t know before and learn how to implement things as we do so)
Time Commitment: Flexible, preferably some time every week.