Autonomous Tenants Union is an all-volunteer organization committed to organizing for housing justice from below and to the left. As an independent collective based in Chicago, we strategize together to defend and enforce our right to dignified housing. We believe that housing is a human right, not a commodity! We fight for an end to all evictions, and for community control of housing through the building of popular power.
POINTS OF UNITY
MUTUAL SUPPORT – No one is alone. We commit to having each other’s backs, and to listen to and support one another through our struggles.
COLLECTIVE ACTION – Taking action together gets the goods. We will not win what we deserve if we fight alone.
EQUALITY – No matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, or physical ability. As working class people, we are equals and must treat each other as equals while loving our differences. We must work day-to-day to challenge sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and all other prejudices that divide us.
FIGHTING BACK AGAINST ALL EVICTIONS – No matter what the reason, no one should have to face displacement or homelessness.
EVERYONE DESERVES DIGNIFIED HOUSING – No one deserves to live in unsafe and unhealthy conditions.
LANDLORDS’ INTERESTS ARE OPPOSED TO OUR OWN – Everyone needs a place to live, but nobody needs a landlord. Landlords exploit us by owning more property than they need and collecting rent from the rest of us. The more money they extract from us, the more property they can buy - they get ahead, and we fall behind. Exploitation is central to how a landlord makes a profit, so landlords are the enemy in our fight for housing that is free of exploitation.
COMMUNITY CONTROL OF HOUSING – Housing needs to be permanently owned by and in control of the community, instead of being owned by the rich for the sole purpose of making profit.
SOLIDARITY – An injury to one is an injury to all.
GENTRIFICATION IS NOT INEVITABLE – Gentrification is a process led and nurtured by various stakeholders like developers, landlords, business owners, and politicians.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ATU
Autonomous Tenants Union began out of a community center in Albany Park. During an adult high school session there, a student mentioned that he was facing eviction from the 32-unit apartment building he was living in after a corporate landlord purchased the building. Before that, organizers at the community center had been working with victims of the 2008 foreclosure crisis. By late 2015, the market had begun to stabilize (though not fully – many homeowners are still facing foreclosure as we speak). However, through conversations in the classroom, these organizers learned that mass evictions were a much larger issue in Albany Park than they previously thought, and they began talking to people and doing research around tenants’ rights.
The first attempt to organize one of the larger buildings in the neighborhood was their first experience with anti-eviction organizing. Though they were familiar with the foreclosure process, in which an eviction could take years to be completed, they were caught off guard by how much faster the eviction process moves for renters. They educated themselves about tenant protections and regulations in order to be a resource for renters, who were indignant about receiving a 30 day notice of eviction but uncertain of how to resist.
Naming the project Autonomous Tenants Union (ATU), the organizers began to engage in low-intensity direct action with the tenants against their corporate landlord. They sent a delegation to the landlord, organized a call-in campaign, and when the court date arrived, worked with a trusted lawyer in the neighborhood to delay the eviction and get tenants an extended timeline to move. The families were eventually able to get 5 months to move, without having to pay rent during that time. After this campaign, ATU encountered several more mass evictions and stood beside many more renters as they resisted, officially launching ATU to be a platform for renters in Chicago to intervene and resist the massive and violent process of displacement. In the years since, tenants organizing with ATU have fought back against predatory landlords and won victories ranging from the return of stolen security deposits, to thousands of dollars in moving assistance, to months of additional tenancy in their apartments.
These successes are just the beginning. ATU will continue to grow, to build working-class political power, and to challenge the capitalist system that threatens our homes and our community. Together, we will transform Albany Park into a NO DISPLACEMENT ZONE.