“My idea of fighting for a union in my building—it started with when I basically got discriminated [against] for being disabled.”

Daniela Jaramillo said she was having trouble taking her bike up and down the stairs because of her disability. When she asked the building manager if she could keep her bike downstairs, her request was denied. “My building manager said that if [they knew] I was disabled, they wouldn’t have rented the apartment to me,” Jaramillo recalled. The experience motivated her to join a tenants union.  

The new Astoria Tenants Union (ATU)  arrives at a time of rapidly increasing rent prices both in Queens and across the city, putting a growing amount of pressure on tenants who call Astoria home. Increasing rent prices combined with the fact that there was not a tenants union for private-housing renters in this neighborhood has spurred some Astoria residents to action. Though it currently has less than 10 consistently-active members, ATU includes upwards of 70 contacts across seven buildings. They fight for collective organizing to combat systemic issues that renters face, including eviction, landlord harassment, rent hikes and other unresolved challenges that may pose safety risks for tenants. 

Increasing rent prices pose a challenge for tenants across the city. According to data collected by RentHop, an apartment searching platform, rent has significantly increased within the past three years in New York City. For a market rate, one-bedroom apartment, rent increased by 54% since 2020.

ATU leaders Sebastian Baez, Noah Heau and James Carr are trying to create an organization that helps tenants come together and use collective power to advocate for themselves. Carr’s vision is for tenants to make connections with their neighbors in their buildings and then these buildings all come together to form a broader Astoria Tenants Union. He said that the union should be “empowering the tenants to have conversations with their neighbors and become organizers themselves.”

Astoria tenant Lola Telo also recently joined the union — but it wasn’t the first time she had worked with other tenants to address collective challenges. She’s worked with others in her building — they have a WhatsApp group — without needing to take any issues to court.

The group chat has been helpful in addressing building issues, including a broken front door sensor. The building super knew about the problem and he wrote in the chat that he was having trouble getting in touch with the management, encouraging them to email the landlord. Lelo said that after emailing the landlord, the issue was fixed. 

ATU leadership is trying to reach different buildings across the neighborhood that they know are likely to encounter issues. This includes rent-stabilized buildings that often face building-safety concerns and have long-term tenants. Heau and Baez canvass door-to-door at these buildings, pitching their new union to residents and introducing themselves as fellow neighbors. 

Astoria residents and ATU leaders Baez and Heau were both part of a previous Astoria tenants union that formed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but which they said fizzled out by 2022. 

Baez said that the previous group helped make tenants aware of their rights, but were not organizing the tenants or “actively trying to expand the base of class consciousness among tenants,” as the new union is trying to do now. The previous union did more work to help migrant tenants and the specific challenges they encounter with housing, said Carr. 

Baez said that ATU aims to combat three main tenant struggles: landlord harassment, evictions and rent increases. Baez said this will rely on implementing collective power. 

“If there’s a building that hasn’t had hot water or has a pest infestation that the landlord hasn’t addressed, being able to organize, help organize that building,” Baez said. “Help bring other tenants in solidarity to show that, ‘Hey, the working class, at least in Astoria, is organized and we will not let tenants be stepped on.’”

Anand Bradley, a third-year CUNY Law student in the Community and Economic Development (CED) clinic focusing on housing justice says the escalating rent crisis is the biggest challenge that tenants currently face. And that forming tenant unions and associations are one of the best ways to push for rent reforms. 

“If you have a strong enough tenant union and your building is well-organized and you can bring your landlord to the table and create a list of demands and have some leverage,” he said, “in that way then you may be able to accomplish things like decreasing rents or keeping apartments affordable or lowering increases in a way that you won’t get from a legal process.”

For non-public housing, one of the legal routes a tenant can take to address an issue such as mold or lead paint is to file a Housing Part Action (HP Action) in Housing Court. Another legal avenue is to pursue a 7A action, which results in the appointment of an administrator to resolve the issues within the building. Though this can lead to positive results, the process could take years, according to Bradley’s CED housing-rights presentation. 

Baez and Heau are also active members of the Queens branch of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. While the new ATU is not directly affiliated with the DSA, Heau talked about how the goals of the socialist organization align with the goals of empowering community resistance among tenants and the working class. 

While the ATU strives to fight for tenants in the neighborhood, some of the union members are young, white and have not lived in the neighborhood their whole lives — consistent with the demographics of the population contributing to gentrification in New York. 

Baez, who is a lifelong Astorian, says that both the union and DSA recognize that gentrification isn’t caused by any particular race or income class, but rather is upheld by structural conditions. 

“It is important for us as tenants to be constantly holding ourselves accountable to how we arrived, what impact our presence has in that area, and just continuing to learn about how to better connect with other people who occupy that same space and what their needs and experiences are,” Heau added. “And then building power around what the common ground is or what are the driving factors behind … that power imbalance in the first place.” 

The ATU is still in its early stages, only a few months in the making. Baez says union organizing, particularly housing organizing, is difficult. 

For now, the group is seeking to expand membership by canvassing and tabling. After their October meeting, Carr was hopeful. They had three fellow tenants, including Jaramillo, and an agenda with the problems they wanted to brainstorm around. “It feels amazing to have come together with other organizers and other tenants and be building this so that we can do something,” Carr said.

You can contact Astoria Tenants Union by email at astoriatenantsunionx@gmail.com or visit their website at astoriahousingcoalition.squarespace.com.