Points of Unity

The text below is Article 1 of the GATO Constitution. The remaining articles of the constitution describe our structures and processes — membership criteria, decision-making processes, leadership roles, and much more. The full text of the constitution is available to all GATO members.

1.1 Preamble.

As tenants, we face shared challenges and need a shared understanding, outlook, and strategy to overcome these challenges. These Points of Unity are intended to unify members of GATO on these matters as we build an organized tenant movement in the greater Austin area.

1.2 Housing is a right.

Everyone needs a place to live, and everyone deserves a place to live. We need and want “enough” housing and “good enough” housing, but our imagination is not limited to this. We want a world in which everyone has a home, a place where they can deepen their relationships with land, place, and community without fear of being thrown out on the streets for lack of money. We aim to build communities and cities that are truly ours, where the people who live in a place have collective control over it.

We can only achieve these goals by putting power in the hands of ordinary people. If someone else is controlling what gets built, what gets fixed, and what gets demolished, our rights will never be respected. But by building tenant power we can protect our rights and become decision makers, creating the city we want as we go.

1.3 Housing-for-profit is the problem.

In the current system, property is treated as a right and housing as a commodity: our homes are traded as investments that generate wealth for the few. Who ends up an investor and who ends up an investment is not the result of good money management or who works the hardest. It is the result of this rigged economic system, which we know as capitalism, that prioritizes profit over human welfare. Moreover, capitalist exploitation melds with other systems of oppression such as white supremacy, patriarchy, and ableism to maintain the inequitable housing landscape we see today.

Landlords, whether they are people or corporations, have no financial reason to meet individual tenants’ needs. Every repair delayed or shoddily done, every increase in the rent, is more money in their pocket. As things stand, it is easy for them to do this. The law gives them all the power, even when it's our homes that are on the line. With the financial resources at their disposal, landlords have the upper hand when negotiating against individual, unorganized tenants.

1.4 Organizing is the solution.

As individuals, landlords don’t need us: they can replace us when we, in their eyes, “cause trouble” by asking for maintenance, repairs, or affordable rent. But tenants as a whole are the source of the landlord’s profits – and this is our leverage. As an organized body we have the economic power to force landlords to provide affordable, dignified housing. Through grassroots campaigns, collective bargaining, rent strikes, and direct action, we can force them to the negotiating table.

Effective organizing requires that we build a social movement, rather than provide a social service. Our movement aims to secure housing for everyone by shifting the distribution of power at our buildings, in our cities, and in society at large. But we will not be able to do this if we abide by the agendas of big donors or politicians. Instead, our movement empowers tenants from the bottom up – person by person, building by building, block by block. Thus we are not an organization that serves the community from the outside. Rather, we are an organization of tenants helping and learning from each other. While this work is often difficult, it also makes space for joy, intimacy, and connection with our neighbors. These relationships motivate and sustain us. With this form of organizing, building collective power and building community are one and the same.

1.5 Egalitarian principles guide our organizing.

We believe in the dignity and equality of all people, and we strive to reflect those values in the structures and institutions we build. We therefore organize democratically and are committed to open and transparent deliberation, reparative accountability, and collective work and decision making. The current housing-for-profit system harms all of us, but it harms some more than others. Committing to equality does not mean ignoring these differences. To be part of a movement where people can come together as equals, we seek a membership, leadership, culture, and political direction that is a genuine representation of the struggles of all tenants, especially those facing the harshest oppression. By doing so we can build a movement strong enough to protect everyone’s right to dignified housing.

1.6 We promote solidarity across struggles.

We are not just tenants, we are people. Just as we oppose the power of landlords, we oppose all systems that oppress. We stand with the targets of oppression, whoever they are, and commit ourselves to eradicating all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and exploitation, wherever they arise. Taking up this commitment requires accountability among our members and collaboration with allied groups at the forefront of these issues. As a tenants movement, we are especially attuned to the need for a safe, dignified home, and see our work as directly connected to struggles against displacement, land theft, deportation, domestic violence, and incarceration. We understand that these injustices form part of broader systems of racist, imperialist, ableist, and patriarchal violence endemic to our society. Tenants are subject to these oppressions on top of, but also through, their struggle with landlords. Thus, we stand in solidarity with all who oppose injustice. Their fight is our fight, in Austin and around the world.