The union tried to help, but hit a number of barriers. Normally, the union uses public records to find out who owns a tenant’s home and then identifies what other properties the landlord owns. But public records only list if a person owns a unit in a condo building, not how many units they own. That means they couldn’t identify other tenants with the same landlord.
“A lot of the tenants end up not wanting to do a bigger fight because they feel so alone,” she said.
The union is brainstorming new tactics. One idea, which hasn’t yet been tested, is to organize around common issues instead of common landlords.
M.H. tried to do that when her water was shut off. But she found that each renter, because they had different landlords, had a different experience.