Pasadena Tenant Union Awarded for Their Work

PTU receiving the award from Tenants Together. – Courtesy photo / PTU

Pasadena Tenant Union (PTU) received the “Displacement Resisters Award” from Tenants Together for 2018. Tenants Together aims to defend and advance the rights of California tenants to safe, decent and affordable housing statewide.

PTU received the award for mobilizing a new coalition for housing justice and creating new tactics in its push to get rent control and Just Cause on the local ballot in 2018. While PTU’s fight for rent control continues, PTU has shown how quickly dedicated organizers can build solidarity and expand the horizon of what is possible for the renters’ rights movement.

Nicole Hodgson, member of the PTU and one of three proponents of the 2018 Charter Amendment for Rent Control and Just Cause said, “57.1 percent of Pasadena residents are renters, and yet we have no housing security in the city. Pasadena has always valued a diverse community and as a community if we do not have a rental policy that recognizes both tenant and landlord stability we’ll be left with a community that no longer strives to be inclusive. How many neighbors who are renters have disappeared due to the rental-housing crisis? Renters are part of the fabric of Pasadena and we are your neighbors who care for and love Pasadena. Once we are gone who is left?”

According to PTU, rent control provides renters assurances that rents may increase a reasonable amount each year while providing landlords the assurance of economic security. Just Cause, they claim, gives tenants the security that evictions are based on lease violations while protecting landlords with cause to evict tenants for non-payment of rent and unlawful activity.

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