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Guiding Principles for Supporting Organizations

Passed by the Union of Pinnacle Tenants Representative Council, February 2026

Thank you for offering resources and supporting the Union of Pinnacle Tenants! The strong support from the tenant movement in NYC truly humbles us. We recognize that our organizing is part of a larger tenant movement worldwide. We welcome help from organizations eager to support our cause. As a coordinating committee, we have compiled a list of ways for organizations to engage with the Union of Pinnacle Tenants while respecting our struggle. Thank you for backing our vision.

UPT seeks from supporting organizations:

1. Commitment to forming the Union of Pinnacle Tenants as a tenant-led organization independent of elected officials, funders, and nonprofit groups.

2. Commitment to respecting the leadership and collective decision-making structures of the Union of Pinnacle Tenants within the citywide representative council, neighborhood committees, and tenant associations. This includes political priorities, messaging, and decisions made by Pinnacle tenants. No member of the Union of Pinnacle Tenants speaks for the organization or has the authority to make decisions on its behalf.

3. The Union of Pinnacle Tenants is politically independent. This means that no other organization can restrict UPT members’ political speech or political opposition to policies or elected officials. 

4. Sharing or using Union of Pinnacle Tenants contact, original UPT materials and leaflets, and exclusive UPT photos published on our website or social media channels, and quotes requires explicit consent. 

5. We welcome support and resources. These include, but are not limited to, providing interpretation and translation equipment and support, allowing UPT members to use space for meetings and workshops, loaning furnishings such as tables and chairs to UPT-tenant associations, providing access to printing machines for bulk printing of flyers, posters, and other informational materials, offering transportation assistance to help shuttle UPT members, and promoting UPT events.

6. No exclusivity! Tenants who join the Union of Pinnacle Tenants can participate in as many organizations as they like and work with multiple groups to support their tenant associations. We promote dual membership with neighborhood tenant unions, local labor unions, church groups, neighborhood associations, and nonprofit organizations. For tenants involved in other groups, we will never ask them to give up those affiliations or choose between groups!

UPT is committed to stopping displacement – not to brokering its terms. We put forward the following guiding analyses:

7. Tenants and landlords have opposing interests: We oppose policies that hide this conflict. We back working-class movements fighting for human rights, including genuinely affordable housing for everyone and livable wages. We reject strategies that encourage cooperation between tenants, who need shelter, and landlords, who seek profit from this essential human need. An example of this is management managing a tenants’ association (TA), or facilitating a TA meeting. Temporary truces can happen, but they won’t alter our position.

8. We oppose gentrification and all factors that lead to displacement. We adopt the Los Angeles Tenant Union’s definition of gentrification as “the displacement and replacement of the poor for profit.” We view gentrification as a deliberate, capitalist strategy. It’s a racist and classist process that labels targeted communities as needing rescue and forces residents out of their homes to “save” the neighborhood. Gentrification benefits landlords who increase their profits with new, often wealthier tenants. We want long-time tenants to stay in their communities.  

9. We stand in solidarity with all tenants. We focus on finding our commonalities, and building tenant power worldwide. We pledge to internationalism and oppose imperialism.