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After hearing about the extent of Syracuse’s lead issues from homeowners and tenants, Palmer Harvey created and co-chaired a housing task force at Southside Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today, where she first served as a volunteer.

As a longtime housing activist and current Onondaga County legislator, Harvey said conversations with community members have made her increasingly aware of housing concerns beyond lead, including poor conditions, exploitative landlords and an overall lack of awareness of tenant rights.

In 2018, Harvey teamed up with Mary Traynor, a former housing attorney with Legal Services of Central New York, to found Syracuse Tenants Union — an organized group of renters in the city. The new union took inspiration from similar organized tenant groups across New York state, she said.

“There is a lot of non-education — the landlord is not going to tell (a tenant) they can call code enforcement,” Harvey said. “Bad actor landlords have gotten their way because it’s been allowed for so long.”

Today, the union holds several community events highlighting tenants’ rights and advocating for improved housing conditions, including its upcoming “Safe Housing for All” rally and march in downtown Syracuse. STU also hosts general meetings and “Know Your Rights” sessions at the North Side Learning Center.

“We believe that tenants are their own best advocates, and tenants together are stronger than tenants trying to fight for their rights alone,” said Liam Hines, a Syracuse University alumnus who joined the union in 2021.

At a March town hall meeting, Onondaga County Legislator Maurice “Mo” Brown said only 40% of the county’s renters can afford quality rental housing, which he said is “as competitive as New York City’s” housing market.

Shortly after the union’s formation, housing issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the union’s programming to generating awareness campaigns for these concerns, Harvey said. Around that time, Hines, a then-graduate student at SU, joined the union as an organizer to “get involved” in the broader community, he said.

In January 2022, the lifting of a state pandemic-era eviction moratorium left “tenants on the streets,” Hines said. Harvey said the union “switched gears” and began to focus on combating housing issues through addressing legislation and tenant rights.

Initiatives to help those affected by the pandemic occurred alongside the union’s legislative projects, Harvey said, such as its two-year effort to back a state law allowing tenants to sue their landlords.

Early in his time with the union, Hines and other volunteers canvassed apartments throughout the city, collecting community concerns surrounding poor housing conditions and unresponsive landlords, he said.

STU members are continuing to canvas, where they speak to community members about the union’s initiatives as well as inform them of their rights as tenants.

The union’s “Know Your Rights” meetings and teach-ins also inform renters of their legal powers, including their right to report issues and code violations without retaliation or eviction from their landlords.

The group also organizes demonstrations with members throughout the city and within specific housing sectors. STU also orchestrates rent strikes, or the refusal of an organized group of tenants to pay rent when a landlord is not fulfilling their side of a lease.

Hines said the union’s primary goals include increasing tenant rights, improving housing conditions and repairs, lowering rent throughout Syracuse and preventing unjust evictions. Currently, the union is working to increase the number of landlords on the rental registry, a database of rental properties and owners.

“We’re trying to make (the rental registry) tougher so that bad actor landlords have tougher, stiffer penalties for behaving the way they do with their homes,” Harvey said.

In 2022, Central Current reported that according to city records, nearly half of Syracuse’s 9,000 one-and-two-family homes were “not in compliance” with the registry — either by violating city codes, being inconsistent with tax obligations or having an expired rental registry certificate.

As the union works to push legislation to strengthen Syracuse’s rental registry, Jocelyn Richards, an STU member and organizer, said she hopes city and state officials will prioritize supporting local renters’ concerns.

“(Local officials) act supportive and they’ll say, ‘Oh, my gosh, the housing crisis in Syracuse is so bad,’” Richards said. “But then when we present them with a solution, they’re like, ‘Yeah, it won’t work because of this, this and this’ — it’s frustrating.”

Harvey said Syracuse’s current lawmakers have brought “vast improvement” to the city’s housing crisis but need to do more to address the treatment of renters. As the union grows beyond its “grassroots stage,” organizers seek to increase membership and sponsors, she said.

“The tenant union has definitely grown, in numbers and experience, at least in the three years that I’ve been there,” Hines said. “It’s been pretty amazing to see.”

Unlike Harvey, Hines said he believes Syracuse’s housing challenges have worsened since he joined the union. In March, a Zumper report found that between Feb. 2023 and Feb. 2024 in Syracuse, “one-bedroom rents were up 22%” — the highest increase among United States cities despite national rent rates flattening, the New York Times reported.

STU’s next event will be Saturday’s rally and march, which will begin at 1 p.m. at Clinton Square in downtown Syracuse. The demonstration has multiple co-sponsors, including Syracuse’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Citizen’s Action of New York and the Workers’ Center of Central New York.

Demonstrators will outline housing-related demands for Syracuse’s elected officials during the rally, according to the group’s Instagram.

“There are unions in pretty much every city, and they all look different,” Richards said. “We’re actually not incorporated, we’re a grassroots group. We’re trying to be empowerment-oriented, so we want to help people help themselves.”

Published on May 9, 2024 at 12:53 am

Contact Griffin: gbrown19@syr.edu