VTU Members and guests attended our 8th Annual General Meeting on November 17, 2024 between the 11am and 5pm, both in-person and online. Here is a summarized version of the minutes.

Meeting Start Time: 11am

Location: The Birdhouse, 44 West 4th Ave
Number of Attendees: 97 in person & online

Item 1 - Land Acknowledgement and Community Agreements (10 mins)

• Reminder and encouragement to everyone to read or re-read the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action. 

Item 2 - Neighbourhood Chapter Updates

• West End Chapter
  • What happened this year?
    • Strategic Planning workshop & meeting 
    • Spent the year building our chapters
    • Our big fight started against Plan A; rally in June
    • Hosted the chapter GM
  • What worked?
    • Starting the PBTC (Park Beach Tenants Collective) campaign 
    • We’ve become more visible through PBTC 
  • What didn't’ work so well?
    • Chapter capacity struggles
• Mount Pleasant Chapter
  • 1177 Tenants Collective Fight
    • Escalating campaign: letter writing > community campaign >  Phone zap 
    • Media, all tenants participated
    • We won!!
  • 12 Avenue renters
    • Redevelopment & parking campaign against landlord: 5 Mile Holdings
  • Prince Edward Tenants Collective
    • Defending against new management 
  • East 10th Development
    • Public space interventions 
• East Side Chapter
  • Cascadia Campaign
    • Lots of success: rallies helped push the landlord to act
    • Initially, it was mostly VTU and only a couple of tenants doing the work, so we decided to scale down and have smaller meetings with more tenants, so the tenants can get to know each other and build the community we want to build. It takes more time and more patience but it’s working
  • Chapter visioning
    • One of the main goals was to be more integrated into the east-side community
      • More visual outreach: postering team posting for events, agitational posters etc. 
      • Mobile Agitation Unit work (walking around with a wagon, handing out flyers, talking to people up and down Commercial Drive)
  • Eviction for Landlord Use - Abby
    • At the beginning of the year, landlord tried to raise the rent by 42%
    • “Moving is not an option!” - Webpage: https://www.vancouvertenantsunion.ca/defend-abby 
• Marpole Chapter
  • The chapter re-launched this year!
    • We met at a United In Struggle meeting, lots of interest right off the bat but Marpole is a unique neighbourhood with its own set of challenges - lots of home owners and lots of low-income tenants. Lots of rental housing in houses. Lots of new Canadians, retirees, and those struggling to get by in the face of high rent. Not much contact with previous chapter members so far.
    • Masked required meetings, focus on safety for those who are immunocompromised
  • Growing the chapter through outreach
    • Community Barbecue Event in which we shared information about covid-safety and tenants rights
    • Small and dedicated core, mostly attracting a younger demographic but wanting to draw more families, seniors, and Indigenous folks
    • Offering workshops to help get people to organize their buildings
    • Online and hybrid meetings
    • Community events & postering 
• Kitsilano Chapter
  • Chapter launched in September, focus has been on growing the chapter. 
  • Lots of tenants living in basement apartments, wanting to offer somewhere to turn
  • Effective tactics to far: community events, tabling, postering
  • Struggles: capacity and gaining new members
  • Call-out for more members who may wish to join the chapter!
• Joyce-Collingwood
  • New chapter that has started as a collaboration between VTU and Anakbayan. JC is a very densely populated Filipino neighborhood
  • Seeking to unite in ideas of displacement with VTU and to fight for accessible housing for all, but especially targeting migrants from the Philippines
  • Oppose the scapegoating of migrants for housing challenges in Canada
  • Filipinos for accessible housing campaign - focus on organizing Filipino tenants
  • Organizing goals
    • 4946 Joyce Street - tenants still facing a fire eviction, agitated tenants around their issues, build relationships and built collective power
    • Some wins at the RTB, but lack of integration with the lives of tenants and checking in on their conditions

Item 3 - Presentation & Group Discussion 1: VTU History, Strategy, & Tactics 

Ongoing question: how do tenants see the struggles they face in their own buildings as being connected to broader struggles across the city

Group Discussion Report-backs

1. What tactics do you think were effective?

• Focus on buildings rather than general neighbourhood organizing
• Focusing on tenants and building the relationships, start small and escalate from there
• Using outreach materials like signs and posters
• Door-knocking
• Disrupt, disrupt, disrupt -  make the landlord’s life as annoying as possible
• Make things fun, be joyful
• Successful going to the media
• Potlucks & frequent meetings, building relationships 
• The tenants becoming the organizers, not the VTU
• Plan A No Way website
• Tabling
• Talking to other residents about 
• Wahtsapp groups for each building to connect tenants
• Postering
• BBQ, other community gatherings 
• Bailiff blocking - costs about $10k per day, so blocking them costs them!
• Mutual aid 
• Getting to know your neighbours
• Collective letters 
• Tenants sending false emails to view vacant suites to be present for showings and share information about the landlord (slowed them down for 2 months and LL had to reduce the rent)
• We need to build our collective power for any tactic to work 
• Naming & shaming 
• Actions that demonstrate the roots in collective power: naming the tenants collectives to strengthen identify 
• Going to media - naming & shaming, addressing LL behaviour
• Sharing lessons and victories across chapters
• Being physically present in the neighbourhoods - gaining real buy-in to the places we live, bodies on the streets, on computers 
• Direct actions work 
• Landlords get scared when they see that we’re united 
• Supporting each other through the crises
• Decolonization and shifting our tactics 
• Finding shared common struggle to leverage into conversations around tenant power and collective action
• Uniting labour and housing struggles together 

2. What tactics are missing and what tactics were not effective?

• Following up with people is a challenge, being effective in this
• Get out of the group chat and make consistent meeting schedules
• Brochures are a bit out of date
  • More info to those who have to go to RTB needs to be added
• A conversation and fight for empty blocks 
• Experienced organizers can be dogmatic about tactics, this can turn folks off the union
• We need more mutual aid campaigns!
• Issues with the proper channels to engage with LLs - RTB etc. these arenas fall short in addressing the needs of tenants
• Challenge to agitate and act when there are no urgent issues 
• We need more social investigation and class analysis 
• How do we organize with tenants who live in individual suites or condos with no building to rally around
• Need to encourage a sense of urgency 
• Legal battles and RTB burns people out and limits what we’re able to do
• More analysis on landlords - where do they live? Who are they? 
• Deeper analysis on solidarity to live and organize on stolen lands and what this means for our goals 
• Strengthening the fight on UBC campus and endowment lands 

3. What is the role of political advocacy, direct action, and mutual aid in the union?

• Working with the political class doesn’t always work; they’re in with landlords 
• Politicians take advantage of our wins
• Spencer Chandra Herbert has positioned himself as a friend of renters but has done nothing 
• Money will buy influence - landlords can lobby while we cannot
• Vacancy controls can get passed with lots of effort (i.e. SRO Vacancy Control) but politicians have refused to extend this to other tenants
• Change should be informed by direct action first
• Sharing the knowledge that’s been acquired over the year within the VTU and passing it along so everyone understands 
• The RTB is useless and not a good place for tenants to end up; they don’t work for us. Even when we win it involves compromises. Participation is narrowly and individually focused, and against our work to build a broad-base of support
• Displacement for the tenants union should never be acceptable - the spaces that we’re siphoned into (i.e. RTB) serve to enforce and reproduce the power imbalance and break us down
• Sometimes we have political goals and can use these venues as needed (i.e. going to the RTB proactively) but we need to have tenant power as pre-requisite to stepping into those spaces

Item 4 - Steering Committee Report

The union has grown considerably in the last year! We now have 7 active chapters, up from 5 at the previous AGM, and many new members across the board

In addition to dealing with regular administration duties such as dispute resolution, bylaws & finance, external solidarity work, and member communication, we are investigating the structure of our union to determine how best to continue growing, including through the discussions before and after this portion of the AGM.

Be It Resolved That the general membership of the union accepts the report from the Steering Committee.

Motion Passed

Item 5 - Working Group Reports

1. ARI-C Working Group 

• ARI-C - Additional Rent Increase for Capital Expenditures, province-wide legislation 
• Physical petition, 750 signatures in 10 days, big push in the buildings and the neighbourhood. 
• Letter campaign & email campaign is ongoing 
• Media outreach, traditional media and social media content (explainer videos, testimonial videos) 
• Halloween event at an impacted building 
• Meetings are monthly in the West End and on zoom

2. Education & Outreach Committee

• Creating a new workshop with tips about speaking to the media
• Started a VTU library to facilitate member-led reading groups and discussion
• Custom annotated version of Engels ‘The Housing Question’
• Updated organizing workshops to reflect recent case studies and changes to laws & translated into multiple languages

3. Communications Working Group

• Supports with media requests and interfacing with media
• Supporting chapters to access social media 
• Request for artists and graphic designers to reach out!
• Get involved with comms:
  • Speak to a member in the union
  • Get on the VTU slack - it’s where lots of the organizing happens

4. Discussing Autonomy Working Group (DAWG) 

• Working on developing our structure as we win to build more power among tenants

5. Bylaw and Finance Working Group 

• Bringing a special resolution today
• Thinking about the bylaws and making sure the bylaws accurately reflect the union

6. Report back on Housing Action Coalition 

• BCHAC is a new coalition focused on housing
• A motion was put forward to join the HAC, and about what the union’s involvement would look like 
• Seamus and Emma were designated as interim delegates
• Conclusion is that we will not be joining the HAC at this time 
• The coalition was unable to fulfil the conditions set forth by the VTU (i.e. that political parties and housing providers should not be members)
• The TOR of the HAC did include housing providers and politicians and so our involvement on our terms would be in contravention of their terms
• The HAC understands our position and we are welcome to participate as individuals in coalition matters, as a union we can participate 
• We can act with them on our terms 
• The door is open to folks to participate and understand the housing justice landscape of the city 

7. Reflections

• We should continue working to understand why our boundaries are our boundaries and be able to speak to them 
• We need to be true to who we are while not impeding that ability of others to do the same thing
• In order for us to successfully interact with other groups we have to take care of our business first, making sure we’re on the same page and communicating that clearly 

Be it resolved that the general membership of the VTU accept the working group reports:

Motion Passed

Item 6 - Financial Report

• We are no longer accepting grant money
• Donations are up 
• Expenses are also up
• Everything is good, do not panic

Question:

Concerned that we’re running a deficit this year. Can we start a finance working group? Can we take our dues-check a bit more seriously? It would be advisable to establish a finance committee to focus on this. 

Answer:

• Could take this to steering to strike a working group 
• Or per bylaws, any 3 members can bring a proposal for fundraising working group 

Comment:

Monthly dues are great if folks can commit to that!

Be It Resolved That the VTU General Membership accept the 2024 Financial report

Motion Passed

Item 7 - Elections 

Seamus: there are fewer people running than there are candidates:

Be It Resolved That the VTU General Membership votes by acclimation 

Question: 

• Why would we vote by acclamation?

Lillian

• According to the bylaws there is a complicated voting system for contested elections, so we’d be putting forward a motion to vote on a process.

Motion Passed

Be It Resolved That the candidates become the steering committee via process of acclimation

Motion Passed

Item 8 - Motions & Special Resolutions

For the sake of time, AGM chair has requested that someone move that the two special resolutions on the Basis of Unity and Accessibility Standards are pushed to the next General Membership meeting

Be It Resolved That the General Membership of the VTU push the two special resolutions on the Basis on Unity and Accessibility Standards to the next General Membership meeting.

Motion Passed

Item 9 - Announcement from tenant at Kettle Friendship Society

Join Tenant being evicted on November 30th. Please visit https://www.vancouvertenantsunion.ca/tenant122* to send a letter in support of the tenant. 
*editor's note: this campaign is no longer active, as the tenant in question has secured stable housing away from the Kettle Friendship Society

Item 10 - Presentation & Group Discussion 2: Building As We Win

Lessons learned from years of fighting at city hall

1. Passing a motion at city hall doesn't 
2. Councillors will opt to avoid political heat by referring to staff
3. City Hall functions to de-mobilise organizations like ours
4. The city councilors with real estate and landlords lobbyist every step of the way 

The union has shifted structures to focus on place-based organizing, in buildings and at chapters. Power has shifted to the chapters and the general membership.

There is a still a challenge with siloing between chapters. 

Steering: some changes to steering, roles are usually decided once steering is elected. Steering’s role moving forward is to determine what their role in the union will be

Discussing Autonomy Working Group

• Traveled to LA to learn from LATU

Learning from LATU

• They function quite differently and they've been around a lot longer
• The largest tenant union in North America
• Rolling rent strikes happening across the city there
• They showed us a lot about what can be done
• 15 locals (neighborhood chapters), they’re autonomous with their own decision making practices, social media,
• There is no centralized decision-making body
• There is a spokes council - 1-2 people from each local, rotating spokespeople. The function is to reground choice back into chapters 
• Process is slower but the aim is constantly to keep power in community
• Spokes Council can still make statements or decisions if the bodies ask them to 
• Goal is to keep everything focused on organizing and in neighbourhoods

How LATU functions

• They have tenant associations
• Types of meetings:
  • Local meetings
    • People come together to talk about issues in the larger community, focused on tenant association participation
  • Solidarity meetings
    • Open to broader neighbourhood participation to talk with other people about how they’ve gone through their struggles
  • Facilitator meetings
    • Organizers come together to report on what's going on and share tips
  • Leader Meetings
    • Base leaders and tenant associations come together
    • A place to promote social cohesion
• Education work happens across the Union
• New Locals group supports those in neighbourhoods that are not yet organized
• The only union-wide committee is the sustainability committee to focus on finances and reimbursements 

Zapatistas

• Very context and history-specific organizing
• They have councils of good government located within municipalities but there is no government that oversees them all

Report-backs: Where do we go next?

How do we be less centralized but closer together?

• Challenges with slack but not knowing what else to use
• Increased cross-chapter support 
• Capacity building and skill-sharing 
• Increased education around tenants rights and organizing 
• Agitate, educate, organize 
• Find new ways to share information 
• Increased onboarding support 

Given the issues you heard about in the steering report, what shifts in structure do you think might be more effective for our union?

• Steering has a hard time meeting quorum
• Chapter reps sometimes come and don’t always know how to support 
• Creation of a welcoming group to help onboard and support new members
• The need for transparency and clarity about what steering actually does - this would also help the chapters engage with steering committee 
• Rename the steering committee - the committee doesn’t steer, they’re there to facilitate, resource, and execute the decisions of membership. Coordinating committee? Administrative Committee? 
• Ask membership how they envision steering? What does membership want steering to do? To not do?
• Understanding the role of the steering committee that facilitates and doesn’t steer
• Collaboration between Anakbayan and VTU is exciting and good model

How do we connect parts of the union?

• GMs hosted at chapters ground the work and it works best to be focused on a specific topic 
• Everyone needs to take responsibility to share what’s going on, what’s relevant within the chapters, giving report backs etc. Not putting the onus on Steering as one specific group (Steering) to do this 
• Create a cross-chapter position where chapter reps can move to other chapters 
• Creation of a newsletter is great idea to support info exchange but also recognizing that it’s a lot of work and requires capacity
• Increased solidarity with other issues and movements
• Knowledge sharing meetings 
• The autonomy given to chapters is appreciated! Continue this.
• We don't have a media spokesperson - we need more people to be willing to be on camera/to take interviews 
• Effective communication is a constant struggle we need to be working on 
• Connecting tenants in different neighbourhoods with the same landlord 
• Summits across the union to tackle different strategies and tactics
• Meetings to feel casual and comfortable 
• Yearly party for the same buildings to get together and bash a piñata 

How do we connect chapters more directly?

• Buddy system between chapters - Make cross-chapter connections to extend relationships and knowledge across the union
• Chapter councils - meeting for chapter reps to get together and exchange knowledge 
• Have more fun together!
• New chapters can go to other chapter meetings to learn and ask for help

How do we connect buildings more directly?

• New members in the discussion groups noted that they came here because of VTUs visibility - Postering, public art agitation, etc makes us visible
• More opportunities for collective discussion, more in person meetings that bring different tenant collectives together (GMs, chapter meetings)
• Buddy systems w/in & between buildings
• Older building collectives supporting new ones, especially those that share a landlord or property manager