Eviction Self Defense

Length: 30-60 minutes

Reviews the material covered in the Eviction Self Defense Handbook

Keep Your Landlord in Check

Length: 40-60 minutes

Reviews the material covered in the Keep Your Landlord in Check Handbook. These are basic renters rights for situations not related to evictions. The workshop provides an agitational framing to encourage renters to consider collective solutions to common issues.

Organizing 101: Talking to Your Neighbours and Organizing Your Building

Length - 60-90 mins

• Who is this for? 

  • People who want to start organizing their building or neighborhood

  This introductory workshop is designed to answer most questions that people have when starting to reach out to neighbours about a common issue or threat. As a tenant how do you start door-knocking and with who? What do you say? What materials do you need? We start with introducing the common phases of an organizing effort to help guide our actions. Real world organizing examples at a building, neighbourhood and city level help us to see what is possible when people work together.  Participants should leave this workshop with a better understanding of what it means to use an organizing approach to build tenant power and solve problems at the local level. They should also leave with the basic tools to be ready to doorknock, investigate issues with their neighbours and map their building.   

Organizing 102: Building the Dream Team

Length - 90-120 mins

• Who is this for? 

  • Organizers who are trying to find tenant leaders, or working with tenant leaders to win a building fight 
  • Chapter organizers who want to recruit people into their core 

  Once you have door-knocked through a few buildings you get a sense of how to approach people you don’t know and engage them in the issues that affect their lives.  However, door-knocking and building mapping are just the start to building tenant power.  To be able to build people’s confidence and keep them working together in the face of uncertainty and stress you’ll need to find leaders in the building who are capable of handling such a task.  The heart and soul of organizing begins when you start to ask people to take on leadership and responsibility during such uncertainty.  How do you find the people that have these kinds of qualities?  What do you say or not say to encourage their leadership? It sometimes takes a team of persistent and courageous people working together to win even the smallest of tenant victories and the skills and knowledge that you gain can help you when you take on larger campaigns.  Participants should leave this workshop with basic skills to identify leaders, have one on one organizing conversations with them and to start a building or neighbourhood committee to sustain tenant power.

Organizing 103:  Building Majorities and Planning Campaigns to Win

Length - 90-120 mins

Who is this for? 

• Tenants who are working together to win a campaign in their building 
• Chapter members who are trying to win a community campaign 
• Members involved in cross-chapter campaigns

A small group of committed people is essential for doing the work of organizing a building or a neighborhood.  But to have enough power to win against a landlord you must build to a majority of active support amongst tenants who live there.  How do you reach those that aren’t coming to your meetings?  Who will they listen to?  

Using group scenarios, participants will have to work through many of the questions facing tenant organizers when they are in the thick of a campaign.  What issue do we base our campaign on?  How do we anticipate landlord backlash and plan for escalation?  How do we move this campaign towards winning what we want?   

Organizers will get a sense of the challenge we face in supporting a majority of tenants in solidarity through escalating actions with their landlord.  Finally participants will watch excerpts from the inspiring documentary “ This is Parkdale” to see these ideas successfully put into action. 

VTU Basics

Length - 40-90 minutes

An introduction to VTU's constitution and bylaws, and how to run a working group or neighbourhood chapter meeting. 

Spreadsheets, Nationbuilder & Privacy Basics

Length - 60 minutes

Introduction to using Nationbuilder, our member database, to upload and download member contact information for the purposes of organizing. This workshop also includes best practices for respecting members' privacy rights.