NEW HAVEN and DETROIT—The struggle over who controls the roof over a worker’s head erupted into open confrontation on the steps of New Haven City Hall last Thursday, as a newly formed public tenants union at Sunset Ridge Apartments faced down a landlord-backed “counter-demonstration.” The response by the landlord, Capital Reality, which included counter-protestors, police presence, and a union-busting law firm, highlights the growing battle between private equity and working-class renters in a national tenant organizing drive.
The action places these Sunset Ridge tenants on the front lines of a groundbreaking, multi-state campaign that is demonstrating to the working class how to build grassroots power to challenge corporate landlords. The Tenant Union Federation (TUF) now represents over 1,000 households collectively demanding accountability from Capital Realty principals Moshe Eichler and Sam Horowitz, whose firm owns a staggering 14,000 units of federally subsidized housing across 28 states.
The press conference, which featured supportive remarks from New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker who affirmed tenants’ right to organize, was nearly concluded when it was interrupted by a group of approximately ten individuals led by Alejandro De Frutos, a New York resident and landlord. De Frutos, clad in a designer jacket retailing for over $2,000, claimed inconsistently to be a Sunset Ridge tenant and declared himself “the organizer” of an opposition group.
The scene laid bare the tactics of the landlords and the capitalist class. De Frutos, alternating between hurling ad-hominem attacks and blasting an emergency siren through a megaphone, was flanked by individuals holding color-printed signs with allegations against CTTU leaders. Many in his group appeared confused about their role; some wandered off before the confrontation ended.
“One of them was our service coordinator, Karen,” said a tenant from Capital Realty’s Park Ridge complex, who was present in solidarity. “This was 2:30, 3 p.m. She was on the clock. Who was at our building? No one when we got back.”
In the face of this provocation, the tenants’ union did not retreat. A contingent of union members met the disruption with pro-union chants. “Who’s got the power? We’ve got the power! What kind of power? Union power!” they shouted, their voices rising above the landlord’s siren.
When police ordered both sides to cease using megaphones, the landlord’s group began to disperse, while the tenants’ union continued chanting in unison, their solidarity unbroken.
Regrouping on the City Hall steps, the union heard from Sunset Ridge leader Tawana Galbrath, who has faced retaliation since the union went public. “I’m going to continue to stand on the Union’s side. Even when I leave, I will continue to stand on their side…because the people of this Union are my friends. The other people are not my friends,” Galbrath stated, her words a clear rebuke of the landlord’s attempt to sow division.
The clarity of the union’s purpose was further emphasized by leader Cynthia Vega-Viera, who addressed Capital Realty’s Eichler directly: “Don’t be a chicken…come to the table and negotiate with us.”
Solidarity from Detroit to Connecticut
The struggle in New Haven is not isolated but part of a national campaign. As the press conference unfolded, tenants at River Pointe Towers in Detroit, also owned by Capital Realty, held a solidarity rally. Initially planned for outside, the action was moved indoors after Detroit Police cars were observed monitoring the property—a tactic tenants suspect was orchestrated by management to intimidate them.
Roughly twenty tenants gathered in the community room to listen live to the speeches from their fellow union members in Connecticut. This campaign marks one of the first times in modern history that tenants are engaging in coordinated bargaining against a single corporate landlord across state lines. They are breaking down the geographic isolation that so often keeps renters powerless.
Speakers in Detroit connected the immediate fight for housing to the broader struggle against the capitalist system.
Mike Shane of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition linked the tenant fight to the struggle against racism and war. “All that money that is wasted in D.C. for the Pentagon, used to start wars in our name that we have no business being in, could be spent here on affordable housing,” Shane said. “We say no to war because we know that those resources we spend on death and destruction would be better served for Detroiters here at home.”
Steve Rimmer, lead organizer of the Detroit Tenants Union, stated plainly, the capitalist class and the landlords “treat us all the same. We have to be organized, and we have to organize ourselves so they can’t take back anything that we fought for and won.”
For the tenants, many of them seniors, the union is a matter of survival. “We’re serious about this union. This is our last stop,” said Teresa McCormick, a member of the River Pointe Tenants Union. “We can’t go anywhere else. We can’t afford it. So let’s fight for what we got and not give up!”
The day’s events, from the confrontation in New Haven to the solidarity in Detroit, Kansas City, and Montana, signal a new phase in the tenant movement. Workers are not only demanding better conditions but are building their own class-wide institutions to challenge the very right of landlords to profit from their basic human need for shelter.
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