Current Campaign:
TENANT & HOMEOWNER ASSOCIATION
who we are
The Tenant and Homeowner Association (THA) is a DARE campaign committee led by low-income tenants and homeowners living in communities of color, who are facing eviction, foreclosure, and unsafe housing conditions.
THA members work with DARE staff to prevent individual foreclosures and evictions, remediate unsafe, unhealthy conditions, halt gentrification, displacement, and divestment in communities of color.
Throughout the process of working with renter and homeowner households, the THA seeks to ensure low-moderate income families in the state’s communities of color know their rights, understand the legal and other systems, and can advocate for themselves. Partnering with non-profit attorneys, the THA seeks to create equal access to justice for low-income tenants facing substandard conditions in their homes or eviction, as well as low-moderate income homeowners facing predatory lending and servicing practices and foreclosure.
In order to address the root causes of eviction, foreclosure, and housing insecurity in low-income communities of color and create lasting, systemic change, the THA collectively designs and advocates for policies at the municipal and state level.
The Tenant & Homeowner Association is supported by DARE member dues, sustaining donors, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of RI Blue Angel Community Health Grant, Common Stream Foundation, The City of Providence’s Dexter Donation and Eviction Defense Project funding, RI Foundation, United Way of RI, & The Right to the City Alliance
How to Get Involved
Contact Kinverly Dicupe, Tenant and Homeowner Association (THA) Staff Organizer:
The Association meets every Tuesday from 6-8 pm at DARE’s office: 340 Lockwood Street, Providence RI 02907 (behind the Burger King on Broad Street, across from Central High School). Dinner is provided at every meeting and childcare and Spanish translation will be provided on request.
Follow Us:
Past Victories
Just Cause Eviction Protections
After more than five years of organizing, lobbying, and using creative direct actions, the Tenant and Homeowner Association (THA) successfully passed the Just Cause eviction law in the summer of 2014. This law mandates that banks or other mortgage lenders that foreclose on a home follow the RI Landlord-Tenant Act. This means that, when a bank takes over a house through foreclosure, that bank must: accept current tenants’ rent (and cannot raise the rent), cannot evict tenants without a just cause (such as not paying rent or illegal activity), and must maintain safe and healthy conditions in the building.
City Council Candidate Forum on Housing Policy (Summer 2018)
The THA organized a city council candidate forum one month before primary elections, including 10 candidates, focused on housing issues, such as rent stabilization, criminalization of the homeless, tax break agreements with developers, and ensuring local jobs and genuinely affordable housing.
"America Too" Performance at Trinity Rep (Fall 2018)
THA members collaborated with local playwrights to craft short plays about historical and contemporary gentrification and displacement in Providence. These short plays were performed at Trinity Repertory Company as part of their “America Too” series.
Current Campaigns
Fighting for equitable development
Demanding Low Income Housing Downtown
The state of Rhode Island and the City of Providence promised millions of taxpayer dollars to High Rock Development, owner of the “Superman Building,” for a redevelopment plan that only includes a small number of allegedly “affordable” units for those making $50,000 per year or more!
Rent Stabilization
THA members have experienced unsafe housing conditions, landlord neglect and abuse, as well as rising rents in Providence. They have watched former-homeowning families, forced into renting by the foreclosure crisis, struggle in the city’s unregulated private rental market. THA members have decided it is time to demand Rent Stabilization and regulation of landlord-tenant relations in the private rental market. Working with community lawyers and researching best practices and policies from around the country, the THA drafted a Rent Stabilization policy. The campaign to pass a Rent Stabilization ordinance in the Providence City Council has begun!
Sealing Tenant Court Records
The THA works with partners to advocate for proposed legislation that would seal the court record of evictions, except in the case of certain outcomes, to prevent discrimination against tenants with a public record of having gone to court with their landlord.
Fighting Gentrification & Displacement & Investing in Permanent, Community-Controlled, Land & Housing Link to stories of anti-displacement actions:
Partners
The Rhode Island Center for Justice is a non-profit public interest law center that partners with community groups to strengthen existing advocacy and service provision with legal representation and strategy. Our legal practice areas—including housing, immigration, workers’ rights, criminal justice, education, and utility shutoffs—reflect the most pressing needs of low-income people in our state.
Rhode Island Legal Services provides high quality legal assistance and representation to low-income individuals and eligible client groups for the purpose of improving their economic condition and overall wellbeing by protecting and enforcing legal rights, stabilizing the family unit and communities where clients live, promoting self reliance, ending domestic violence, preventing homelessness, affording dignity to all people, and reaching out to groups with added burdens on their ability to access the civil justice system.
