Unions aren’t just for workers.
That’s the message of the Upper Valley Tenants Union, which this week helped residents of affordable housing properties in the Upper Valley get elected to the Twin Pines Housing Trust board of trustees.
At Tuesday’s annual meeting, four residents of Twin Pines’ properties won seats on the trust’s governing board. That brings the total number of Twin Pines’ renters and homeowners to nine on the 19-person board in a move they hope will amplify renters’ voices inside the affordable housing nonprofit.
Twin Pines Housing Trust is the primary nonprofit developer and provider of affordable housing in the Upper Valley. It had 565 multifamily units as of last week, with more than 80 units under construction, according to its executive director.
Robbie Boody, a 34-year-old resident of West Lebanon, New Hampshire, is a cofounder of the Upper Valley Tenants Union. They and their friends have seen rents climb in the Upper Valley, making the region increasingly unaffordable for working people.
“I have lived in Boston and L.A., and I gotta say, it’s just as hard if not harder to have an average wage and be able to afford rent” in the Upper Valley, Boody said. With that in mind, Boody and friends started a tenants union at the end of 2021.
Like a workers union, a tenants union works through organization, allowing tenants to advocate for their rights in a unified voice directed toward their landlord. Similar collectives exist in Burlington and Brattleboro.
For roughly a year, the Upper Valley Tenants Union has operated a tip line where people could submit housing related complaints. “Twin Pines is consistently cited more than any other landlord,” Boody said.
Because Twin Pines is one of the few providers of affordable housing in the region, eviction from its properties can lead to paying significantly higher rent elsewhere, according to Boody. Or even worse, “you stand a good chance of becoming homeless,” they said.
Issues faced by tenants at Twin Pines include mold and HVAC problems, difficulty receiving timely maintenance, and retaliation for raising complaints, according to Boody.
At Tuesday’s annual meeting, the tenant union showed up with about 30 voting members, electing all four of their tenant candidates to the 19-person board. Previously, the board had three Twin Pines homeowners and two renters, bringing the total to nine residents, according to Twin Pines’ executive director.
“Traditionally, a large portion of the board is made up of developers, business owners and landlords,” Boody said. “Our hope is that having more tenants on the board will provide tenants with more of a voice.”
One of the tenants elected onto the board this week was Joyce Winters.
Winters, 64, has lived in a Twin Pines property in White River Junction for more than four years. She said that she’s complained that other tenants are smoking cannabis and tobacco, and that the smoke is coming into her room, but the landlord hasn’t stopped the issue.
“It’s frustrating for me because it’s a health concern. It causes me to pass out,” said Winters, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.
Winters called Tuesday’s election “nerve wracking.”
“We didn’t know what we were up against,” she said. But after being voted onto the board, that changed. “I was really proud of everybody.”
Already, Winters said she’s seen a difference. When she went to the Twin Pines office to deliver paperwork related to maintenance, she said the staff seemed more willing than before to address the problem right away.
“That was like a shock,” she said.
Asked about this week’s action by the tenants union, Andrew Winter, Twin Pines’ executive director, called it a “surprise,” but not entirely out of the ordinary.
“Twin Pines as a community based nonprofit since its inception has always had tenants and homeowners as members of the board,” he said.
The board of trustees meets 10 times a year and hires the nonprofit’s executive director. It also has a say in taking on new projects, has general responsibilities for overseeing the operations of the organization and helps set priorities and policies, according to Winter.
Winter said that Twin Pines takes renters’ concerns about maintenance issues “very seriously,” and acknowledged that some of the nonprofit’s properties do have deferred maintenance, especially those that were purchased rather than newly constructed. He said the nonprofit “categorically denies” any accusations of retaliating against renters who complain about their housing conditions.
When working to address housing-related issues, the company always prioritizes “life safety” work orders, he said, “and sometimes that can be frustrating to folks.”
Winter also acknowledged that the nonprofit has not been immune to statewide worker shortages. But he noted that Twin Pines had recently added maintenance staff and vehicles to its fleet, which should improve its ability to respond to problems.
Winter also said that according to a recent resident survey, 87% of respondents would recommend Twin Pines to friends and family seeking affordable housing. “I do take that as a marker that we’re doing a good job,” he said.
As for the tenants union, Boody, the cofounder, said the collective has other efforts underway. But they declined to specify what, exactly, the group had planned.
“We know who the biggest landlords are in the area, and we know who the landlords are that have the worst track records,” Boody said. “What we’re interested in is developing the capacity of tenants to fight for their own interests.”
