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Bay Area Housing Rights

This guide was inspired by the 4th Annual USF Critical Diversity Studies Forum: Dis/Placements.

We Fight, We Win: Tenant Victories

San Francisco Organizations

  • AIDS Housing Alliance believes in a world where all people have a safe, decent and affordable home. Toward that vision we prevent homelessness for people with HIV/AIDS by protecting the housing we already have, providing resources to secure new housing, and promoting public policy to expand opportunity for all. 
  • Anti-Eviction Mapping Project is a data-visualization, data analysis, and digital storytelling collective documenting the dispossession of San Francisco Bay Area residents. The project seeks to de-isolate those displaced and act as a tool for collective resistance. We use maps and digital storytelling to make the often invisible processes of eviction, displacement and gentrification clearly seen.
  • Causa Justa Just Cause With offices in East and West Oakland and in San Francisco’s Mission District, together we are a force for justice and unity among Black and Brown communities. We provide tenant rights advocacy and information to tenants through our Housing Committee/Tenants’ Rights Clinic. We fight grassroots campaigns to win immigrant rights and housing rights and work toward building a larger movement for social justice.
  • Central City SRO Collaborative was created in 2001 to do tenant organizing in SRO (Single Room Occupancy) or residential hotels in the Tenderloin, South of Market, and North Mission with the goal of improving living conditions and safety.
  • Chinatown Community Development Center is a place-based community development organization serving primarily the Chinatown neighborhood. We play the roles of neighborhood advocates, community organizers, planners, developers, and managers of affordable housing.
  • Eviction Free San Francisco uses different kinds of creative action to hold accountable and to confront real estate speculators and landlords that are displacing our communities for profit. EFSF direct action campaigns have been successful at getting landlords to rescind Ellis Act (no fault) evictions.
  • Eviction Defense Collaborative is the principal organization in San Francisco helping low-income tenants respond to eviction lawsuits. Each year we provide emergency legal services and rental assistance to over 5,000 tenants in San Francisco.
  • Grey Panthers SF stand for age and youth working together to make the world a place where the young can look forward to growing old. Issues include affordable housing, health care, immigration rights, and more.
  • Housing Rights Committee of SF Tenants rights organization that offers free counseling for San Francisco tenants in all types of housing, including rent-control, SROs, public housing and Section 8. 
  • Mission SRO Collaborative is a partnership with Causa Justa::Just Cause, the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, and the Women’s Community Clinic that organizes with SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotel tenants throughout the Mission.
  • San Francisco Community Land Trust Membership-based, nonprofit organization whose mission is to create permanently affordable, resident-controlled housing for low- to moderate-income people (up to 120% AMI) in San Francisco through community ownership of the land. 
  • San Francisco Tenants Union Citywide tenants rights and advocacy organization that provides tenats rights counseling to members and non-members alike at their drop in clinic.
  • Senior Disability Action Network mobilizes and educates seniors and people with disabilities to fight for individual rights and social justice. Issues include housing, health care, transportation and more.
  • Tenderloin Housing Clinic law office represents low-income tenants in San Francisco in all aspects of landlord-tenant and housing law. We primarily represent seniors, the disabled, and minority and immigrant families, often as defendants in unlawful detainer actions and in affirmative lawsuits for wrongful eviction, and to address substandard housing conditions.

East Bay Organizations

  • Berkeley Tenants Union is dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of Berkeley renters through grassroots organizing, outreach, and policy advocacy. 
  • Causa Justa Just Cause With offices in East and West Oakland and in San Francisco’s Mission District, together we are a force for justice and unity among Black and Brown communities. We provide tenant rights advocacy and information to tenants through our Housing Committee/Tenants’ Rights Clinic. We fight grassroots campaigns to win immigrant rights and housing rights and work toward building a larger movement for social justice.
  • East Bay Community Law Center provides free legal services to eligible East Bay clients around issues of housing, homelessness, income and health care.
  • Oakland Tenants Union works directly with tenants in their struggle with landlords, impacts legislation and public policy about housing, community education, and works with other organizations committed to furthering renters’ rights.

Statewide Organizations

  • Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) raises up the voices of low income, immigrant and working families across California. ACCE creates transformative change by organizing ordinary citizens to take action on issues such as public education, home foreclosures and the state budget crisis.
  • Tenants Together is a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of California tenants to safe, decent and affordable housing. Tenants Together works to improve the lives of California’s tenants through education, organizing and advocacy.

Social Media Campaigns and Coalitions

  • OaklandAwake: An Anti-Displacement Online Meeting Place is a meeting place for anyone concerned about unchecked gentrification. We'll share facts, resources, events, and your stories. Join us.
  • Our Mission No Eviction is a coalition of neighbors, community organizations, and local merchants opposed to the rapid pace of displacement/evictions in the Mission, destroying the cultural and social fabric of the neighborhood.
  • San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition was formed by tenant organizations and allies to organize against soaring evictions and rent increases in SF which has resulted in the displacement of thousands.
  • VanishingSF is an index of stories, events and not-so-random facts about the effects of hyper-gentrification on San Francisco communities.

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