Be:Seattle Organizing

Mission

The mission of Be:Seattle is to build the power and leadership of renters and people experiencing homelessness to fight displacement and increase access to housing in Seattle that is healthy and affordable for all. Through renter education and organizing, street outreach and mutual aid, and advocating for policies that prioritize housing safety, equity, and stability, Be:Seattle works to make Seattle more livable for those most impacted by housing injustice.

Description

Started in 2016, Be:Seattle is a tenant-led organization dedicated to empowering and fighting for our houseless and renter neighbors, as we believe the two are interconnected in the fight for housing justice.  We offer opportunities for neighbors to help other neighbors through our three projects: The Pledge and Mutual Aid, Tenant Rights Bootcamps and Tenant Leadership Hub. The Pledge, a partnership with 40 Seattle businesses, offers 17 services to unhoused neighbors across Seattle. Be:Seattle has successfully run tenant workshops for over six years and has a strong community of renters and partners behind us. We have launched over 15 tenant councils and empowered tenants to fight against unfair treatment by landlords. We have also organized with hundreds of renters in dozens of buildings to improve living conditions, challenge illegal rent increases, and build tenant leadership to win housing security. Be:Seattle organizers have worked with tenants regarding landlord intimidation, harassment, deposit withholding, and violations of the eviction moratorium as well as tenants with disabilities advocating for reasonable accommodations requests. 

Our Programs

Building Tenant Power Workshops provide tenants with an overview of their rights and available resources.  However, we recognized that building a resilient tenant community sat at the intersection of many struggles and required us to dig deeper into the issues facing renters. Our Building Tenant Power workshops address a different topic each month and are designed to build upon each other over time. For many renters, these workshops are their first connection to Be:Seattle, the knowledge of their rights as renters, and the confidence to advocate for those rights. They show up because a specific workshop resonates with their immediate housing struggle or lived experience. Workshops enable participants to navigate a sea of changing resources with the help of experienced guest speakers representing community providers and city officials. Workshops make space for participants to be in community, often for the first time, with people who share their struggles. By offering a unique workshop each month, Be:Seattle is able to address tenants' most urgent needs and create entry points to tenant organizing and our leadership council.

Tenant Leadership Council and Resource Hub: The Tenant Leadership Council is a project that began in 2021. The advice and support shared among tenants in small group breakout sessions can be the most impactful component of our workshops. The tenant leadership council builds on this energy. The goal is to establish a body of tenant organizers from buildings around Seattle with Be:Seattle acting as a landing space for those organizers to share community knowledge, tenant organizing best practices and campaign coordination creating a space for community and strong relationships. This type of resource hub with peer-to-peer support is essential for tenant leaders organizing renter communities across the city  to learn what strategies work and don’t work in real time and find ways to grow power together.

The Pledge: A partnership with 44 Puget Sound businesses, offers 17 services to unhoused neighbors across Seattle by offering whatever they can: from food or drinks to clothing or a voting address without judgment. The Pledge works in conjunction with our mutual aid partnerships to outreach to our unhoused neighbors.

Our goals are to expand our tenant leadership council numbers and create a website/in-person hub filled with easy to find information around organizing, rental laws, and who to contact. We also would like to host monthly meetings and stipends for tenant organizers. The Pledge goals consist of adding more businesses to our program, creating an app making it easier to connect with businesses that offer services. We want to expand our workshops to virtual and in-person and host them around Seattle to reach a broader community of renters. Be:Seattle wants to provide as much individualized support as we can to renters, those coming into housing, and the creation of a community for renters.