Tenants and Neighbors (T&N)

Overview

Tenants and Neighbors conducts building-level tenant organizing, leadership training, and legislative advocacy at the city, state, and federal levels. ¹

The organization was among the tenant groups that pressed for two of the largest expansions of New York tenant law in a generation: the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 and the Good Cause Eviction law enacted in 2024. It carried out much of that state-level work through Housing Justice for All, a coalition of tenant and homeless-advocacy groups that framed housing as a human right and opposed the New York real estate industry. As of July 2026, Genesis Aquino worked as the executive director. ^{2  3  4}

Founding and History

Tenants and Neighbors traced its origin to a 1974 tenant campaign in New York that helped win passage of the Emergency Tenant Protection Act and the Senior Citizens Rent Increase Exemption, which limited rent increases for qualifying older tenants. The organization said it was created to serve as a statewide center of tenant power and that it had since worked to expand tenant protections, form tenant associations, and preserve affordable housing. ²

During the 1990s, the organization worked with the National Alliance of HUD Tenants to defend the rights of tenants in project-based Section 8 housing. In 1997, it ran a campaign titled “I am a tenant and I vote,” which it credited with helping to stop the state legislature from ending rent regulation. In the 2000s, it lobbied to extend rent-exemption benefits to tenants with disabilities, an effort that culminated in the 2005 enactment of the Disability Rent Increase Exemption, and it opposed the removal of Mitchell-Lama and project-based Section 8 buildings from their affordability programs. ²

In 2019, T&N was part of the tenant coalition that secured the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, which the New York State Senate described as the strongest tenant-protection law in the state’s history and which made the state’s rent regulations permanent. In 2024, working through the Housing Justice for All coalition, the organization supported enactment of the Good Cause Eviction law, which extended rent-increase limits and lease-renewal rights to certain market-rate tenants; the organization marked its 50th anniversary the same year. ^{2  5}

Organization Philosophy

Tenants and Neighbors describes itself as a member-led organization that pursues what it calls economic justice for tenants, and it locates the source of tenant displacement in what it calls a power imbalance between the real estate industry and tenants. It argues that the way to correct that imbalance is tenant organizing, and it identifies the provision of organizing support and technical assistance to tenants as its core activity. The organization also characterizes the loss of regulated and subsidized apartments to market-rate conversion as a threat to neighborhood diversity, and it opposes efforts to weaken tenant protections. ¹

Although the organization presents its work in the language of housing affordability and community preservation, its program record and coalition partnerships place it consistently on the political left. It carried out its statewide legislative work through Housing Justice for All, a coalition that argues housing is a human right and that seeks expanded rent regulation and public housing, and it partners with the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a left-of-center group that advocates for higher federal housing spending. Its executive director described her work as building power for “racial, socio-economic justice for Black & brown low-income communities.” ⁶

Projects and Initiatives

The central activity of Tenants and Neighbors is helping residents form tenant associations when a building is at risk of leaving an affordability program, and then providing those associations with organizing support, leadership training, technical assistance, and advocacy. The organization also organizes broader administrative and legislative campaigns aimed at what it considers the underlying causes of the loss of affordable housing. ¹

One long-running effort is the organization’s campaign to expand and streamline the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption and the Disability Rent Increase Exemption, which it pursues alongside the Mitchell-Lama Residents Coalition. The organization also joined the Rent Justice Coalition in pressing the New York City Rent Guidelines Board to freeze rents on the roughly one million rent-regulated apartments in the city, and it tied that demand to the 2025 New York City mayoral election through a petition asking candidates to commit to a rent freeze. Separately, the organization ran a Protecting Subsidized Housing campaign aimed at preserving federally subsidized apartments and opposing proposed changes to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rules. ³

At the state level, T&N channeled much of its legislative advocacy through Housing Justice for All, the coalition it credited with the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act and the 2024 Good Cause Eviction law. The Good Cause Eviction law, enacted as part of the state budget and effective in April 2024, limited rent increases and required lease renewals for certain unregulated tenants in New York City and allowed other localities to opt in. ^{3  7}

Leadership

As of July 2026, Genesis Aquino worked as the executive director of Tenants and Neighbors, a position she had held since 2021, when she succeeded Yolande Cadore. Aquino described herself as a community organizer and human rights activist and framing her work around racial and socioeconomic justice for low-income Black and Latino communities. She previously worked as the director of social services for a district representative at the New York City Council. In 2023, she was appointed to the New York City Rent Guidelines Board by then-Mayor Eric Adams (D). ^{4  8  6}

The organization’s board is drawn largely from tenants living in regulated, subsidized, or formerly subsidized housing, with ten members elected by the general membership and five appointed from the staff of allied organizations. As of July 2026, the board president was Ellen Davidson, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, a left-of-center legal-services provider. The vice president was Eric Alugas, a rent-stabilized tenant. ⁴