Looking Back on 2022 With Nicole, Director of Community Organizing & Advocacy
We sat down with Nicole Eigbrett, Director of the Community Organizing & Advocacy (CO&A) program here at CAAS, to talk about the progress the CO&A team has made in 2022 and what they hope to achieve in 2023. From rapid-response rallies to building relationships, the team has made incredible strides in the last year. We’re so excited to see what lies ahead!
How has the work your team has done in 2022 differed from your work in 2021?
At the start of 2022, the Community Organizing & Advocacy (CO&A) team did extensive strategic planning and visioning, and identified leadership development and anti-displacement tenant organizing as our priorities.
We wanted to deepen the skills of the Somerville tenant leaders who were already part of our core base and engaged so passionately. Graduating our first cohort from the Leadership Development Institute in May 2022 was a huge milestone for us. Since then, our Somerville Renters Committee members have continued growing their skills and are leading much more of our housing justice efforts, like in the Renters Meetings and Know Your Rights outreach.
We also organized with many more tenants this year to resist rent hikes, building sales, abusive landlord treatment, and gentrification – and several properties of tenants are still fighting! Given the pace of gentrification and the second GLX line opening in December, we don’t see this need for anti-displacement organizing slowing down anytime soon.
Nicole Eigbrett standing behind a table pointing at a flipboard page titled “Somerville Renters Committee” at a Leadership Development Institute training.
CO&A has done multiple rapid-response rallies this year on behalf of tenants who are at risk of displacement. What has it meant to you and the team to build a coalition of volunteers who are ready to show up for these events? What has that process looked like, and what has made it successful?
Organizing is fundamentally about building your community’s collective power for social change, and that begins with relationships. At CO&A, we have our tenant leaders who are low-income residents, immigrants, parents, and people of color who are the most impacted by housing injustice. But our work wouldn’t be possible without the dozens of Eviction Response Network members who volunteer their time to canvas, do research, and take action in solidarity to support their neighbors facing eviction and displacement. We’re all united under the value that housing is a human right.
I’m incredibly proud of the local movement for housing justice that CO&A is building, drawing upon a culture and history of organizing, activism, and civic engagement that already exists in Somerville. Our collective impact has a ripple effect. I do believe we’re changing the culture and conversation about what is and is not acceptable in our city around housing and gentrification. Even when you bring a friend to our protest, share a petition, or talk about one of our stories in the media – that’s helping grow the movement. We’re also thankful for the hundreds of people who sign our petitions and show up at our rallies. This is an invitation to join our ERN and get more involved if you’re ready!
A person holding a sign that reads “No rent hikes” at the CAAS rally for Mortimer Place.
The Massachusetts legislature failed to pass meaningful housing policy for tenants this year. How does that impact the fight for housing equity going forward into next year?
While we have an incredible delegation of elected officials in Somerville who are very responsive to the needs of our lowest-income residents and renters, the Legislature as a whole is failing our communities statewide by not acting with urgency on housing.
CAAS is a member of coalitions that are fighting for legislation that would transform our ability to produce, protect, and stabilize affordable housing. Somerville and other cities across the state desperately need policies like lifting the 1993 ban on rent control to enact local options for rent stabilization; the real estate transfer fee for affordable housing; ending no-fault evictions, also known as ‘just cause’ evictions; tenant opportunity to purchase when their buildings go up for sale; eviction record sealing and expanding fair housing protections against discrimination – the list really goes on.
It will take truly focused, organized power to pass these bills in the Legislature. In the meantime, our organizers and tenant leaders will also be focused on zoning and budget changes at the local / city level that will also bring more justice to impacted renters.
A group of protesters listening to speakers at the CAAS rally for Mortimer Place.
What are you looking ahead towards in the coming year? Is there anything that the team will be doing differently in 2023?
I’m thrilled that the CAAS Organizing team, which was just one staff (me!) in summer 2020, will be growing to six full time employees as of this winter 2023. I hope we continue making an impact by helping more low-income and immigrant tenants move from ‘crisis to courage’, as I like to say. There is so much potential for leadership in our community, and CAAS and our partners have the resources to remove those material barriers (like the inability to pay rent and utilities) and fears, so that people can reach their fullest potential. We’re going even farther in that vision in the new year!