After years of sustained complaints, some residents at Phoenix Towers in Bloomington are hoping to take matters into their own hands.
A handful of tenants living in the downtown apartment building are attempting to form a tenants union or residents council, though their legal rights in doing so appear more limited than that of their peers in other public housing developments.
“It’s all trial and error right now,” said Greg Bernal, a two-year resident of the building. “Basically, what we’re doing now is we’re getting everybody watching [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] webinars and then when we have our meetings, we just discuss it. There’s a lot of procedures that I did not know about when I first started this, so it’s kind of scary, but we’ve just got to keep at it.”
Phoenix Towers, privately owned by global real estate company Related Management, [whose Midwest division is set to develop the Illinois Quantum and Microelectrics Park in Chicago], offers government-subsidized apartments to seniors and people with disabilities. And for years, it has been the subject of complaints from residents to both the city and federal government.
And while some residents say they have noticed improvements in living conditions at the 45-year-old building — new flooring and lessened pest problems, for some — after $1.5 million in recent infrastructure improvements, others, like year-long resident Terry Cooley, say there is more to be done.
And instead of complaining, he said, he’d rather be proactive.
“I think we can change some things around here, if we can get this going and have enough people involved,” Cooley said.
The goal is to form a tenants union or council that meets regularly and works collaboratively with management and government officials to address residents' needs.
While organizers have been holding regular meetings with good turnouts, Bernal said getting at least five people to commit to being a part of a formal committee has been an evasive goal.
After months, he said, they still only have four people committed. If there were five, they could fill the roles of president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and at-large member. Though meetings are well-attended, Bernal said people have been hesitant to commit to organizing because they fear retaliation for their efforts.
“You’ve got to stand up. Everybody doesn’t want drugs in the building, but nobody’s willing to make the call and go forward. So, if you want to lay down and get [walked over], that’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “But we can’t do that.”
The federal department of Housing and Urban Development encourages public housing residents to form these kinds of groups, saying that when organized correctly and run democratically, the councils or unions can help foster positive relationships between public housing residents and management. The agency also allots funding to public housing authorities to distribute to resident councils for goals that “support resident involvement in creating a positive living environment and in actively participating in the overall mission of public housing.”
Who can organize
Apartments in Phoenix Towers are government-subsidized, but its federal dollars come from a low-income housing tax credit [LIHTC] program administered by the Illinois Housing Development Authority and the government does not own the building, meaning it is not public housing.
Currently, only public housing tenants have legal rights and protections when organizing, though two pending bills before the Illinois General Assembly [HB 51516] and Congress [HR 5827] are aimed at changing that.
Each bill — introduced in previous sessions by by state Rep. Norma Hernandez and in Congress by U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez — would codify legal protections of residents in LIHTC housing units who organize, expanding the funding for resident councils to include these and prohibits retaliation against organizing tenants from building management.
“Tenant organizing is not only winning battles against unfair housing practices, unjustified evictions, housing discrimination, and uncontrolled price hikes; it is also changing housing public policy. Community organizing power protects the right to safe, stable housing for thousands of families,” Ramirez said in an October news release. “The fight for safe, stable, equitable housing must always include tenants. As we are encountering a worsening housing affordability and access crisis, we understand that now, more than ever, all tenants must have the right to organize.”
Bernal said the group is looking into where they stand, legally, including the pending legislation. Either way, he said, the goal remains continuing to get together and form solutions.
Still, those legal protections would be welcome locally: Both Bernal and Cooley said they have felt targeted because of their organizing efforts.
“We're forming this committee because people are afraid to come out and say anything. We had a gentleman that used to live here… he got a lot of flack from the office because he was outspoken about things going on here,” Bernal said. “And you’ve got to be — regardless of, if they're going to come at you, you’ve got to make the change.”
Legally protected or not, Cooley said the effort to organize matters.
“There's a lot of people here that can't help themselves. So, I figure I can do that for people that can't help themselves,” he said.
In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for Related Management said the company, which is "committed to the safety of and comfort of residents," supports the effort.
"We value resident feedback and have actively encouraged the creation of a tenant council," the statement read.
