Statement on the Dissolution of Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network

Report and reflection on the ending of the Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network.

We are writing this brief message to formally announce the dissolution of the Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network (HTSN). This is a decision that our members have reached collectively, and without acrimony. Although this announcement may come as a surprise to some of our supporters, we are looking forward to the opportunities that this change will open up, and the new directions that it will allow us to take with our work. When HTSN was first established, our goal was to organize a federated network of tenant committees across the city of Hamilton. To that rather ambitious end, we have met and worked with hundreds of tenants from dozens of buildings in neighbourhoods across this city. Over the intervening years, we have concluded that meaningful organizing is a long-term process that involves the fostering and development of relationships built on trust and rooted in shared struggle. We now understand that this is better accomplished through involvement in more localized neighbourhood initiatives, rather than a city-wide organization with a superficial scope and programme.

HTSN was formed in 2015 in response to a growing housing crisis in Hamilton. Since then, the desperate conditions faced by working-class people in this city have only gotten worse. There remains a serious need for working-class people to keep organizing around housing. We hold strong in our belief that this is best accomplished by those people themselves, working with their neighbours, rather than deferring to social agencies, professional activists, politicians, or the dead-end legal system at the Landlord & Tenant Board. We hope that tenants across the city will continue this fight.

While HTSN will no longer be meeting or holding events, we will maintain our website as an archive of our work, and we will continue to occasionally monitor the organizational email address: [email protected].

We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone who has supported our work over the years.

In solidarity, The Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network