BUILDING TENANT POWER WITH BHIP

Building Tenant Power with BHIP is a collaborative project envisioned to build tenant power through popular knowledge, neighbor coalitions, and organizing tools. It has been developed by MS Design and Urban Ecologies Class of 2015 in collaboration with the Bushwick Housing Independence Project (BHIP) and the Housing Justice Oral History Project and El Puente Bushwick Leadership Center. This project involved fieldwork, policy analysis, statistical research, radical listening, and storytelling through oral history interviews which are now part of one of the collections of the Cities for People, Not for Profit oral history project. 

CITIES FOR PEOPLE, NOT PROFIT

Cities for People, Not for Profit: Gentrification and Housing Activism in Bushwick is an oral history project tracing the history of ongoing gentrification and subsequent fight for affordable housing in Bushwick, Brooklyn from the perspective of artists, activists, and community residents.This project provides a framework for urban historians, policy makers, and community activists to spark relationships with Latinx residents being affected by gentrification in Bushwick to activate the community to participate in real solutions with the community’s best interests in mind. This ongoing oral history project was initiated and is being led by artist, archivist, and oral historian Cynthia Tobar. Over the last decade, she has collaborated with different community-based organizations and grassroots groups including the NYC Chapter of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and, most recently, the Bushwick Housing Independence Project and the Housing Justice Oral History Project.

BUILDING TENANT POWER WITH BHIPORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

This project seeks to reveal the outcomes, tangible and intangibles, of gentrification from the point of view of tenants and those affected. Through local narratives, it exposes past organizing strategies, mobilizations, coalitions, and challenges while celebrating the commitment and determination of those who have fought to preserve the working-class and immigrant character of Bushwick. By amplifying and preserving the experiences, voices, and memories of all of those who have built tenant power, this oral history collection seeks to build and strengthen relationships with tenants and community leaders who shared BHIP’s values and to serve as a tool for community engagement to inform their ongoing organizing efforts in the neighborhood. 

OUR COLLABORATION

The Building Tenant Power with BHIP Oral History Collection is an ongoing collaboration with the Bushwick Housing Independence Project and the Housing Justice Oral History Project under the leadership of Amy Collado and Gabriela Rendón, respectively. We began contributing to Cynthia Tobar’s oral history project with the assistance of students from Parsons MS Design and Urban Ecologies program Class of 2025 this Spring. They conducted interviews, transcribed recordings, and indexed narratives as part of this collaboration with the assistance of Xavier Moysén Alvarez, PhD candidate in Sociology at the New School for Social Research (NSSR). You can check out some of the inspiring oral history interviews in our online platform! 

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TEAM