Start a Tenant Association

If you rent your home or rent an apartment in a building, you might consider starting a tenant association. Like a neighbourhood association, a tenant association is a group of tenants who live in a building or area and who work together to take on projects or to speak up on issues that concern tenants. Tenants in your building or community are elected by their fellow tenants to run the association. 

Why start a tenant association?

A tenant association can serve many purposes including a more effective way to address community issues or problems. By forming an association, tenants will have a stronger voice and a stronger impact and will be able to benefit from many different perspectives and skills to address a problem. 

A tenant association can also be a great way to start social activities in your community. Through the association you can organize parties or events and other community activities that can involve many people. 

Ottawa Community Housing provides many resources for tenants, including a toolkit. Visit http://www.och.ca/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=133 and click on Tenant Associations to access it. 

You can find out about your rights as a tenant at: http://www.ontariotenants.ca/. 

Also see Start a Neighbourhood Association in this toolkit to find out more about forming a Board of Directors and getting insurance.