Originally published in Tenant Voice Issue 7, Spring 2026

In late 2025, the Sacramento Valley Tenants Union began organizing a new local chapter in Del Paso Heights, a diverse, working-class neighborhood in North Sacramento. Historically black, the area is now home to a multi-ethnic mix of black, white, latine, Hmong, and Afghan tenants. Early canvassing efforts revealed clusters of aging 1960s apartment complexes suffering from severe neglect, poor habitability, and landlords who owned multiple buildings in the area. The neighborhood also has a large unhoused population, as the area has traditionally served as a refuge from law enforcement sweeps.

Last fall, we finally had enough folks involved in the union at large that we were able to form a local-specific crew (roughly 6 organizers) that would focus on identifying a space to host local meetings. We were already following this model in two other neighborhoods, and we knew that having a regular presence in the neighborhood was key to helping us build a union of working class tenants that responds to neighborhood-specific needs.

However, we quickly hit a problem: local organizations weren’t eager to share their space. Realizing that securing a venue requires long-term relationship building, and eager to establish our presence, we launched the Del Paso Heights local anyway. We pivoted to hosting meetings in a nearby park, featuring tenant solidarity circles, warm meals, and games for children to play.

To recruit for the park meetings, we went on an outreach blitz that involved door knocking at apartment buildings and street outreach focused on popular laundromats and grocery stores. We scheduled at least two outreach dates prior to each park meeting, on both weeknights and weekend days, to maximize the folks we were meeting regardless of work schedules. Our flyers were printed in the dominant languages of the neighborhood: English, Spanish, Dari, and Pashto.

We identified buildings for door-knocking by combining neighborhood scouting, tips from tenants, and landlord research (property radar data, assessor roll, etc.). This combination of strategies helped us see which buildings shared the same landlord and we made sure to keep those buildings in our canvas rotations.

Walking the local in this way on a regular basis began to help us paint a collective picture of the terrain. Firstly, we learned that Del Paso Heights is full of slumlords, who systematically neglect their buildings and tenants. The horrific living conditions created by slumlords have made tenants eager to speak with us—at their doors, in public, and through word of mouth to affected friends and family.

We also began learning about the wide range of rapid rehousing programs present in the neighborhood. These non-profit programs temporarily subsidize rent for low income, often formally unhoused folks (many swept from nearby areas), and assign each a case worker to assist with a variety of social services. The landlords that opt into these programs are atrocious slumlords. Rather than direct their complaints straight to management, tenants are told to go through their caseworkers, who often know frighteningly little about tenant rights. Some buildings have a mixture of “program” tenants and tenants who pay market rate. These differences cause tensions and lack of trust between the groups.

Triangle Park

Triangle Park is the shape of, you guessed it, a triangle. It has a playground in the center, park benches, and a mini soccer field. There is a bike/walking path that runs directly behind the park. We selected this park because it is adjacent to a number of buildings that are owned by a pair of notorious slumlords, hoping to seed tenant associations in those buildings. The reality has been a bit more complex. Many recently immigrated Afghan tenants live in these buildings, and despite efforts, the language differences between union members and tenants have hindered our ability to draw a significant number of these tenants into meetings.

The first couple of park meetings were pure chaos. The park is a playground for neighborhood children, a lot of whom are from the Afghan families that live directly across the street. Through trial and error, we had to devise systems for food, childcare, and meeting set- up specific to this outdoor setting. We learned quickly that bringing 10 pizzas will get you mobbed by the children, and that you must account for playground games if you don’t want kiddos running through the meeting while listening to tenants’ stories.

We swapped pizza for warm soup and fresh fruit. We brought soccer balls, frisbees, and sidewalk chalk and assigned folks from the union to play with the kiddos. We also assigned facilitators to run the tenant solidarity circles and greeters to usher folks into the circle or check in with folks one-on-one. We prioritized language justice by always having English/Spanish interpreters present and on a few occasions we have also had English/Dari or Pashto support.

The park experiment has continued beyond the initial 3-month trial —to date we have held regular Triangle Park meetings for 6 full months. The meetings have been essential to helping us understand the cultural and linguistic character of the neighborhood, as well as how tenants are surviving austerity measures that impact food access and medical care, ICE threats/raids, and housing insecurity.

building a base in the neighborhood

The park meetings have helped us cultivate relationships with tenants who return for multiple meetings. Tenants return to solve active issues, stop by for a meal and a quick hello, or to intentionally listen and offer support to others. Seeing people arrive via word of mouth highlights the community trust we are slowly establishing.

The visibility of our park meetings and outreach efforts coupled with landlord research and tenant leads, have made it possible for us to identify two buildings where we are currently seeding tenant associations. These tenant associations arm the local with concrete examples of how collective power can be built in this neighborhood and serve as examples for other tenants to have courage and fight back!

Now begins the arduous work of building a local that mirrors the tenants who draw near to us. We must remain visible and consistent, ensuring our base is rooted in the most vulnerable: our elders, the disabled, program tenants, and the immigrants working multiple jobs to survive the overlapping crises of the current moment.