Harlem
Tenants Council (HTC) was founded in 1994, a tenant led grassroots
organization based on the self-determination tradition of progressive
activism for people of color. Its mission is to provide eviction
intervention services for poor & working class families in Central
Harlem to achieve concrete short & long term improvements in
housing quality of life; to engage tenants in campaigns that will
empower them to resolve problems based on their own interest and
agenda; and to work with tenant leadership on direct actions for social
change to alters power relations that allows tenants to become key
players in decisions that affect their community. Harlem Tenants
Council Mission Statement: created to "provide relief for the poor and
to combat community deterioration as a result of the accelerated pace
of gentrification in Harlem." HTC's goal is to build a broad-based
bottom up tenants' movement that can influence policies and programs
that impact on low-income residents and neighborhood small businesses.
HTC's members are tenants living in public housing, city and privately
owned properties and small business owners.
Nellie
Hester Bailey is co-founder and current Director of the Harlem Tenants
Council. Ms Bailey is the recipient of numerous awards including the
prestigious Alston Bannerman Fellowship in 2001, the Union Square Award
for Grassroots Activists in 2001; and a 2005 Proclamation from the New
York City Council for services rendered to indigent tenants throughout
the city. A committed internationalist Bailey served as an
International Election Observer in South African’s first free elections
in 1994; a delegate at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing,
China in 1995; and led a Harlem delegation to the 1996 UN Conference on
Human Habitat II in Istanbul, Turkey. Bailey host s a weekly radio
program “Inside Housing” on WHCR 90.3 FM Radio in Harlem. Media outlets
that have reported on the work of Bailey and the Harlem Tenants Council
include the New York Times, the Amsterdam News, The Final Call, the
Guardian, BBC World News, NPR, WBAI, NBC, ABC and others. In 2007 NY1
profiled Bailey and the work of the Harlem Tenants Council for its
Black History Month program.