Connecticut Tenants Union launches boycott of real estate giant

By Louis Henry

The Connecticut Tenants Union and its working-class allies have launched a boycott of Alpha Capital. In a petition to support the boycott, the Tenants Union is calling on all people to refuse to engage in business with Alpha Capital.  Refuse to rent apartments, refuse to buy condos, refuse to sell or buy properties with this horrible landlord, they say. 

Over the last year, tenant unions in Southeast Connecticut have gone public, demanding that their landlord, Alpha Capital Funds, come to the table to negotiate fair leases and address tenant needs.  In response, Alpha is trying to bust organized, multi-racial, and multi-generational communities.

Tenant Union representatives from New London and East Lyme assembled alongside their working-class allies to announce the boycott and to explain why this next stage of struggle is necessary. 

Landlord wants $318,000 from each tenant

The Bay Point Tenant Union called on all people to boycott Alpha Capital because that landlord won’t recognize their union, and their homes are at risk of being bought out from under them.

Tonya, a disabled member of the Bay Point Tenant Union, explained that after her tenant union went public over the summer, Alpha Capital responded by trying to convert the apartments to condominiums.  Alpha Capital told the residents they would have to pay $318,000 to keep their home, or their unit would be sold off.

Chris, an 82-year-old member of the Bay Point Tenant Union, said he is cold at night because the building is in disrepair and Alpha won’t make repairs. 

Judy, a retiree who’s lived in the building for 23 years, told the assembly that “We’re not going to put up with it, we’re being gouged.” She said her union is going to stick together and fight until Alpha Capital CEO Tyler Smith comes to the table to negotiate fair and equitable leases.

The New London Tenant Unions called on all people to boycott Alpha Capital because that landlord will not recognize their union and will not stop trying to evict union members. 

Daz, speaking on behalf of the New London tenants, explained that the union was able to protect their members from eviction.  When Alpha Capital bought their building, the new landlord immediately sent eviction notices to all of the tenants—half of whom are elderly and disabled.  The tenants quickly mobilized to form a union and asserted Connecticut’s law that shields the elderly and disabled from no-fault eviction. 

In response to organizing, Alpha violated state law by retaliating against the union members with a demand for 40% rent increases.  Again, the union mobilized and filed complaints with the New London Fair Rent Commission.  The Fair Rent Commission asserted that tenant organizing is a protected act and Alpha Capital violated the law by retaliating.  The Commission ordered rents frozen for the next six months and ordered Alpha to give the tenants new leases.

Community support

Rev. Perry of Mount Olive Church in New London explained that his community is in crisis.  The temperature was below freezing, and children and seniors were homeless and suffering on our streets.  He said it was important for all moral people to support housing as a human right and to put people before profit.

New London City Councilwoman Shineika Fareus explained that the eviction and homelessness crisis in Connecticut is not an accident.  She said mega-landlords like Alpha Capital are violating our human rights by treating housing as a commodity.

Commenting on Alpha’s behavior, she said, “Eviction is not a development tool, it’s displacement.”  She said working-class power exists. She called on working people to join the boycott and that collective bargaining is a form of racial and disability justice.

State Representative Nick Gauthier spoke in solidarity with the Connecticut Tenants Union and joining the boycott against Alpha Capital.  He said private equity firms harm humanity.  He called for a ban on private equity in housing and healthcare.

State Representative Dan Gaiewski also spoke in support of joining the boycott and supporting the Union.  He said it was his job to support tenant organizing by passing Just Cause legislation that would protect all tenants from arbitrary eviction.

In her closing remarks, CT Tenants Union President Hannah Srajer held up ten feet of paper bearing hundreds of signatures of people who have already signed the petition to Boycott Alpha Capital.  She spoke into the cameras and said for the last six years the CT Tenants Union has been organizing to put people before corporate greed.  

“We pay the bills,” she said, explaining that Alpha Capital needs working people to pay their rents, to buy their condos, to do business with their company, in order to continue to service their predatory loans and mortgages.  If working people can put a dent in Alpha Capital’s income, they can bring Alpha Capital to its knees.  “The people will win, the boycott has begun!”  

‘Stand Up For CT’ Agenda Launched

Union and community leaders and elected officials joined with Connecticut for All at a capitol press conference to launch the “Stand Up CT” agenda as the Legislative Session begins. Action is urgent, they said, to help fill the critical funding gaps brought on by cuts in H.R. 1 President Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’, and to protect the freedoms of multi-racial working class and immigrant residents.

The agenda would require the small number of ultra wealthy residents and corporations, who have received more than $1 trillion in tax breaks through H.R. 1, to pay a comparable share of their income in taxes as that paid by the vast majority of Connecticut families.

The “Stand Up CT” agenda would re-balance the state’s upside-down tax system, protect against Trump cuts and policies, and allow the legislature to mitigate harms to the publicly-funded safety net, providing stability for working families. The package of bills will raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Connecticut for All was joined by impacted speakers from SEIU 4Cs, CT Tenants Union, CT Students for a Dream, SEIU 1199, AFT Connecticut, She Leads Justice, Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance, a small business owner, State Rep Jason Doucette from the Tax Equity Caucus of 52 legislators, and State Senator Gary Winfield chair of the Judiciary Committee,.

“The choice really is simple. We can either meet the needs of working Connecticut families, or we can continue to leave money on the table by refusing to fix the fiscal controls and make the ultra-wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.,” said Connecticut For All Director Norma Martinez HoSang.

“Passing the Stand Up CT legislative agenda means finally prioritizing the hardworking people of Connecticut who keep this state running – the health care workers who kept us safe throughout the pandemic, the teachers who pay for school supplies out of their own pockets, the bus drivers who take us where we need to go, the youth who need a chance for a better future they can afford – over a handful of wealthy and well-connected families.” 

CT Must Offset Federal Cuts to Public Benefits

Connecticut Voices for Children's new report, The Case and Policy Options for Connecticut to Offset New Federal Cuts to Public Benefits, was released to a crowded room of advocates and organizers at the 25th Tax & Budget Forum.

The report examined how the state’s fiscal controls and tax structure are hurting working class families by limiting sustained, meaningful investments in human needs. The report emphasized how Connecticut can move from temporary fixes to long-term policy choices that make affordability real and fully fund communities being devastated by the MAGA “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” enacted last July.

This Act provides tax cuts that heavily benefit high-income households. Those with incomes above $500,000 a year are estimated to receive 33% of the total tax cut, amounting to $1.5 trillion over the next decade.

The law pays for the tax cuts for high-income households by making about $1.5 trillion in cuts to public benefits, reducing essential support for low- and middle-income households. This includes nearly $1.1 trillion in cuts to health care benefits, including Medicaid; allowing a more than $300 billion expansion of the Premium Tax Credit for health insurance to expire; and cutting food assistance by about $190 billion.

At least150,000 people in Connecticut are expected to lose health insurance and 58,000 households are expected to have food assistance cut. At the same time, the top 10% of households are estimated to gain more than $9,200 each.

The report presented five policy proposals that would make it possible to address these extreme and devastating inequities including raising tax rates on high-income households (single tax filers above $500,000, and married tax filers above $1 million) or high-value estates (worth more than $15 million).

Together, the policy proposals would raise close to $500 million a year, providing resources for Connecticut to close the gap left by the cruel federal cuts to human needs.

Advocates are demanding that in these dire circumstances the Legislature and Governor stand up for the people of Connecticut in this session and make sure that basic needs are funded to address health care, housing, hunger and growing poverty.

Boycott forces Avelo to End Deportation Flights

A major victory was won last week when Avelo Airlines announced they are ending their contract to conduct deportation flights for ICE with DHS. On January 27 they will leave Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona, where the flights departed.

Last April when news of the ICE flights surfaced in New Haven, outraged immigrant rights groups, state and local elected officials and clergy launched the boycott. It spread across the country and soon Avelo ws forced to end west coast flights.

Avelo claimed they contracted with DHS for financial reasons. The boycott showed that trying to profit from deportations and family separation does not pay off.

The New Haven boycott against it's “hometown airline” at Tweed New Haven airport was soon joined by 25 cities.

During a national day of protest last May, one of many vigils at the entrance to the New Haven airport was led by the New Haven Immigrants Coalition “to mourn and stay in solidarity with those who have been and will be removed without due process.”

A New Hampshire resident purchased two billboards near the airport saying “Does your vacation support their deportation? Just say AvelNO!”

The mayor of New Haven banned all business with the airline for City travel, as did the Wilmington, Delaware City Council

Attorney General William Tong began investigating Avelo's fuel tax break with the State. Upon hearing of the company's break with DHS Tong said, “If this means that Avelo is no longer electing to profit from Trump’s cruel and reckless deportation program, the separation of families, deportation of children and citizens, and denial of due process rights, then it’s about time.”

At a New Haven press conference attended by over 100 the day after the announcement, Kica Matos president of the National Immigration Law Center declared,“We organized, we protested, we boycotted, and we said we would not stop until Avelo stopped being complicit in human suffering. Today, we celebrate. Let this be a reminder that when we fight, we win.”

The rally also protested the cold blooded murder of Rene Good by an ICE official in Minnesota.

Yale: Pay Your Fair Share

by Rev. Scot Marks

As Yale and the City of New Haven negotiate a revenue agreement in the coming year, we must work towards a transformational investment in the city that gives all our residents opportunities.

In 2024 New Haven gave a $106 million tax break to Yale and Yale New Haven Hospital. With that money we could have hired 600 teachers, built three community centers and helped 100 families get into permanent housing.

$106 million is everything to New Haven, especially our children – and it's just 2% of what Yale's endowment made in the last year alone.

I arrived in New Haven in 1964, escaping the racial and economic exploitation of the North Carolina sharecropping system keeping families like mine impoverished.

In New Haven we met its own long story of racial and economic exploitation. The American Eugenics Society on Yale's campus led the country in establishing pseudo scientific theories that helped justify segregated development in New Haven.

Yale used the labor of enslaved people to build the campus's first building and its leaders crushed what would have been the country's first HBCU.

In a moment when a federal administration is attacking US cities, censoring our country's racist history and giving more to billionaires while we suffer from a cost of living crisis, Yale must join our community and city as partners in confronting its own history and the detrimental impact on many of our residents.

New Haven should have world class schools. Instead our schools badly need repair, our teachers are underpaid and overworked, and our classrooms are overcrowded. All this while our city hosts one of the best and wealthiest educational institutions in the world.

Our movement led the way in getting Yale to increase its voluntary payment to New Haven before. This July that contribution will drop from an annual $10 million to $2 million, and to $0 the following year. And it is not enough for Yale to renew – it is time to expand. It took over 10,000 people taking action for the last commitment and now we need to redouble our efforts.