A standing room audience gathered in the community room at the Salt City Market in the City of 鶹Ƶon a recent evening for the first public screening of a new documentary film written and directed by Maxwell School sociologist Gretchen Purser.
The 53-minute film, “Raise the Roof: Building Tenant Power in Syracuse,” depicts the formation and activism of the 鶹ƵTenants Union (STU), a grassroots organization that advocates for tenants’ rights and legislative change. Purser, associate professor of sociology, partnered with the STU on the project in collaboration with Franklin Thompson of August Fifth Productions, who served as director of photography and producer.
“The film seeks to reveal how, due to the imbalance of power with their landlords, tenants can make few changes as individuals, sometimes face retaliation for reporting code violations, and often wind up stuck due to the cost of relocation and rent,” says Purser. “We wanted to show how tenants organizing collectively can challenge the uneven power imbalance with landlords.”
The film is a culmination of a through the Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) program sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The IRL program supports action-oriented scholarship undertaken in collaboration with community partners and focuses on equity and health research.
In addition to Purser, the research team included Jamila Michener, professor of government and public policy at Cornell University, and Palmer Harvey, an organizer with STU. The team conducted focus groups throughout the City of 鶹Ƶto better understand tenants’ experiences and introduce them to tenant organizing as a strategy to improve community health. The project was designed to help build STU’s membership base, and data from the focus groups was incorporated into the documentary.
“This is a great example of using social science research to have a real-world impact in our local community,” says Shana Kushner Gadarian, associate dean for research and Merle Goldberg Fabian Professor of Excellence in Citizenship and Critical Thinking. “Professor Purser’s work on tenants’ experiences in 鶹Ƶand how they are working together to advocate for policy change can be a valuable resource for other communities facing challenges with power imbalances between renters and landlords and inadequate housing.”
Filming began in October 2023 in numerous locations across the City of Syracuse, including tenants’
Gretchen Purser, associate professor of sociology, is shown during filming with producer and photography director Franklin Thompson of August Fifth Productions.
homes, at union meetings, in offices and at public protests and rallies. Union organizers and tenants are interviewed in the film, along with city officials and Michener.
The tenants shared their experiences with mold, infestation, large rent increases, lead poisoning, structural and plumbing issues, caved-in ceilings and broken furnaces as well as eviction, sexual harassment and predatory rental arrangements.
Purser says the collective organizing aims to achieve tangible improvements in housing conditions for poor and predominantly Black families in the 鶹Ƶcommunity.
Participants in the film offered various proposals to improve conditions for tenants. For example, Good Cause Eviction legislation would cap rent increases and limit evictions to cases of non-payment or lease violation, prohibiting the kinds of retaliatory evictions that Purser and her colleagues documented throughout their research.
Speakers at the screening at Salt City Market also presented ideas, including an updated rental registry and code enforcement system that would mandate lead inspection, charge additional fees for landlords renting unregistered properties, revoke registry for code violators and allocate funds from penal fees to repair damages. City Auditor Alexander Marion, who participated with organizers in a question-and-answer session, said the eventual goal is to use money from violations, fines, registrations and inspections to better fund code enforcement.
Jocelyn Richards, an STU organizer, hopes the documentary inspires viewers and sparks curiosity about tenant organizing.
“This documentary reveals that nearly every tenant in 鶹Ƶis encountering or has encountered similar issues: we’re not alone,” says Richards. “And it’s normal to be fearful of taking action as an individual, but when we come together, we have both more power and more protection from retaliation.”
Film organizers are planning additional screenings in 2025, starting with a showing at the Maxwell School. Members of the University community are invited to join a at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 11, in the Dr. Paul and Natalie Strasser Legacy Room. Still other viewing opportunities are planned for New York City and Ithaca, New York. The documentary will eventually be publicly available online and accessible on the STU website.
Purser is director of the Law, Society and Policy Integrated Learning Major, research co-director on Advocacy and Activism at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration, and a senior research associate at the Center for Qualitative and Multi-Method Inquiry. Her research and teaching focuses on the housing struggles of the urban poor, work and labor market transformation, and the policies and practices of poverty management in the U.S. She has written numerous op-eds and public-facing articles on criminal justice reform, inequality and precarious work in the U.S.
Story by Michael Kelly
