CTOC: A 4-Year-Old Tenants Group Fights a 'Fundamental Class Struggle'

The Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee, perhaps the busiest and most aggressive of the more than 20 tenant groups in the state, works out of a two-room office in the dated brick building at 595 Mass Ave in Central Square. There, a volunteer staff follows the moves of every landlord, land owner and government official that might have adverse effects on the lives of local tenants.

CTOC, founded in 1970 when rent controls were introduced in Cambridge, considers its overriding goals to be "to organize tenants and to fight for decent housing at rents that tenants can afford to pay." In its statement of principles, CTOC also says: "We see our fight as part of a fundamental struggle among classes in society, not as an isolated fight."

The activities of the group, ranging from tenant education classes to public demonstrations, reflect the members' determination to secure a fair deal in tenant-landlord relations. Monthly newsletters cover a wide spectrum of social issues: police-community relations, tenant legal problems, sex discrimination and minority rights.

CTOC strives to make contact with groups whose interests coincide with its own. Its founding principles state: "CTOC seeks alliances with labor, black and third world, women's, G.I., student and neighborhood groups around points of agreement in our programs. CTOC also welcomes the membership of small homeowners. Small homeowners, the tenant group says, "can be evicted through the state's power of eminent domain or through foreclosures. We stand for tenant unity with small homeowners."

Other organized tenants in Cambridge, such as those in the East Cambridge Hard Times and the Cambridgeport Homeowners and Tenants Association, share the principles and goals of CTOC and almost always work jointly with the well-organized Cambridge group. Small neighborhood organizations, such as the Douglas Street Tenants Association, which fought the introduction of a McDonald's hamburger stand in Central Square last spring, usually look to CTOC for guidance and advice.