An organizer for the abolition of private property, nicolás vargas is a founding member of Brooklyn Eviction Defense (BED) and the Alma Council of Tenants (ACT). In order to combat dispossesory conditions such as gentrification, hyper-policing, repairs negligence, health hazards, rising rents and cost of living, or any such threat of eviction, nicolás organizes class-struggle tenant unions and rent strikes across Brooklyn.

A member of the Crown Heights Tenant Union (CHTU) since 2014, Esteban Girón is the union’s delegate to the Autonomous Tenant Union Network (ATUN) and represents the CHTU in the Housing Justice for All (HJ4A), Right to Counsel (RTC), and Rent Justice Coalitons (RJC). He serves on the Tenants PAC Board of Directors and is a member/organizer with Brooklyn Eviction Defense and the Brooklyn DSA Electoral Working Group. Esteban lives in Crown Heights with his husband Sean and their Chilean chihuahua, Salvador (Allende). He is grateful for every day that he and his comrades on this panel get to make life miserable for landlords, developers, and the politicians and policymakers who enable them.

As an organizer with the Communist Party USA/Young Communist League, Brooklyn Eviction Defense,Crown Heights Tenant’s Union, Sister’s In The Struggle, and Flatbush Tenant’s Coalition, Khadija Haynes’ heart lies in lifting her community-and all working class people-out of the dispossessory conditions capital breeds. As a Trinidadian born Afro-caribbean woman poet and writer, her life’s work, and ultimate goal, is to help continue lifting the consciousness of the people through the lens of the black radical Marxist-leninist tradition; aiding them in better understanding how their own socioeconomic and oftentimes psychological problems, are directly related to the overall inherently oppressive nature of this system and not a result of individual shortcomings.

A member of the Brooklyn DSA Housing Working Group, Isaac KD is a tenant organizer, trail walker, tale spinner, table turner.

Ramza spends his time attempting to organize homeless people. Sometimes helps street homeless people get access to advocacy for the purpose of negotiating for a safe haven bed that isn’t a dorm (note that all safe havens whether single room or dorm are shelters, and all shelters are abusive environments). Organizes small mutual aid distros at Tompkins sq park.

Based in Brooklyn, Cea Weaver is the campaign coordinator of Housing Justice for All and a member of New York City DSA. She has been a tenant organizer and a housing rights campaigner in New York State for over 10 years. Cea is a co-founder of the Crown Heights Tenant Union and in 2019 she coordinated the campaign to strengthen and expand rent control in New York.

Born and raised in the Jacob Riis projects, Frank Morales is an advocate and participate in squatting of vacant spaces in the interests of creating homes with and for those in need; a life long resident of the Lower East Side and an Episcopal priest and founding member (1975) of the NYC Chapter of Christians for Socialism.

Organizer and writer Joel Feingold is based in Brooklyn, NY. Feingold is a co-founder of the Crown Heights Tenant Union.

An organizer with Brooklyn Eviction Defense, Holden Taylor is a proud member of the Crown Heights Tenant Union, a Marxist Unity Group (a Democratic Socialists of America caucus) member and, an adjunct professor and a PhD candidate at the City University of New York Graduate Center studying housing financialization and political economy.