What is a Member?
UNE has a multiracial and multilingual membership, and we focus our civic engagement, recruitment and leadership development efforts in communities that have been consistently marginalized and most disproportionately impacted by social and economic oppression, including people of color (POC), low-income and immigrant populations. We believe that intentional sustained investments in communities that have been systematically excluded from decision-making processes is necessary to build a grassroots base that can challenge corporate influence in our economic and political systems that currently value profit over human lives and wellbeing. Our work with directly impacted individuals and communities is the key driving force behind all of our policy goals, narrative work, and research.
Our approach emphasizes skill-building and leadership development by supporting community members in building their competencies with public speaking, policy analysis, community organizing, campaign development, building relationships with local public officials, and developing cross-racial partnerships that support equity and healing. As members spend more time with UNE and take on more leadership roles and responsibilities, they become key leaders and organize within their own communities to build the base that we need to take on the fights we need to win.
Where Are We?
UNE organizes across Adams County, Colorado, with a focus on two distinct municipalities. Commerce City and Westminster are home for most of our members and are where UNE fights for economic, political, and social change at the city level in addition to our state-level fights.
Commerce City
Westminster
How Does It Work?
The Chapter:
Each city has its own chapter made up of multiple apartment associations and other community members. Our chapters meet once a month to discuss active campaigns, receive skills training, and build power across their municipality.The Apartment Association:
Each apartment complex has their own association. These associations meet monthly to discuss apartment specific solution plans and to bring the chapter information to a broader audience. These meetings occur in person and the reoccurring time and place depends on what each complex decides.Core Member:
These members come to most association meetings and some chapter meetings. Core members are leaders that are engaged with their apartment associations and the campaigns they are moving forward. Core members show up to larger events, like testifying at city council meetings, actions, rallies, and meetings with their landlords.Association Lead:
These members lead the association meetings with support from UNE staff and attend all chapter meetings to ensure they have the most up to date information. They are always bringing in new members into the organization. They do this by knocking on neighbors doors, developing fellow tenants to be community leaders through conversations and training at meetings. Association leads, together with the community organizer, own the organizing strategy and path to power. The leads are crucial to building people power in our communities on a scale that can shift power towards community members over corporations.
How We Take Action
UNE members engage with policy change and local organizing at a number of different levels. From city council meetings and testifying at the State Capitol to meetings with their Congressional delegations, city council members, city staff and landlords, members often work together in their apartment associations, chapters, and beyond to advocate and fight for the changes they need. These actions are most often at the local and state level, but can connect to larger campaigns at the national level or specific targets like corporate landlords. When our apartment associations and communities come together to make their needs known, we can build a future with safer, more stable, and more affordable homes.