About CAT

Formed in 1996, the Community Alliance of Tenants (CAT) is Oregon’s only statewide, grassroots, tenant-controlled, tenant-rights organization. CAT educates, organizes and develops the leadership of low-income tenants.

We are built on three keys that form our approach to empowering renters:

Tenant Education + Tenant Organizing + Tenant Advocacy = Tenant Power

Community Alliance of Tenants Mission

The mission of the Community Alliance of Tenants (CAT) is to educate and empower tenants to promote affordable, stable, and safe rental homes.

Recognizing that housing is the foundation of a sound community, CAT brings tenants together to organize and collectively advocate for fair and equitable housing policies and practices.

Further recognizing that low-income tenants—as well as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, immigrant and refugee communities, People of Color, and people with disabilities—bear the greatest burden in the rental housing market, CAT prioritizes the organization and development of low-income tenants and all disenfranchised communities. CAT supports these communities in taking leadership to improve their living conditions and those of tenants more broadly.