Beyond the Gun: Community Preparedness and Defense as a Coalition Project

Howdy responsibly armed folks,

I’m Josh McCaffrey, your fellow GCGC member, but I am also a leader with Bozeman Tenants United, your local union of renters bringing together our people power to make housing affordable and get the rights and legal protections we all deserve. I wanted to take a minute to explain who we are, what we’ve done, what we want to accomplish, and how to get involved.

What we believe – 

Here at GCGC, I think most of us are motivated by a desire to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our community. That can take the form of training to protect from accidents, skills for self defense, or harvesting game to feed ourselves and others.

In the same way, at Bozeman Tenants United, we believe that housing is a basic and foundational right, and that all people deserve housing that is safe, dignified, and affordable. Obviously, the USA is not yet at that point. But many other civil rights that we take for granted now seemed impossible a hundred years ago too, and they were all won by mass movements of people working together. That is why we are building a community that is multi-racial, intergenerational, renters of all backgrounds to organize for what we deserve.

Our track record –

As to what we’ve done so far, we’ve been around since 2022. Some of our major accomplishments have been forcing the city to enact a ban on some forms of Airbnb’s in 2023 (Bozeman votes to ban some short-term rentals, ‘grandfathers’ others).

Also in 2023 we unseated the incumbent mayor and elected our own union founder, Joey Morrison, because Bozeman renters deserve to be represented by someone who also rents and understands their struggle (Bozeman’s next mayor on housing, tattoos and the West – High Country News), not a wealthy homeowner who refused to acknowledge our housing crisis.

In 2024 we helped to found a national Union of Tenant Unions, with our allies in Kansas City, Louisville, Chicago, and Connecticut (https://tenantfederation.org/about/), because the fight for affordable housing is a national crisis, brought about by corporate landlords squeezing our country.

Most recently, we held an emergency rally in March at the Bridger Heights apartment complex to keep 9 families in their home after they were threatened with inaccurate charges and given a 72 hour notice to pay money they did not owe or be evicted. (Bridger Heights tenants protest alleged illegal evictions). It was our base of volunteers, showing up in the dozens, that forced the 11 Residential corporation to back down.

What’s next –

Of course, rallying our community everytime a corporation endangers Montanans isn’t a long term solution. But we have a plan to solve the problem of unjust eviction. For those who don’t know, we’ve pulled the historical data, and found that every year about 175 individuals and families will be sent to Bozeman Eviction Court. Roughly 94% will not be able to afford a lawyer, and will be faced with the impossible choice of either trying to defend themselves against their landlord’s lawyer or risk homelessness.

We think that every renter sent to eviction court deserves to have a lawyer, to ensure that justice is served, a concept known as “Right to Counsel”. And we know that setting up an office of basically eviction public defenders would cost maybe 1% of our cities budget. To keep our people off the street, that sounds like a fair price. This is not an unusual or outlandish concept, 5 other states and 19 cities have similar programs on the books (https://civilrighttocounsel.org/about-civil-rtc/).

How to get involved –

What’s more, we have spent the last year working on our local government to get this right, and we are less than two weeks away from the budget meeting that will determine whether or not the City Commission will approve this. We have a plan to convince them, but we need all the help we can get.

This Sunday, May 8th, at the Bozeman Event Space from 3 to 430 PM, we are holding a Town Hall for Right to Counsel, where we will be bringing experts from our community and across the country to explain this issue. What’s more, our City Commissioners will be there, on stage with the experts, to hear exactly why they should vote for this.

But this is a two part strategy. While our Commissioners are captive, hearing from the experts, we need them to see an auditorium packed with Montanan renters, demanding the right to counsel. If you can make it, or can spread the word to others, this link is an RSVP with additional info (https://actionnetwork.org/events/tenant-right-to-counsel-town-hall-2/)

In Conclusion –

Ultimately, I see BTU and GCGC as part of the same coalition of people who care about defending themselves, their loved ones, and their community. The more we interact, share our knowledge and skills, and frankly, just hang out together, the closer we get to a Bozeman that is safe for everyone. And so, whether or not you are a member, if you or someone you care about is having trouble with a landlord, please reach out! You can call or text (406-414-9994), or email joshuamccaff@gmail.com. And if you’re free on a Sunday night at 5: 30, we meet every two weeks at the Pilgrim UCC. Our next meeting is May 11th, hope to see you there!

Bozeman Tenants United

Gallatin Community Gun Club

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