Our strength, OSTA’s strength, lies in our being organized and having many members.
Our strength lies in planning and implementing those plans with hard work.
Our strength lies with our consistently promoting legislation that can be passed into law.
Our strength lies in educating ourselves about our rights under those laws.
Our strength lies in our members paying their dues and donating what they can to further our mission of helping each other.
Our political strength lies in showing legislators that there are many of us united in a need to live comfortably in affordable housing under fair laws.
Sometimes we forget just who and what OSTA is. The “who” of OSTA is all of us, each and every one, united first in chapters, then statewide.
The “what” is the power that all of us, both in our chapters and statewide, can exert on landlords and legislators. If your chapter is weak, which happens if you don’t have many members, and if people aren’t willing to be organized and work, then strength to influence landlords and legislators is also weak. The state-wide organization is made up of the chapters, so if chapters become weak, so does the whole organization. No one can afford to sit back and let “OSTA take care of things” because YOU are OSTA, and YOU are responsible for keeping OSTA functioning and effective.
-Excerpt from the OSTA Chapter Handbook
