Organizing

In states across the South, coalitions that include housing justice advocates, tenant leaders, and legal service providers are coming together to oppose anti-tenant policies and advance tenant rights.

Housing advocates in Eugene, Oregon, are seeking to create a legislative framework that would allow tenants to collectively acquire multifamily buildings when a building comes up for sale.

When Chicago tenants on rent strike agreed to stop speaking publicly about their landlord as part of settling their eviction cases, they honored the agreement. They never dreamed the landlord’s lawyers would try to charge them with violating the agreement for having talked to us in the past.

Rev. Jesse Jackson’s passing reminds us of the need to combine political and economic organizing—and to translate protest gains into lasting structural change.

In Brazil’s settlements, or favelas, residents risk displacement due to unclear property title—but getting clear title could price them out of the community. Could community land trusts offer a solution to this dilemma?

In a time of both federal and state legislature intransigence, tenant organizing strategies that emphasize building-level organizing and other creative approaches are gaining ground.

Members of the Belden Sawyer Tenant Association were unable to stop their homes from being converted into luxury apartments. But they’ve remained united, opening membership to the whole city and fighting to give tenants the right to purchase their homes.

A tenant organizing push in the Twin Cities has support from labor unions representing more than 25,000 workers.

Community organizer Erika Castro has turned the barriers she faced early in life into a pathway for leadership and immigration rights advocacy. This video is part of Shelterforce’s Women of Color on the Front Lines series.

To protect themselves from ICE, many families are staying home from work; tenant organizers in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Los Angeles are pushing for eviction moratoriums to keep them safe.

Wages have long been out of step with housing costs. Santa Fe hopes to change that by tying minimum wage increases to HUD’s Fair Market Rent estimates.

By adjusting rent thresholds and shrinking landlord exemptions, more than a dozen municipalities have adopted stronger versions of a state law that protects tenants from high rent increases and unreasonable evictions.