How Los Angeles Won the Largest Municipal Housing Program in the Country
The ambitious funding campaign took strong cross-movement organizing and the right political moment.
Six Steps to Ensuring a Strong Right to Organize for Tenants
Getting solid legal protections in place will help tenants stick up for themselves more safely and effectively.
How We Won Rent Control in Pasadena, California
Never underestimate the power of—and need for—a ground game.
Albany’s Good-Cause Eviction Law Worked—Before the Courts Blocked It
As local tenant protections face judicial backlash across New York, tenants are pushing for a statewide version of the law.
Building Community Power in Newark, NJ
Jennifer Made started organizing at 13 and began feeding her community at 19, an effort that grew into the Newark Community Action Network.
Tenants Rights Advance in California
Reaction to the housing crisis in California has led to a series of gains for tenants, including a new Renters’ Caucus.
Through Her Eyes: Community Organizing in Detroit
Kea Mathis organizes alongside tenants—mostly Black, women-led households—to create and support affordable, quality housing. "It is very hard . . . as a Black woman here, to be the one to try to ask the question first or stand up first,” says Mathis.
How to Build a YIMBY/Tenant Activist Bridge, a Shelterforce Webinar
Shelterforce’s investigative reporter Shelby R. King wrote two pieces about YIMBY (Yes in My Back Yard) groups in 2022, including one that focused on shared interests between YIMBY supporters and housing justice organizers.
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Biden’s Renters Rights Blueprint: Meaningful or Not?
What should we make of the administration’s tenants rights announcement?
Building Tenant Power: A Growing Movement Rises in Baltimore
Tenant organizing in Baltimore today is building on a rich legacy of tenant resistance in the city where residential redlining made its debut.
How These NYC Public Housing Residents Became Models for Tenant Rights Activism
Over generations, residents of the Cooper Park Houses in Brooklyn have created a blueprint for successful housing organizing.
Tenant Advocates Wait for Action After Meeting with White House Officials
Tenants got to talk directly to the Biden administration about the need to rein in soaring rents. Will action follow?
D.C. Street Vendors Push Back Against Criminalization
Street vendors are banding together to push back against police harassment, keep access to their usual locations, fight for better working conditions, and create sustainable businesses.
When a Problematic Landlord Is a Nonprofit
While in most cases having a nonprofit as a landlord is considered a win, it doesn’t prevent conflict with tenants. But organizers can take some different tactics when interacting with nonprofit landlords.
Boston Organizers Protect Individual Tenants, While Trying to Change the System
City Life/Vida Urbana is known for successful tenant union organizing and anti-eviction actions, but every individual action springs from a larger vision of system and policy change.
Tenant Protections Take a Step Forward in Maryland
Access to counsel in evictions is now funded statewide, and several other tenant protections have passed, but the Maryland effort shows that solidifying tenant protections can be a multiyear process.
All Tenants Get Right to Counsel in Kansas City
Pandemic evictions heightened the urgency. Then the campaign succeeded by finding local champions, presenting cost and benefit data, and spotlighting tenant narratives.
Is a YIMBY/Tenant Activist Bridge Possible?
A culture war between housing justice advocates and YIMBYs began in 2014. While the groups have different priorities, they do have shared interests. Can they be allies or will the habitual quarreling keep them at odds?
How Organizers Won a Tenants Bill of Rights in Miami-Dade County
Responding to tenants’ top concerns, organizers pivoted from affordability issues to landlord accountability and won a package of new tenant protections.
How Portland, Maine, Passed Rent Control
Organizers drew broad support with a multi-pronged campaign and found ways to get signatures in a pandemic to win rent stabilization and a slate of other progressive laws.