Tenant Organizing

The decision to demolish Wellston’s public housing had already been made when residents and the mayor decided to fight for it, but persistence, luck, and a financing structure with some unusual twists brought them back from the brink.

Tenant Opportunity to Purchase laws empower renters to get control when their buildings go up for sale. But in D.C., the hurdles to becoming owners are many, and often insurmountable.

Facing 25 to 50 percent rent increases, tenants at two apartment towers fought to get the city to enforce its longstanding rent control ordinance. A year later, they earned a win that could result in millions being paid back to them in rent overpayments.

Housing and policy experts agree that LIHTC has successfully increased the supply of affordable housing. But they also believe there’s room for improvement.

Arrangements in which LIHTC tenants share in the development’s financial benefits, or become partial or full owners, are rare—but some properties have pulled them off. This scan of several examples shows the possibilities—and the conditions needed for them to succeed.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that overrode dozens of local tenant protection laws won there in recent years. How are housing organizers in Florida fighting back? And what can other organizers do if they live in a state that is hostile to tenant protections?

Tenant organizing has the power to transcend culture wars and break down the artificial barriers that have been placed between us.

“We have seen corporate landlords—who own a larger share of the rental market than ever before—use inflation as an excuse to hike rents and reap excess profits beyond what should be considered fair and reasonable.”

Tenants aren’t just organizing in places like California and New York—hear about tenant organizing in small and mid-sized cities from Maine, Maryland, Texas and Kentucky.

It’s time to forge a new coalition of labor unions and housing justice activists at the national, state, and local levels.

Never underestimate the power of—and need for—a ground game.

A program to stabilize residents whose subsidized housing is disrupted has also been used to support other highly vulnerable residents, but those uses are a matter of controversy.