Tenant Organizing

Renters’ rights are fair housing rights. Before publishing a final Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, HUD must specifically address the needs of renters. Here’s how.

Because their programs provide the most deeply affordable housing in the country, public housing authorities should be both supported in improving fair housing outcomes and held to account when they fall short.

Reaction to the housing crisis in California has led to a series of gains for tenants, including a new Renters’ Caucus.

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.

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 […]

What should we make of the administration’s tenants rights announcement?

Tenant organizing in Baltimore today is building on a rich legacy of tenant resistance in the city where residential redlining made its debut.

Over generations, residents of the Cooper Park Houses in Brooklyn have created a blueprint for successful housing organizing.

Tenants got to talk directly to the Biden administration about the need to rein in soaring rents. Will action follow?

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.

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.

Pandemic evictions heightened the urgency. Then the campaign succeeded by finding local champions, presenting cost and benefit data, and spotlighting tenant narratives.