Tenant Organizing

New York City became the first in the nation to give low-income tenants free legal representation. Now, several other counties and cities have either passed similar legislation or have drafted bills in the pipeline.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development can provide $10 million to tenant organizers each year, but the funding has largely gone unspent since the early 2000s. Will that change with a new administration and newly approved HUD secretary?

Most communities lack a way of collecting real-time data on whether landlords are complying with rules. A rental registry could change that.

Despite a state-wide eviction moratorium, thousands of people have been evicted in Chicago since March. A coalition of housing advocates is proposing a just cause ordinance that would halt no-fault evictions.

Dozens of cities and states are considering legislation allowing alternatives to upfront security deposits, such as “security deposit insurance.” The only problem? It’s not actually insurance.

A decades-old tenant organizing film—now in digital form for the first time—is still relevant today.

Shelterforce spoke with researchers, advocates, lawyers, housing economists, and rental housing industry representatives to understand what that crisis would do to evicted individuals and their families, and to shelter systems, public health, and the rental housing market.

Organizers calling for the cancellation of rent are taking to digital platforms to get the word out about the action, where tenants will withhold some or all of their rent until their conditions are met.

A bill announced today by Rep. Ilhan Omar would release tenants and homeowners from housing payments until the national emergency is lifted, and would make up the losses to landlords and lenders through a federal fund.

If you have an arrest or conviction record, you’ll most likely have a difficult time finding a place to rent. A new law in Cook County aims to protect potential tenants from housing discrimination.

A review of a documentary about the decade-long period in the South Bronx when 80 percent of its housing, home to around a quarter of a million people, was lost to fire.

As we work toward passing rent regulations in cities and states across the country, there’s an important distinction we should be making between two different sets of goals and approaches, and they could line up with some terms that are currently used interchangeably.