Tag: rent control

How We Won Rent Control in Pasadena, California

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

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?

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.

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.

Fighting Back Against Corporate Landlords—A Shelterforce Webinar

Shelterforce recently hosted a conversation about how to fight, and win, against corporate landlords and their extractive business models. Watch the video or read the transcript.

The Rise and Fall of the National Tenants Union

The National Tenants Union fought for tenant rights in the 1970s and early 1980s. One of the union’s founders reflects on the organization and what we might learn from those times.

Biden Has Power to Impose Rent Control, Say Housing Advocates

There’s legal precedent for the administration to limit rent hikes at least on all buildings with federally backed loans.

How Rent Control Helped Create East Palo Alto

The story of East Palo Alto’s incorporation is one marked by great contention among local stakeholders, but also provides valuable lessons for organizers in forging and mobilizing local coalitions.

Philly’s 1970s Fight to Revive Rent Control

As rent control reemerges as a strategy to address an intense housing crisis, we go back 50 years to examine the lessons learned from past struggles in Philadelphia.

Now and Then: Rent Control, Rental Assistance, and Universal Vouchers

In the second installment of updates to Shelterforce articles of old, we check in on how well some of the recommendations, predictions, and worries about rent control, rental assistance, and universal vouchers have aged.

How Rent Control Promotes Racial Equity

Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, our long-standing housing affordability crisis called for universal rent control as a baseline protection. 

Q: What Do All These Rent Regulation Terms Mean?

As rents have been rising, organizing for rent regulations have gained steam. However, the terms used to describe rent regulations can be unclear.

Not All Rent Regulations Are Created Equal

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.

Rent Control Is at a Turning Point

Advocates around the country now have current data on what rent control expansion would do to help low-income, cost-burdened renters.

The Fight for Stronger Rent Regulation in New York Is Beginning

New York’s rent regulation laws, which protect over 1 million renter households in New York City and Westchester, Nassau, and Rockland counties, are up for renewal this year.

What the Fight for Universal Rent Control in New York Can...

Voters have set up an unprecedented fight between progressive housing groups and real estate interests. It will be a brutal fight. For proof of this, housing advocates in New York need only to look at California.

Shelter Shorts, The Week in Community Development—Nov. 16

News from—and affecting—the community development world. This week: Louisiana votes for justice, California wildfires and housing, a *new* redlining map, HUD's grading system, aging households, more.

Here’s What We Actually Know About Market-Rate Housing Development and Displacement

For-profit housing cannot meet most renters’ needs, and that’s by design. So when you talk about market-rate construction and displacement, use the following literature review as reference.

Housing Advocates—Seize This Moment!

I’ve been working to address housing affordability since the late 1970s. There has never been this much media and public focus on the issue.

Tenant Power: Organizing for Rent Strikes and Landlord Negotiations

In the face of high rent increases and substandard housing, many tenants are realizing they are not alone in their landlord troubles and are joining together to push for building-level wins, and policy change.