Tag: tenant protections

How to Reform the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program

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

Tenant Protections Undone: How Florida Organizers Are Moving Forward

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill in June 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?

‘Renters Are Struggling’: Economists Back Tenant-Led Push for Federal Rent Control

"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."

Who Gets Tenant Protection Vouchers?

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.

Proposed AFFH Rule Doesn’t Address Renters Directly—But It Should

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.

Public Housing Must Be a Part of Fair Housing Planning

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.

Biden’s Renters Rights Blueprint: Meaningful or Not?

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

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.

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.

Organized Tenants Are Baaaaack

After a lull in the 1990s, the tenants rights movement reemerged and has only gained strength. What caused the resurgence and what do tenants’ prospects look like?

Top 6 Tenant Protections Renters Are Fighting For

Tenants are organizing together with increased urgency to get legal protections passed in their towns, cities, and states. What are the top protections tenants are fighting for?

Tenants Rights: It’s Not a Moment, It’s a Movement

In "Tenant Power Returns," Shelterforce examines how the energy and focus in the housing world is returning to tenant organizing.

Have the YIMBYs Evolved?

Yes in My Back Yard activists started with a simple—and some would say simplistic—argument: to solve the nation’s housing crisis we just need to build more housing, of any type and in as many places as possible. But as the movement nears a decade of existence, some of its members argue that their message has become more nuanced.

Mid-Lease Rent Hikes Surprise Affordable Housing Tenants

Residents of two LIHTC developments in Northern Virginia were informed that their rent would be increasing in 30 days, even if their leases weren’t ending for months. Is this part of a larger problem?

Tenant Rights in Our Backyard—A Panel Discussion

Tenant activists discuss how the housing movement can do better at aligning itself with the tenants' rights movement.

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.

We Need Rental Registries Now More Than Ever

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

Ilhan Omar Proposes Bill to Cancel Rent, Mortgage Payments During Pandemic

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.