Tag: Tenants

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.

When the pandemic hit, real estate firms gladly took government assistance to keep their businesses afloat as they faced financial hardships. Then they turned around and evicted scores of tenants enduring the same COVID-induced difficulties.

Some elements of affordable housing—from the development process to the way buildings are managed—are rooted in racist assumptions that dehumanize residents. Here are some simple ways you can be a better housing provider.

Tech-based property management companies promise convenience and customer service, but these Kansas City renters’ experience has been, and continues to be, anything but.

The UK saw a dramatic change in landlord behavior once security deposits were put into the hands of a third party.

Beyond the immediate need to stop mass evictions, there is much more that state and local officials can do to facilitate housing stability in a longer-term transition out of the pandemic emergency. The time for those critical measures is now.

A little more than a year ago—while the pandemic raged and the economy cratered—a group of 38 low-income, mostly Black and Brown families won...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Residents and institutions in a North Philadelphia neighborhood wanted to put the power of the land back into the hands of the community. The way we decided to do this was to create the Community Justice Land Trust and ensure neighborhood residents and tenants of CLT homes had seats on its board.

“The string of victories in 2017 are a direct product of renters building power on the ground. Renters, faced with a historic housing crisis, are getting organized to change immediate conditions on the ground and build a movement to transform the way land and housing are treated in the country.”

There have been a number of stories in the papers over the last two months that, from my perspective, are connected. Unfortunately, their common denominator is the demise of affordable housing caused by the malignant neglect of government at all levels.

Every month millions of Black Americans hand over half of our livelihood to the descendants of those who forcefully brought our ancestors here to work for free. Essentially, America is in the business of charging its captives rent.

Gentrification is not the inevitable result of economic development, but the result of fundamentally unjust economic development policies.

I’ve read far too many think pieces, op-eds, and reports that neglect the role of tenant protections as a tool that is vital to...

Esperanza Menendez-Jackson is a single working mother who lived with her three children in a government-subsidized apartment building in...

We know a few things about the majority of very low-income renters: They live in private market housing, not tax credit projects or public...