TOPA/COPA

A tenant opportunity to purchase act (TOPA) is a policy that gives tenants some specific rights when their building goes up for sale. Learn what it covers and what it doesn’t in this video.

A dive into some promising new approaches to both funding community ownership and building out an ecosystem that supports its sustainability.

What are the root causes of the housing crisis and how can we address them?

Laws that give tenants the ability to purchase their own apartments are popping up across the country. In this webinar, a panel of folks who have been reporting on, fighting for, and using these policies offer their perspectives on this powerful anti-displacement tool. 

TOPA helps prevent displacement and build tenant power in D.C. Affordable capital is critical to its success.

Developers are pushing for two exemptions to the landmark tenant rights legislation—affordable housing properties and buildings that are 25 years old or newer.

Organized by a pandemic-era mutual aid group, this housing cooperative is taking advantage of D.C.’s pioneering Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. But the pressure of paying back a loan with mounting interest could stymie the group’s plans to provide affordable housing.

What were the biggest Shelterforce stories of the year? We count down the top 10 of 2023.

Tenant Opportunity to Purchase laws empower renters to get control when their buildings go up for sale. But in D.C., the hurdles to becoming owners are many, and often insurmountable.

Arrangements in which LIHTC tenants share in the development’s financial benefits, or become partial or full owners, are rare—but some properties have pulled them off. This scan of several examples shows the possibilities—and the conditions needed for them to succeed.

Shelterforce checks in on three communities that have passed policies giving tenants and nonprofits first dibs on purchasing property. Are these policies keeping residents in their homes?

Tenant advocates have long been pushing for a “tenants bill of rights” to codify rules that protect renters from landlords. Here’s a rundown of the top protections housing justice activists say need to be included.