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Tenants Confront Landlord Disruption

December 2, 2025 Peter Fousek and Cameron Harrison, People's World. , , ,
The struggle over who controls the roof over a worker’s head erupted into open confrontation on the steps of New Haven City Hall last Thursday, as a newly formed public tenants union at Sunset Ridge Apartments faced down a landlord-backed “counter-demonstration.” The response by the landlord, Capital Reality, which included counter-protestors, police presence, and a union-busting law firm, highlights the growing battle between private equity and working-class renters in a national tenant organizing drive.

Have Private Equity Landlords Met Their Match?

September 10, 2025 Thomas Birmingham, In These Times. , , ,
The most Gerene Freeman saw of her landlord on August 6 were several pairs of eyes peeking out between the blinds of a dark office building. That Wednesday was the day Freeman, a 76-year-old retired creative writing teacher, and her neighbors — all tenants of a New Haven, Conn. apartment complex for elderly and disabled residents called Park Ridge — had formally launched a tenants’ union. They had driven more than two hours to their landlord’s office in Rockland County, N.Y., to deliver a letter announcing the creation of the Park Ridge Tenant Union and demanding to negotiate for better conditions. But they found themselves completely stonewalled: first misdirected to a seemingly vacant building in New Jersey, and then returned to find people clearly visible inside the New York office who would not open the door to receive their letter.

After A Six-Year Struggle, Boston Tenants Won Permanent Affordability

August 4, 2025 Sandra Larson, Next City. , , ,
After a yearslong standoff with a large corporate landlord who had imposed sharp rent increases after purchasing their complex, a group of tenants in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood have scored an unusual victory: long-term affordable housing. For six years, tenants who live at the Fairlawn Estates complex organized, sought to negotiate lower rent increases, and staged protests and rallies with strong support from City Life/Vida Urbana, a housing justice nonprofit that’s been organizing low-income tenants in the Boston area for more than 50 years. The situation took a turn in March 2025 when the building went up for sale again.

Tenants Take Ownership Of Their Building, Run It As A Cooperative

June 29, 2025 Andrew Oliphant, Grassroots Economic Organizing. , , ,
Emily Power was living in her apartment at 272 Caroline Street in Hamilton for less than a year when the owner put the 21-unit building up for sale. The sale took many residents by surprise. Even the superintendent didn’t receive a notice from the owner. Power braced for the worst. She was wary that an investment company would purchase the building and raise rents, either through Cash-for-Keys offers, where landlords offer cash for tenants to vacate the rental unit, or another type of pressure or harassment, since many residents were longstanding, rent-controlled tenants. Power, a born-and-raised Hamiltonian, was friendly with a number of tenants in her building, so she began organizing and eventually started a tenant association at 272 Caroline.

Landlords Fined $80K For Threatening To Call ICE On Chicago Tenants

March 8, 2025 Zane McNeill, Truthout. , , , , , ,
An Illinois circuit court judge has ordered Chicago landlords to pay former tenants $80,000 after they threatened to report the tenants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in June 2020. The decision is the first under the state’s 2019 Immigrant Tenant Protection Act (ITPA), which prohibits landlords from using a tenant’s immigration status to harass or intimidate them. “This decision provides a measure of justice to a family facing a landlord willing to threaten to call federal immigration authorities in the belief that it would scare tenants,” Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, said in a statement.

Vote On ‘Social Housing’ Could Break Stranglehold Of Private Landlords

January 29, 2025 Rebecca Burns, In These Times. , , , , ,
On a once-vacant plot of public land in Seattle, a cluster of mid-rise buildings surrounds a tree-filled courtyard. Children play on swings while adults run laps and chat on shared stoops. Some neighbors live in dorm-style rooms with common kitchens, others in family-sized townhomes — but all benefit from access to parks and transit, affordable rents and a democratic say in how their buildings run. None of this exists yet, to be clear. But it’s the vision, laid out in proof-of-concept sketches and during door-to-door canvassing conversations, that Seattle housing activists are hoping to make tangible to voters.

Negligent Landlords Strike Again In The Bronx

January 11, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , ,
A massive, five-alarm fire broke out in the Bronx on Friday morning, displacing over 200 people out in the below freezing temperatures, and injuring seven people. At the time of publication, New York City firefighters are still battling the massive blaze that engulfed the top floor of a six-story residential building. Over 81 displaced families are sheltering in a nearby school, and all the apartments on the top floor have been destroyed.  For the short term, displaced residents will be placed in hotels, then will meet with caseworkers who will help move them into one of the city’s shelters.

Justice Department Sues Six Of The Nation’s Largest Landlords

January 9, 2025 Heather Vogell, ProPublica. , , , ,
The Department of Justice on Tuesday sued six of the nation’s largest landlords, accusing them of using a pricing algorithm to improperly work together to raise rents across the country. The lawsuit expands an antitrust complaint the department filed in August that accused property management software-maker RealPage of engaging in illegal price-fixing to reduce competition among landlords so prices — and profits — would soar. Officials conducted a two-year investigation into the scheme following a 2022 ProPublica story that showed how RealPage was helping landlords set rents across the country in a way that legal experts said could result in cartel-like behavior.

As Corporate Landlords Spread, A Mold Epidemic Takes Root

October 23, 2024 Thomas Birmingham, In These Times. , , , , , ,
Gabriel Caban has had three constant companions in the nine short months he’s been alive. There’s Beatriz Caban, his 27-year-old mom. There’s the black-and-white blanket he refuses to sleep without. And there’s the mold that grows in the floorboards and walls of his apartment — the mold that has sent him three times to the emergency room, the mold he’s been breathing in his entire life. On Nov. 17, 2023, an eight-months-pregnant Beatriz Caban moved into Sunset Ridge Apartments, a 312-unit low-income complex nestled in the northeast corner of New Haven, Conn. She found mold for the first time that day, along with a bucket in the laundry room next door, filled to the brim with water dripping from the ceiling.

Hundreds Of Kansas City Tenants Will Strike

September 29, 2024 Rebecca Burns, In These Times. , , ,
Fed up with paying escalating rents in buildings whose conditions they say range from dirty to dangerous, tenants at two Kansas City-area apartment complexes have voted to launch a rent strike on October 1 — a coordinated action that could soon spread to other cities, as a new national tenants union flexes its muscles. Anna Heetmann, 29, says she has spent three years trying to secure a fix for the gaping hole in her living room ceiling caused by water damage in the unit above. Earlier this month, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, II, the Democrat who represents Missouri’s 5th Congressional District, toured the building and pledged to support tenants should they strike. 

A Trailblazing Tenants Union Forced A Mega-Landlord To The Table

December 10, 2023 Thomas Birmingham, In These Times. , , , ,
New Haven, Connecticut - Things looked bleak on Blake Street when, at around 3:30 p.m. on August 19, Jessica Stamp and 15 of her neighbors found eviction notices taped to their door. Ocean Management, Stamp’s landlord and one of New Haven’s most powerful companies, seemed intent on getting her out. But 13 days later, on Sept. 1, Ocean called off the evictions and came to the bargaining table to negotiate the first agreement of its kind between a landlord and tenants in Connecticut. In those 13 days, a local tenants union realized just how powerful they’d become.

As Chicago Punts On Apartment Safety, Denver Shows What’s Possible

December 4, 2023 Alex Nitkin, Next City. , , , , ,
The tenant of a two-story house in east Denver had been expecting Kevin Lewis when he knocked on her door this past June. After a brief introduction and a glance around the home, Lewis quickly checked the water pressure, power outlets and the cooling sources in each room. He reached a wiry arm up to a ceiling smoke alarm and pressed a button, prompting a chirp to echo through the house. “Music to my ears,” Lewis said, already halfway to the basement to make sure the boiler had a working gas line connection. Minutes later, Lewis was gone — on to the next house. Lewis wasn’t sent by the city to investigate a complaint, nor by a prospective buyer.

Ireland: Students Protest Housing Crisis Ahead Of New Academic Year

August 18, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , , ,
Student-youth groups in Ireland have condemned the housing crisis in the country as they are about to return to their colleges and universities this September for the new academic year. On Wednesday, August 16, the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), along with housing support groups including Threshold, launched a ‘Scam Watch’ campaign against the exploitation of students by landlords and rent sharks. The USI also demanded legislation to control rents and provide affordable housing for students. Political parties like Sinn Fein accuse the coalition government under Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, and the Greens of totally failing the student renters and abandoning them in the grip of the housing crisis.

Tenant Organizing In Unexpected Places

August 7, 2023 Shelterforce, Grassroots Economic Organizing. , , ,
Spurred in part by COVID and by a growing housing affordability crisis, tenant organizing is picking up, not just in expected places like New York, but in mid-sized cities like Austin and Baltimore, and even smaller cities like Louisville, Kentucky, and Portland, Maine. Increasingly, tenant organizers are not just winning battles against landlords, but changing public policy. For instance, rent control was passed in Portland, Maine, last November. In this webinar cosponsored by NPQ and Shelterforce on July 12, moderated by Steve Dubb, NPQ economic justice senior editor, and Miriam Axel-Lute, Shelterforce’s editor in chief, four tenant activists shared their stories of direct tenant organizing and policy advocacy.

LA Failed To Stop Landlords From Turning Low-Cost Housing Into Hotels

July 10, 2023 Robin Urevich and Gabriel Sandoval, ProPublica. , , , ,
By law, the American Hotel in downtown Los Angeles is supposed to be reserved for residents who can’t afford to live anywhere else. For decades, the building was a haven in the city’s sky-high housing market, where artists, musicians and people down on their luck could rent rooms for about $500 a month. At the end of the day, longtime tenants would hang out at Al’s Bar, a legendary punk and alternative rock venue on the ground floor where bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers played long before they sold out stadiums. But amid the largest homelessness crisis in the nation, the American’s owner has turned the building into a boutique hotel where tourists can book rooms for as much as $209 a night.
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