Tenant Union

Kingston’s Quiet Rent Revolution

September 22, 2026 Thomas Birmingham, In These Times. Resist! Legal System, New York (NY), Tenant Rights, Tenant Union

Kingston, N.Y. — On September 1, John and Gail Bechtold tore open their monthly rent statement, hoping their landlord had finally given in and fixed it. But those same four numbers stared back at them: $1,700. It was the 39th month in a row that Opus Management Group overcharged the Bechtolds by $221.74 for their apartment in the Dutch Village (or, as Gail calls it, Dump Village) complex in Kingston. According to a state housing agency ruling, Opus owes the Bechtolds, both retirees in their 80s, well over $10,000. Whether they can get that money back, however, is a question whose answer will likely reverberate throughout the tenant movement.

Rural Kentucky Tenants Win Unprecedented Lease Agreement

April 16, 2026 Thomas Birmingham, In These Times. Strategize! Contract Negotiations, Kentucky, Renter Rights, Tenant Union

When yet another air conditioner in her apartment building broke down in early March, Heather Myatt braced herself and began her usual beeline for the property manager’s office. For more than a year, Myatt and her neighbors have been waging a war to secure long-overdue repairs at Maple Grove Apartments, an income-restricted building in Brandenburg, Ky. Being ignored had become routine for the tenants of Maple Grove; last summer, an elderly resident whose AC had been broken for two years, despite regular complaints to the building’s landlord, reportedly collapsed from the heat.

As Tenants Organize, Landlords Embrace Old-School Union-Busting

December 14, 2025 Rebecca Burns and Thomas Birmingham, In These Times. Resist! Housing, Landlords, Tenant Union, union busting, Unions

When a group of renters at New Haven, Connecticut’s Sunset Ridge apartments gathered last month to announce they had formed a tenants union, they were interrupted by some uninvited guests. Since September, Sunset Ridge tenant organizers had been going door-to-door speaking with neighbors about their living conditions, including persistent mold that’s the likely culprit behind a spate of respiratory illnesses in the 312-unit building. With the help of the Connecticut Tenants Union (CTTU), a statewide union of renters, the group collected signatures from more than 160 residents — enough to file for certification with the city

LA Tenants’ Strikes Forced A Major Landlord To Refund Opaque Utility Fees

October 11, 2025 Roshan Abraham, Next City. Organize! Housing, Los Angeles, renter's rights, Tenant Union, Unions

When Joe Porter, a 29-year-old video editor, moved into his 400-square-foot studio apartment in Los Angeles four years ago, his bills for water, trash removal and pest control were bundled together into one monthly payment that came out to about $60. After the first few years, Porter said, his bill increased to about $200. When he asked his landlord – the giant real estate investment trust Equity Residential — for an explanation, he was told billing was done by a third party and that Equity could not provide a more detailed breakdown. Like many landlords of multifamily buildings, Equity uses a billing method called ratio utility billing systems (RUBS). Landlords who use this system divvy up the costs of the building’s total utilities usage according to each unit’s square footage and number of tenants.

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

June 29, 2025 Andrew Oliphant, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Landlords, Tenant Union, Tenants

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.

Missouri Tenants Suing To Keep Their Homes In Federal Tax Credit Program

June 18, 2025 Hope Davis, Next City. Resist! Affordable Housing, Housing, Missouri, Tax Credit, Tenant Rights, Tenant Union

Ramona Teeter planned to live at the Rosewood Estates, her home for nearly two decades, for the rest of her life. The 79-year-old is bold, direct, and does not fear asking questions. So six years ago, when the Springfield, Missouri, subdivision became eligible to leave the federal low income housing tax credit program, Teeter asked management if they had plans to opt out. Teeter says she was reassured that her affordable housing was safe. Now, she’s a leader in a Springfield tenants union suing their landlords to keep their homes past 2026, after the properties’ owner quietly left the affordable housing program.

‘People’s Cooling Army’ Is Giving Tenants Free Air Conditioners

July 18, 2024 'Lucas Frisancho, Next City. Create! Air Conditioning, Chicago, Heat, Housing, Tenant Union, Unions

Perhaps the most basic demand of a tenant is that the living space they pay for is, in fact, livable. Yet as extreme heat becomes the norm, organizers claim that for many low-income Chicago renters, this basic condition is not being met. An initiative called the People’s Cooling Army, launched by the All-Chicago Tenant Alliance, aims to provide and install free repaired air conditioning units for low-income tenants in Chicago’s Humboldt Park, Garfield Park and Hermosa. “Tenants across the city have been left to bake in hot apartments,” organizers announced at a July 8 press conference. “Tenants across the city have been asked to live in apartments where they could not sleep, where they were always covered in sweat, where their children were unsafe.”

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

December 10, 2023 Thomas Birmingham, In These Times. Organize! Connecticut, Housing, Landlords, Tenant Union, Victory

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.

Multiracial Tenant Union At The Forefront Of A Growing Movement

March 11, 2023 Fran Quigley, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Housing, Kentucky, Louisville, Tenant Union

Louisville, Kentucky - Private police officers guide a line of late-model SUVs through the January morning’s cold rain into a lane of Louisville’s Grinstead Avenue, specially cleared to ease their path to the entrance of Collegiate School. Brake lights shine through the gloom as children in plaid uniforms climb out and head inside. Collegiate, founded by a plantation-owning Kentucky family and led by a board president who is the heir to the Brown-Forman liquor dynasty, has an annual tuition of $26,000 per year. Just to the west of a new, modern Collegiate playground is the Yorktown Apartments, separated from school grounds by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire.

KC Tenants Announces Launch Of Citywide Tenant’s Union

May 8, 2022 Aarón Torres, Kansas City Star. Organize! Evictions, Housing, Kansas City, Tenant Union

Kansas City, Kansas - Pat Lucas received the notification last August: She would have to vacate the Armour Flats building in the 3400 block of Holmes Street in Kansas City — her home for more than 17 years — by November. The management company was going to renovate the property, causing her rent to shoot up, from a little over $500 a month to more than $1,000. She was priced out and had to move. Lucas shared her story Saturday as KC Tenants, a local organization advocating for housing rights, held a rally to announce it was creating a citywide tenant’s union. The organization will work with every local neighborhood association with a goal of getting 10,000 union members.

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