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tenants' rights
The Grassroots Fight For Affordable Housing
From Tacoma, Washington to Kansas City, Missouri, people power is key to creating communities where working people can live.
Jul 23, 2025
In the United States, the housing situation is abysmal and getting worse.
A few statewide and local statistics are emblematic of a broader national problem. For example, in Washington state, according to the New York Times, rental housing prices rose by 43% from 2001 to 2023 while, during the same time period, the income of state renters grew by only 26%. Meanwhile in New York City, The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the average price of a two-bedroom apartment was $5,560. The Journal headline of the article in which that statistic was cited nicely embodied a rising feeling among ordinary New York City residents: “New York’s Housing Crisis Is So Bad That a Socialist is Poised to Become Mayor,” referring of course to Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who is the frontrunner to win the city’s mayoral election in November. Rates of homelessness, evictions, and foreclosures remain high around the country.
In the face of this ever growing crisis, mainstream politicians—Democrats and Republicans—have virtually nothing useful to say. They’ve doubled down on existing national, state, and local government subsidies for affordable housing—which do not even remotely begin to produce the supply of housing at levels needed—while insisting that the unregulated free market in housing (increasingly controlled by an ever smaller number of corporations) operate as much as possible.
Grassroots Resistance
Tacoma, Washington is a city of about 222,000, 35 miles southwest of Seattle. It is largely a working class town; the Tacoma News Tribune recently reported that 77% of the jobs within it “don’t pay enough for a single worker to be able to comfortably afford housing on their own.” In the whole of Pierce County (of which Tacoma is the county seat), 37% of renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
A group which has attempted to alleviate this situation, with modest but tangible success, is Tacoma For All (T4A), a group founded by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 367 and the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America. T4A’s most noticeable achievement has been launching and successfully influencing the passage of Initiative 1 by Tacoma voters in November 2023, securing relatively strong eviction protections for the city’s renters and a cap on rent increases.
In order to assist in meeting the crisis of affordable housing, KC Tenants and T4A have both made a strong push for government-funded social housing within their particular locales.
However, the most impressive achievement of T4A has been its building of an organization, democratically run by its dues-paying members, devoted to educating ordinary people about their legal rights as tenants and to acting in solidarity to protect the rights of other tenants against the depredations of corporate landlords. The organization regularly sends teams of organizers to knock on doors of Tacoma apartment buildings, asking tenants about any issues they might be having with landlords, and offering the organization’s assistance and solidarity in addressing those issues. T4A has established Tacoma Tenant Legal Aid to help tenants pursue their rights. The organization has achieved real successes in helping Tacoma residents stay in their homes
Another successful grassroots organization is KC Tenants in Kansas City, Missouri. It is profiled in Jonathan Tarleton’s 2025 book Homes for Living: The Fight for Social Housing and a New American Commons. While the group is anti-capitalist, KC Tenants foremost approach to tenants is not to preach socialism but to help them navigate bread-and-butter housing issues. The presentation of their critique of racial capitalism or lessons on the virtues of social housing comes later in the process of integrating tenants into their organization. As KC Tenants organizer Tara Raghuveer told Tarleton, the group’s initial approach is to simply ask tenants, “How the fuck are you?...We knock [on] doors asking people how they’re living now, which by itself is a very politicizing line of questioning because the people are not living good.”
For tenants suffering from serious psychological trauma and anger because of housing issues, the approach of KC Tenants organizers—the message that people are here to offer assistance to them without judgement and structures for solidarity with other people going through similar issues—can be exhilarating, even liberating. Similar feelings have also been felt by KC Tenants professional organizers. One of them is Magda Werkmeister, who at one point left Kansas City for back East to complete a college degree but eventually returned to continue working with KC Tenants. She told Tarleton that she returned to the group because “I was missing out on something that makes life more joyous, and I think that was just the sense of community… and these people that you are able to care about and [who] care about you.”
Social Housing
In order to assist in meeting the crisis of affordable housing, KC Tenants and T4A have both made a strong push for government-funded social housing within their particular locales. Other municipalities have followed suit: For example, Seattle voters approved funding for a city social housing developer in February, and in May the Chicago City Council passed a Green Social Housing Ordinance.
Social housing is a form of public housing: It is meant to assist persons of a wide range of income levels (not merely low income) and utilize government subsidies to ensure the rents it charges are substantially below market rate. The most successful example of social housing in the world is found in Vienna, Austria. The success of Vienna’s social housing seemingly played a role in Economist Intelligence naming it in 2024 as the world’s most livable city.
The Bottom Line: People Power
It seems likely that Zohran Mamdani—who has cited the Vienna model of housing as a major influence—will have immense difficulties in implementing social housing in New York City, as well as his other proposals like free childcare and free bus service. These programs will require tax increases on the city’s businesses and wealthy as well as increases in New York City’s debt limit; both require the approval of New York’s business-friendly Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and she is unlikely to accommodate Mamdani’s requests to any significant extent. Moreover, there is risk that city business leaders and the wealthy—fearful of the threat to their bottom line should Mamdani win election in November and try to implement his relatively mild democratic socialist program—will engage in capital flight, wrecking the city’s tax base.
Regardless of whether Mamdani is, somehow, able to resist the establishment pressure and implement major parts of his agenda—or whether that pressure forces him to sell out that agenda—it is obviously crucial that ordinary people and grassroots activists stick unflinchingly to core principles and relentlessly pressure politicians to follow them.
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Zohran Won by Running for the Tenant Majority
This election was a fight between tenants versus landlords, and we have won the first battle. We still need to organize to win the general, and beyond that, tenant-focused policies.
Jul 02, 2025
New York City is a tenant town. But for decades, in City Hall and in Albany, the real estate industry has used their vast power—manifested through money, networks, and control over major influential universities and civic institutions—to run New York. Politicians regularly see property owners as more deserving constituents—a condition that is downstream from how they are elected in the first place.
Traditional campaign consultants on both sides of the aisle train their candidates to believe that homeowners vote and that tenants—comparatively more transient—have less of a stake in our communities and neighborhoods. This creates a vicious feedback loop: If tenants are more transient, it is because of public policy that doesn’t believe in our right to housing stability. If we do not vote, it is because no one is giving us anything to vote for. If public policy doesn’t favor tenants, it is because lawmakers are accustomed to delivering for the interest groups that they believe elected them.
For too long, a vocal minority coalition of property owners, landlords, and real estate developers have used their vast wealth to buy our elections and control New York City. This is not only bad for tenants, it is a threat to our democracy. They then use this power to marginalize tenants further—blocking tenant protections and writing in new ways to raise our rents.
We need people in City Hall who know that we—not the real estate industry, not the landlords—put them there.
Historically, national tenant voter turnout is lower than property owner turnout, but in New York, a majority tenant city, that isn’t the case. Because we are breaking the cycle.
Things began to change in 2018, when a group of eight Working Families Party-backed Democrats and one democratic socialist lawmaker were elected to the state legislature. During their campaigns, they refused real estate donations, emboldened by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) similar pledge and victory just months before. With the support and organizing of tenants, the New York State lawmakers immediately passed the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, a landmark shift against pro-landlord policymaking in Albany.
And now tenants are at the heart of another shakeup. Campaigning on affordability and a promise to freeze the rent for four years, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-36) decisively beat the establishment-picked Andrew Cuomo, winning the Democratic mayoral primary by 12 points.
At every turn, Zohran was Cuomo’s foil. While Cuomo was every landlord’s favorite candidate, Zohran ran aggressively for the tenant majority, putting rental costs front and center in his campaign’s message. Cuomo accepted millions from the real estate industry. In return, he promised to raise the rent, to expand valuable tax exemptions, and to dismantle the very tenant protection laws he signed into law just six years ago.
Zohran, on the other hand, promised to hold slumlords accountable, build truly affordable homes, and freeze the rent. Again and again, in video after video, interview and campaign appearances across the city the message was relentless: Zohran will stand up to your landlord and fight alongside you. He will use the vast tools of the New York City government to deliver higher quality and more affordable housing. If your landlord doesn’t make repairs, we’ll fix it ourselves and fine them. If they don’t pay, we’ll collect the debt.
Initial analysis show that he crushed his opponent in places like Washington Heights and the South Bronx—places that are both super majority tenant neighborhoods—traditionally thought of as moderate and Democratic establishment strongholds.
This is not surprising for those of us who have worked with Zohran for years. As an assemblymember, he was a dogged advocate for Good Cause Eviction protections, defended rent stabilization against real estate industry attacks, and got arrested in civil disobedience actions protesting rent increases and evictions alongside tenant organizers. He has advocated for non-market-controlled housing for years. Zohran announced his mayoral campaign with tenants’ rights organizations like New York Communities for Change and CAAAV Voice.
And as Zohran laid the foundation for the path to Gracie Mansion, the tenant movement launched a new 501c4 political vehicle—the New York State Tenant Bloc (the organization of which I am the director.) The timeline is not a coincidence: We launched with an explicit goal of building a 250,000-strong tenant voting bloc and using our collective voices and votes to elect a tenant majority mayor.
Collectively, tenants’ rights organizations delivered Zohran tens of thousands of votes. While we were a small part of his overall gargantuan volunteer operation, we were proud to mobilize over 715 volunteers to take action in support of his campaign, week after week. Over 20,000 people vowed to vote in favor of Zohran’s core campaign pledge to Freeze the Rent—and by hosting forums, mobilizing in huge numbers to rent board hearings, and elevating our campaign on social media and the press, we reached countless more tenant voters.
While we are proud of Zohran’s record, we didn’t volunteer in droves for him because of his history. We did it because we know that if we want universal rent stabilization and public investments in social housing that is truly affordable for every New Yorker, we need people in City Hall who know that we—not the real estate industry, not the landlords—put them there.
Now, as the organized tenant movement is on the cusp of having a rent stabilized tenant in City Hall, we must organize more forcefully, in greater numbers, than ever before. We need a mayor and a movement.
The machine that tried to elect Andrew Cuomo is bruised, but it is not broken. The real estate industry is now on the offensive, campaigning aggressively in the press and spending big in the general election. They are threatening lawsuits and engaging in a capital strike: refusing to maintain our homes under so-far unsubstantiated claims they cannot afford to. To deliver on a rent freeze, the mayor will have to call their bluff. And doing so will require strong tenant movement organizing at every level—our buildings, our neighborhoods, our city, our state—to make it possible.
This election was a fight between tenants versus landlords, and we have won the first battle. We still need to organize to win the general, and beyond that, tenant-focused policies. We are determined to turn the rent freeze electoral majority into a permanent political powerhouse. Through this voting bloc, tenants will shape budgets and legislation. We will determine the electoral fate of lawmakers, especially those who stand in the way of policies that deliver truly affordable housing, and yes, frozen rents.
What happens in New York matters for the rest of the country: Our tenant majority was once seen as a unique blip in a country that is overall defined by homeownership. But fewer and fewer people can afford to own their own home, and being a tenant is increasingly the norm. Nearly every major city in the country is majority tenant. Many are unable to afford the rents, live in slum conditions, and are forced to move from apartment to apartment as landlords price us out. And just like in New York, politicians who work for property owners but claim to represent tenants are a dangerous threat to democracy.
Unable to afford basic essentials like housing and groceries, voters are turning to the far-right (which is offering a fascistic solution based on deportation and fear), or they are dropping out of politics altogether and simply not voting.
To stop the spread of fascism, leaders running for local and state office must follow Zohran’s path to victory. Run for the tenant majority. Give us something to vote for, and we’ll go to the polls. Our democracy depends on it.
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Michigan Lawmakers Have a Chance to Protect People From Predatory Landlords
In the midst of an affordable housing crisis, the protections in SB486-492 and HB 5157-5163 would interrupt the cycle of corporate greed that leaves hundreds of thousands of Michigan manufactured home residents like me and my wife struggling.
Dec 01, 2024
My wife and I have lived in North Morris Estates, a manufactured housing community in Genesee County, Michigan, for 15 years. I love my home. I love my community. But since 2021, it feels like my community doesn’t love me back.
That year Homes of America, an affiliate of hedge fund Alden Global Capital, bought North Morris Estates. Since then our home has felt more like a battleground than a refuge.
We, like most residents, can’t move our home. The choices are fight back or give up. Anyone who knows us knows we aren’t giving up.
For too long Michiganders living in manufactured housing parks have been subject to the profit-driven whims of predatory, absentee corporate landlords like Homes of America and Alden Global Capital.
When Homes of America took over, they increased our rent by $100 a month over two years. We had proof our rent was always timely and our checks cashed, but they tried to evict us for unpaid rent and 19 late charges going back two years. We quickly learned to send our rent via certified mail and demand receipts.
They left dozens of homes empty and rotting, creating dangerous conditions and blight. When we, like others, requested repairs to make our community safer, we were either told to pay for the work ourselves or faced retaliation. They ignored requests for basic infrastructure repairs, and our community pool and clubhouse have been closed since 2022 due to lack of maintenance.
To get a sense of the retaliation we face, consider our butterfly garden. With permission from the previous owner, we established a nationally registered Monarch Waystation on vacant lots. It was a small victory for residents and a source of pride. After we reported Homes of America’s unpermitted construction, they bulldozed our beloved Monarch Waystation and left a pile of dirt and uprooted flowers. They even took photos, as if it were a trophy. These people prefer blight to beauty!
They often shut off water without notice, leaving us unable to finish a shower, wash dishes, or clean. We’ve resorted to keeping a full bucket in the tub to flush during shutoffs. Even when it’s on, it’s not uncommon for brown, putrid water to come out of our taps.
In November the state denied the renewal of North Morris Estates’ operating license due to violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act. In January the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) issued a violation notice, and Thetford Township took the unprecedented step of obtaining a court injunction to halt park operations. This led to the first-ever criminal charges in Michigan against the owners of a mobile home park for operating without a license, an alleged violation of the Michigan Mobile Home Commission Act.
I’m glad the law is finally beginning to hold Homes of America accountable. But the current law didn’t prevent any of this—the blighted homes, the dirty water, the junk fees. It took hundreds of hours of research, calls, emails, meetings, documentation, and police investigations to get the wheels of justice just starting to turn for residents.
That’s why it’s critical that the Michigan legislature passes SB 486-492/HB 5157-5163. They would create basic protections for residents. They would prevent park owners from renewing their licenses if they have a history of unjustified rent hikes, require more frequent and stringent inspections, create a searchable public database of park owners, and prevent overcharging on utilities. The bills would also update outdated tax incentives that encourage landlords to keep landlord-owned homes off the market.
For too long Michiganders living in manufactured housing parks have been subject to the profit-driven whims of predatory, absentee corporate landlords like Homes of America and Alden Global Capital. In the midst of an affordable housing crisis, the protections in SB486-492 and HB 5157-5163 would interrupt the cycle of corporate greed that leaves hundreds of thousands of Michigan manufactured home residents like me and my wife struggling.
These bills are essential to protect people like us—because no one should feel like a prisoner in their own home.
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