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tenants' rights
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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Harris to Target Predatory Wall Street Landlords With Four-Year Housing Plan
The Democratic nominee is expected to endorse a crackdown on algorithmic price-setting by big landlords and an end to tax breaks for corporate investors that buy up single-family homes.
Aug 16, 2024
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Friday is set to outline a four-year housing plan that would promote the construction of 3 million new housing units, provide substantial down-payment aid to first-time homebuyers, and strip away tax incentives for corporate investors that
purchase single-family homes and drive up prices to pad their bottom lines.
Harris'
proposals to tackle the nation's worsening housing crisis are part of a broader economic agenda that the vice president will lay out in a speech Friday afternoon in North Carolina.
Harris, who recently pledged to "take on corporate landlords and cap unfair rent increases," is expected to urge Congress to pass a pair of bills that would crack down on algorithmic price-setting by big landlords and bar corporate investors who buy up 50 or more single-family rental homes from taking advantage of tax breaks, building on President Joe Biden's push for corporate landlords to cap rent hikes.
A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that just 32 institutional investors owned a combined 450,000 single-family homes in the U.S. and the five largest investors owned nearly 300,000 homes. Institutional investors control 25% of the single-family rental housing market in Atlanta, Georgia, according to the GAO.
Another major component of Harris' housing plan calls for providing up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance to "working families who have paid their rent on time for two years and are buying their first home."
Harris' campaign said the plan would "expand the reach of down-payment assistance, allowing over 4 million first-time buyers over four years to get significant down-payment assistance."
"Trump likes to talk about being a builder, but when he was president, he simply never got it done. Now, his Project 2025 agenda will make it more expensive to rent or buy a home," the Harris campaign said Thursday. "Year after year during his presidency, Trump tried to gut rental assistance programs. New home construction slowed while Trump was in office—tightening the housing crunch and enabling his wealthy friends to profit."
Housing justice advocates applauded the emerging details of Harris' plan, arguing that persistent tenant organizing has helped elevate the hardships of renters to the top of the Democratic Party's priority list for 2024 and beyond.
"How did these get on the agenda? Organized renters making good trouble," the Alliance for Housing Justice wrote on social media.
In recent months, progressives and tenant organizers have worked to make housing central to the 2024 campaign as renters across the U.S. struggle to make their monthly payments and as sky-high prices, elevated interest rates, and supply shortages box out first-time homebuyers. Housing costs accounted for roughly 90% of the overall increase in the Consumer Price Index last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A recent research brief by Russell Weaver of Cornell University stressed that tenants impacted by the nation's housing affordability crisis are a "large, untapped political base—especially for Democrats and progressives."
"Candidates who campaign on housing affordability and tenant protections have the potential to significantly boost renter turnout, which could be decisive in tightly contested races," Weaver said.
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