Activity

IF A TENANT is anyone who doesn’t control their own housing, then the tenant movement works to establish collective control. Our aim is not to eliminate tenancy by becoming owners ourselves—an impossible prospect whose promise is an engine for our competition and denigration. Our aim is to eliminat…

Political risks are more than strategic vision; they are acts of faith. “In biology, one learns about a certain species of caterpillar that can only cross the threshold of metamorphosis by seeing its future butterfly,” writes Mike Davis. A movement “does not evolve by incremental steps but requires…

A tenants union helps transform groups of people into defensive and offensive communities. Community isn’t a resource waiting to be tapped, or a static object ready to be discovered. It isn’t a network we access or a system we unveil. Community is an intentional process and a long-term commitment. …

Their tenants association both forged new relationships and gave new meaning to old ones. Some members remarked how little they knew of who lived next door, how “good day” and “good night” was the extent of their communication with people who share a profound aspect of their lives. Now, they’ve put…

EVIDENCED IN BOTH the skyrocketing price of rent and the colander of policies we have to protect us, tenants are losing the class war. It is landlords who shape the policies that govern us while they extract rent and evict us. Landlords claim a greater and greater share of what we earn, while we lo…