Tenants' movement: "They're afraid of us"

Tenants' movement: “They're afraid of us”
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Even in the US, a country where homeowners are often heavily in debt, many people live in rented accommodation. They are organizing themselves into unions and are on their way to becoming one of the most important left-wing movements in the country.

By Lukas Hermsmeier, New York

[This article posted on 12/18/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.woz.ch/2551/mieterinnenbewegung/die-haben-angst-vor-uns/!WP8ZJVDCD21V.]



Rent increases despite mold and rats: Tara Raghuveer, head of the umbrella organization of tenant unions, at a demonstration against a real estate company in Spring Valley, NY.

Shortly before the protest begins, Tara Raghuveer takes another focused look in all directions, her gaze like a radar. She probably already senses that today will be stressful.

Around fifty people have gathered on a bitterly cold morning in early December in Spring Valley, a small town north of New York City. Standing next to 33-year-old Raghuveer, who co-organized the event, are retirees with walkers, young students, and mothers. People have traveled from different parts of the country, from Montana, Kentucky, and Connecticut. Many know each other, but some are meeting for the first time. This group is united by the fact that almost all of them have the same landlord. The Capital Realty Group, known for years for letting its buildings fall into disrepair, has its headquarters in Spring Valley.

The tenants want to vent their frustration about their living conditions; that's the plan. Mold on the walls, rats in the courtyard, extreme rent increases—the list of issues is long. But before the first person can grab the megaphone, the situation escalates. A group of about thirty people suddenly appears in front of the office building. A few of them immediately rush towards the tenants, pushing them and trying to snatch the posters from their hands. Raghuveer steps in between them and gets elbowed. The police intervene and arrest a particularly aggressive man. The two groups are finally separated with barrier tape.

It immediately becomes clear that the counter-protest is organized by Capital Realty. It's a rather bizarre spectacle. Most of the people in this group are Hispanic migrants in work clothes who, as it turns out, don't even know what they're doing here. They stand around looking somewhat perplexed, holding up Israeli flags that were apparently handed to them shortly before. The posters bear slogans such as “No Tolerance for Antisemitism.” The Jewish head of the real estate company has decided to accuse the tenants of antisemitism. There is no evidence to support this.

“I've never seen such aggressive behavior from a landlord,” says Raghuveer, sitting in a hotel lobby near Spring Valley two hours later. A few of the hired counter-demonstrators told her that they were being paid for their efforts, she says. Raghuveer shakes her head, as if she still can't quite believe what just happened. However, the fact that a corporation like Capital Realty is now resorting to such measures is also proof of its own strength. “We are now organizing across state lines,” says Raghuveer. “They are afraid of us.”

Fictitious accusations of anti-Semitism: “I have never experienced such aggressive behavior from a property owner,” says Tara Raghuveer.

#### A new left-wing force

Every left-wing struggle is different. Different places and actors, and therefore different conditions and prospects. In the end, however, every left-wing project faces the same question: How can concrete change be brought about? How does power work? And above all: How does power work from the bottom up?

In recent years, a new left-wing force has grown in the US that seems to be developing an answer to these questions: the tenant union movement, in which tenants organize themselves into unions. And Raghuveer plays a special role in this movement. Not only did she found the organization KC Tenants in her hometown of Kansas City, the largest city in the state of Missouri, but she also heads the Tenant Union Federation, as the statewide umbrella organization is called. Time magazine even included Raghuveer in its 2024 list of “100 rising personalities in the world.”

Tenant unions are currently springing up in almost every corner of the country. At first, they were mainly found in metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles and New York, but now they are also present in rural states such as Montana and Arkansas. Some of the organizations operate hyperlocally in a single neighborhood. Others bring tenants together at the city level. Still others are spread across an entire state. And then there are tenant unions that target a single real estate company. In principle, however, they all function similarly: tenants join forces independently to fight for better living conditions and affordable rents.

The idea of a tenant union is not new. Similar collectives were formed in some major US cities as early as the beginning of the 20th century. For the first time ever in the country's history, tenants succeeded in securing legally guaranteed rights vis-à-vis landlords. In New York City, the groups even joined forces at that time to form a citywide organization, the Tenant Council.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the tenants' movement experienced a second heyday, parallel to the civil rights movement. Militant rent strikes took place in cities such as Chicago and Pittsburgh. From the 1980s onwards, however, this type of organizing gradually collapsed, partly under pressure from the repressive policies of President Ronald Reagan, who promoted the privatization of housing and made union work more difficult. For a long time afterwards, the concept of tenant unions was largely irrelevant.

For several years now, there has been a revival of the model. People have little choice but to do so. Average rents in major US cities are rising much faster than average wages. Of the approximately 100 million tenants in this country, a quarter now spend half their income on housing. Others can no longer afford their own accommodation. According to current government estimates, more than 770,000 people in the US are currently without a permanent home. Around 3.6 million evictions are carried out each year, almost 10,000 per day.

The housing crisis has not only worsened in the US; displacement is a global problem. This is precisely why housing struggles are intensifying in many places. In Spain, for example, nationwide rent protests took place in the summer with hundreds of thousands of participants. In London, squatting is on the rise again for the first time in decades. In Berlin, an initiative is working to socialize large real estate companies. As scattered as these movements are, they all have in common that tenants perceive themselves as political subjects. Isolated neighbors are becoming organized apartment buildings, becoming larger masses. And everywhere, the question arises of how a fundamental transformation of the housing system can be achieved.

“If you retaliate, we will fight even harder”: Demonstration against the real estate company Capital Realty Group in Spring Valley.

#### Strike until success

“The housing crisis is not a problem that needs to be solved; it is a class struggle that must be fought and won,” says the book Abolish Rent. In it, Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis describe both the specific work of the Los Angeles Tenants Union they founded and the rebirth of the tenants' movement in general. As the title suggests, their long-term vision is not only to reform the current system, but also to overcome the concept of rent. The two authors describe rent as “a penalty for having a human need.”

Tara Raghuveer puts it more cautiously: “Our goal is to organize as many tenants as possible into an economic and political class that cannot be ignored.” Apartments should not be profit-making ventures, she says, but should be managed democratically. Raghuveer does not need to be told that the movement is still a long way from achieving this; she knows that herself. However, unlike politicians and NGOs, tenants have a unique weapon at their disposal, as Raghuveer explains. After all, they are the ones who pay. They are also the ones who can withhold rent.

The impact that a rent strike can have was clearly demonstrated this year in Raghuveer's hometown of Kansas City. The residents of an eleven-story apartment building withheld their payments for a total of 247 days before the owner gave in in June. The tenants secured debt forgiveness for the eight months of the strike, a rent cap for the coming years, and repairs and improvements to the building. However, Raghuveer emphasizes that rent strikes are always a risk. “There have been cases where people have lost their homes. That's when we really need to be there for them.”

In addition to renegotiated leases, the union's successes also include regular action against evictions, as Raghuveer explains. As soon as tenants are at risk of eviction, the union mobilizes members for local protests and provides free legal advice, among other things. The issue is particularly close to Raghuveer's heart. As a student, she spent many years researching eviction policies in Kansas City. But at some point, she felt that a theoretical understanding of the problem was no longer enough. So in 2019, she and a few fellow activists founded KC Tenants. That same year, the Kansas City City Council passed a “Bill of Rights” drafted by the union that sets standards for tenants. With around 10,000 members, KC Tenants is now the largest tenants' union in the US.

In many regions of the country, tenant unions are now among the most important progressive organizations in the community. This is also the case in Connecticut, says Peter Fousek. In 2021, he was part of a small group of members of the Democratic Socialists of America who met regularly in the university town of New Haven to discuss housing policy. Inspired by existing tenants' unions, they finally founded the Connecticut Tenants Union (CTTU) in 2023. Today, it has over twenty local chapters spread across the state.

While some tenants' unions rely on the autonomous work of local chapters and have few established mechanisms, the CTTU relies on clear structures. There are elected leaders. Everyone has the same voting rights. Members pay a membership fee unless they cannot afford to do so. The mechanisms are laid down in a constitution. In this way, democratic principles are combined with the ability to act quickly.

According to Fousek, cooperation with the service union SEIU was also essential for the rapid success of the union. Not only did the SEIU provide financial support to the CTTU from the outset, it also provided space and other resources. For larger campaigns, the SEIU's presence can be relied upon. Having the powerful union behind them also carries weight in negotiations with politicians. There has not yet been a rent strike in Connecticut. “Often, the threat alone is enough,” says Fousek.

#### Renting is frowned upon

“We are at a similar point to the labor movement at the beginning of the 20th century,” says Raghuveer. Many of the tenant unions are still in the process of being established, relationships need to be forged and processes practiced. The umbrella organization she heads therefore holds workshops to teach the basics of organizing. The goal is for each individual member to have the rhetorical and tactical tools to recruit new members. Raghuveer hopes that this will increase the number of organized tenants to millions in the coming years. She even sees at least one advantage over the traditional labor movement: “We don't have to convince anyone that their home is important. People know that themselves.” She speaks of an “intuitive arrangement.”

Intuition is one thing, ideology another. And ideologically, this country is still different. A home with a front yard, garage, and car—that was how the American Dream was defined in the 20th century. For a long time, it was mainly white middle-class families who were lured to the suburbs. Adventurous mortgages ensured that, over time, more and more people with low incomes bought houses. When many Americans could no longer meet their loan payments, the bubble burst – marking the beginning of the financial and economic crisis in 2007. Today, the US is a suburban patchwork quilt with millions of vacant houses and people in debt. In many large cities, affordable housing is scarce.

Raghuveer knows that the identity of “tenant” is still stigmatized in the US. In tenant unions, however, many shed their shame. “Tenant worker” is a term often heard in the movement. It points out that the vast majority of people who have to pay rent are also wage earners.

#### “Flatbush, baby!”

When the pandemic broke out in the spring of 2020, the US economic system was exposed as never before. Those who had to continue working outside their own four walls, such as nurses or delivery drivers, risked their own health. Meanwhile, millions of Americans lost their jobs from one day to the next, plunging many into existential hardship. Out of this conflict, the call for a nationwide rent strike developed for the first time in many decades. Over two million people signed a petition to this effect. In some parts of the country, it actually happened. But there was simply not enough infrastructure for a mass action.

“We missed the opportunity to bring individual groups together at the time,” recalls Joel Feingold, one of the co-founders of the Crown Heights Tenant Union in New York City. As important as the local work of the groups was, it became clear in this situation that fragmentation could also slow things down. Feingold says the movement has learned from this experience. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how effective consolidation can work.

A Saturday morning in early December. In the Church of the Village, a church in western Manhattan, the first people are slowly arriving. Shouting can be heard from the gallery; it is children romping around. Childcare has been organized so that parents can also attend this meeting. Food will also be delivered later: salads, kebabs, cake. No one should be left out for logistical reasons. The explicit goal of this second Tenant Assembly is to bring together New York's tenant class.

“Many of us have long wanted a citywide organization by and for tenants,” says Holden Taylor in his welcome speech from the stage. The 34-year-old is co-founder of Brooklyn Eviction Defense. The group helps people who are threatened with eviction. When Taylor later talks about his activism and the movement in a corner of the church, he is interrupted every few sentences. Here a quick question for him, there a hug. Taylor seems to know every single person in the room personally.

Taylor belongs to the young New York left, which has just celebrated a historic victory with Zohran Mamdani's election as mayor. “Of course, we're all excited about the election campaign,” Taylor says, but then adds a warning: we shouldn't be satisfied with everything that comes out of City Hall from now on just because a comrade is in charge. Mamdani's goal of freezing the rent on around one million regulated apartments is a good start, according to Taylor, but it is far from enough. The number of regulated apartments must increase significantly, and therefore expropriation must also be discussed. “External pressure” is what Taylor is calling for.

“I was immediately hooked”: Josie Wells (center) joined a New York tenants' union because she wanted a better lease. But now it's about much more than that, it's about community and how living together in the city could be more pleasant for everyone.

Then Josie Wells takes the stage, a Black woman with horn-rimmed glasses and a scarf around her hair. “New York” is written on her light gray sweater. “Flatbush, baby!” she shouts, the name of the neighborhood she comes from. It's clear that Wells is proud of her home.

When Wells moved back into her childhood apartment at the beginning of the year to live with her mother, she realized how run-down the building was. The hallways and walls were dirty, she tells the Assembly, and the heating kept breaking down. In early summer, Wells found a flyer from the Crown Heights Tenant Union on her doorknob. “I was immediately hooked,” she says. Wells contacted the group and quickly learned that many other people in the city were suffering under the same landlord, the Pinnacle Group. Since then, she has devoted most of her free time to the Union of Pinnacle Tenants.

Wells says that for her, it's about more than just negotiating a better lease. She has found a community in the union. And she has developed a new awareness of how different living together in New York could be. “There is a lack of public spaces,” says Wells. The retirees from her building, for example, would sit at the bus stop all day for lack of alternatives. “Wouldn't it be nice if they had a community garden?”

In the afternoon, three large circles of chairs form in the church to discuss the future of the Tenant Assembly. First up is demographic representation. “I don't see many Black people here,” Wells says. The others nod. At the same time, the circle next door is discussing how to better protect migrant tenants from deportation. In many cities this year, tenant unions have helped build networks that warn of raids. This is another of the model's great strengths: it builds relationships that can be counted on in times of crisis.

When the vote is taken at the end of the day, a clear picture emerges: the tenants present want to formally establish the Tenant Assembly. Fixed structures, clearly distributed tasks. So that the next widespread rent strike does not remain just a demand.