On Wednesday, November 9, the rent guidelines board in Kingston, New York, voted to enact a 15 percent rent reduction, which will apply to over twelve hundred apartments across sixty-four rent-stabilized buildings. Tenant organizers say that it’s the first rent reduction in New York State history and that it followed months of organizing by tenants and progressive grassroots groups.

One of the groups fighting for the rent reduction in Kingston was For the Many, which has been organizing tenants and other residents in the Hudson Valley around progressive causes since 2012. Jacobin’s Heather Rust interviewed For the Many political director Brahvan Ranga about the group’s efforts to bring down rents, its prior victories around housing issues, and how recent wins fit into a bigger strategy for building working-class political organization.