Mathilde Lind Gustavussen is a PhD candidate in sociology at the Free University of Berlin.
We need bold measures like public housing and well-designed rent control programs. But Kamala Harris’s housing proposal doubles down on the existing paradigm: more public subsidies, more tax incentives, and more empty hopes that developers will solve the housing crisis.
Despite being a key issue, housing remains oddly absent from national politics, and this presidential election is no different. Candidates shouldn’t leave Americans’ hunger for progressive housing reform on the table.
Tenant “right to counsel” policies guarantee legal representation to tenants facing eviction. San Francisco’s policy, established by voters in 2018 and the first of its kind, is proving to be a humane and cost-effective way to address homelessness.
San Francisco’s groundbreaking Union at Home legislation encourages tenants to organize in their buildings the way employees organize at work. Housing activists in Berkeley are hoping their city will follow suit — but landlords are pushing back.
Undergirding California’s mass homelessness is an ongoing eviction crisis, with tenants often flung into the legal system to fight evictions without help. New tools are making is possible for tenants to stay in place — and coordinate efforts to fight back.
Tenant rights groups have been sounding the alarm about an impending post-pandemic eviction crisis. In Los Angeles, that day has come — putting hundreds of thousands of tenants at risk of losing their housing and compelling some to fight back.
Olympic host cities face accelerated gentrification, displacement, privatization, debt, environmental harm, and police militarization, while developers reap cold hard cash. The outcome of Los Angeles’s 2028 Summer Olympics will be no different.
In Los Angeles, emboldened tenants are winning big against abusive corporate landlords. But as the city fails to enforce the terms of their victories, landlords continue to harass tenants with impunity.
The city of Oakland’s longest rent strike has ended in victory for tenants. They didn’t just win necessary repairs or rent control; they decommodified their housing, getting profit-motivated landlords out of the picture altogether.
Since the 2008 housing crisis, huge corporate landlords have taken over an alarmingly large share of the rental market. But the more tenants share the same landlord, the greater the number of potential organized tenants that landlord has to face down.
The Hillside Villa Tenants Association has successfully forced a municipal government to approve the public purchase of a building to preserve affordability. The victory, a historic first in the US, creates a blueprint that can be followed across the nation.
Eminent domain has long been used to displace working-class people of color in Los Angeles, as in many cities. In a twist, a group of LA tenants is campaigning to use eminent domain to save themselves from eviction.
By calling for a ban on for-profit charter schools, Bernie Sanders has gone further than any other candidate to confront the privatization of our schools. But we can’t fully defend public schools if we let nonprofit charters off the hook.