Every renter needs a tenants union

Abstract

This piece focuses on tenant organizing in California, taking the perspective of tenant organizers rooted in contexts of antiracism, abolitionism and anticolonialism. Aimee Inglis notes how tenant organizing is more important now than ever in the wake of Covid-19 as a third of US renters can no longer pay rent. Yet at the same time, today’s tenant organizing and work on protections for the unhoused and those most targeted by Covid-19 rests upon a long history of community building. Most recently, new city ordinances have been passed throughout California as tenant organizers build regional solidarity to fight big real estate.