Rent Strikes Being Used as a Strategic Tactic in Mid Sized Cities Against Rising Housing Costs

The rent strike is part of a strategy that housing activists have started to replicate in midsize cities across the country. Tenant organizing is more common in liberal coastal metropolises like Los Angeles and New York — which recently elected Zohran Mamdani, a former tenant organizer, as its mayor.

But rent strikes have been almost unheard of in places like Kansas City, Missouri, where according to Zillow the median rent increased 4.4 percent in the last year, twice the rate of the national average. Now, tenants in at least three buildings around the city have formed unions. Similar groups have popped up in Bozeman, Montana; Louisville; and New Haven, Connecticut.

The country’s renters are at a “total breaking point,” said Tara Raghuveer, founding director of the Kansas City Tenants Union, also known as KC Tenants, an activist group. “When you get displaced from Chicago as a tenant, you might end up in a place like Kansas City. When you get displaced from Kansas City, you might end up in a Raytown, Missouri. When you get displaced in Raytown, Missouri, I do not know where … you’re supposed to go.” [MORE]