Politics, power, and precarity: how tenant organizations transform local political life

Abstract

As the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated housing precarity, tenant organizations grew in numbers and salience. But membership-based tenant organizations predated the pandemic and will persist beyond it. There are (at least) hundreds of them in localities across the country. Many aim to advance sweeping change. In doing so, they face formidable tasks: politically organizing in race-class subjugated communities, working in opposition to powerful actors (corporate landlords, property managers, etc.), and navigating complex and sometimes hostile local political institutions (city councils, mayors, rent boards, etc.). How do these organizations build power and effect change in the face of such obstacles? Drawing on a rich body of original qualitative evidence (participant observation and in-depth interviews), this paper explores the politics of local tenant organizations. We assess the origins of such organizations, how they are structured, and how they pursue political change. In doing so, we offer a rich descriptive account of phenomena that have largely escaped the attention of political scientists. We find that tenant organizations can cultivate radically different ways of conceptualizing political economy, carve out a distinctive political focus on race-class subjugated communities, and create critical opportunities for otherwise marginalized actors to develop and exercise political power.

Epistemic Injustice in Technology and Policy Design: Lessons from New York City's Heat Complaints System

“…Even when the inspector is able to access the apartment, they might not issue the heating violation if the outside temperature is not low enough on that specific day, meaning that if the inspector visits on an unusually hot day or time, there will be no violation, regardless of how much time the tenant has spent without heat. Often, the tenant's testimony is systemically disregarded in the favor of the landlord's, during the inspection process, simply because they are "tenants" -a social and economic class [14]. We can trace such instances of tenants being subjected to testimonial and hermeneutical injustice all the way to the workings of the Housing Courts.…”

Policy Feedback & Research Methods: How Qualitative Research Designs With Marginalized Groups Inform Theory

“…Recent literature has considered the role of different spaces and venues of engagement utilized by marginalized populations, such as tenant organizations (Michener & SoRelle, 2022) and homeless shelters (Pue & Kopec, 2023). Michener (2020) examines the role of local organizations and their membership in the development of urban policy within the civil legal domain.…”

State preemption and affordable housing policy

“…In addition, non-elites can exhibit power over the policymaking process. For example, organised renter groups have had success in persuading local governments to adopt policies that are beneficial to them (Michener, 2020; Michener and SoRelle, 2022). We therefore expect a positive relationship between the size of the real estate and construction industries and affordable housing preemptions and a negative relationship between the number of renters in the state and housing preemptions.…”