After Years of Organizing for Housing Justice, It’s Clear We Need Rent Stabilization

by Dave Snyder, JCA Organizing Director

Ten years ago, JCA and our partners responded to the foreclosure crisis by going door to door, connecting homeowners in foreclosure with resources and an invitation into an organizing campaign to hold banks accountable. We helped stop several dozen foreclosures.

But as we watched thousands of homes and dreams slip through the grasp of families (many of them Black families who had overcome incredible obstacles to obtain those homes), and as we reviewed research and listened to our partners, it became clear that we needed systemic, upstream solutions. We supported our national partners in pushing for large scale rewriting of mortgages, the creation of new public institutions patterned on the response to the Depression-era housing crisis, robust regulations for lenders that accepted public bailout dollars, and mandatory mediation programs.

Some of those policies passed into law, but most did not, and the financial sector has continued to destabilize housing, facilitate displacement, and allow sustainable homeownership to remain out of reach for most working class families. Rent stabilization is the upstream, systemic policy that makes sense in an era of an ongoing crisis of affordable rental housing. Rental assistance, counseling, housing trust funds, inclusionary zoning, are all important pieces of the puzzle, but they are all radically insufficient on their own.

Our neighbors, our communities need rent stabilization. It’s time. Minneapolis, please vote YES on Question 3. St. Paul, please vote YES on Question 1.