How to win a rent strike

“You have nothing to lose but your chains.” – Karl Marx

This communique is specific to the current conditions facing tenants in San Diego, California, but applicable to renters everywhere. There are specific reasons why tenants go on a rent strike, and there are ways to win.  Just like workers in labor unions, tenants use the rent strike as a method to apply pressure and gain leverage in negotiations versus ownership/management. Tenants typically use rent strikes to demand repairs, negotiate better contracts (i.e., lower rent increases), and to protest against abusive landlords and management.

Rent Strikes can be effective when they are well-coordinated and based on a sound argument.  Uninhabitable living conditions, requesting repairs that have gone unaddressed for over sixty days, gouging rent increases, threatening/bullying/abusive management and landlords could all be valid reasons for conducting a rent strike.

Withholding rent, or depositing it into a trust “escrow account” with an attorney, is allowed for certain reasons. These reasons must be proven.  Thus, you must create a case.  Compile evidence of needed repairs, evidence of your written requests for repairs, document incidents of threats, bullying, or retaliation, and any other issues relevant to building a case.

Rent strike at The Village: an example from San Diego

The tenant’s rights movement in San Diego has won several rent strikes in the last few years.  These have been lengthy campaigns that have been organized through meetings in members’ homes, mass community meetings, rallies, sit-ins, protests, marches, and other activities. 

For example, tenants at “The Village” Apartments in Linda Vista (a community in San Diego) held small to large weekly meetings for over the span of a few years to build a tenant’s union and carry out a successful rent strike. After building the union, the group eventually began to escalate tactics through several campaigns, which were facilitated by organizers.

For example, tenants decided to fight for repairs and improvements to their living conditions in the first year.  In this campaign, the landlord and management company was compelled to remodel the whole complex and fix all of the problems without there being any evictions. 

Tenants then escalated their tactics the second year when the landlords raised their rents by over 10%. The union helped organize a campaign to write letters and organize meetings with management as a first step. When management stalled, they took the next steps.

They began to organize mass meetings inside the management offices in large numbers, making it impossible to be ignored and for business to go on as usual. The landlord and staff began to hide out from the tenants and stay away from their own offices during these “visits”.  

Next, the tenants formed committees to arrive at the offices when the landlord showed up for work, came and went to lunch, or when they left for the evening. They even sent delegations to the landlord’s home and protested in front when he wouldn’t answer. Tenants and their supporters marched through the neighborhood, informing his neighbors of his abusive practice towards tenants.

The campaign then concluded with a rent strike. In this case, 42 tenants withheld rent collectively. The landlord tried to evict the residents through the courts (through “unlawful detainer” cases), but was unsuccessful.  Eventually, the tenants were able to prevent the 10% increase. The management retreated and agreed to sign new contracts that capped increases at 2% per year. They have been able to sustain this rate ever since, without any evictions or other reprisals. This campaign took a lot of preparation and guidance from attorneys, and was ultimately victorious against an intransigent landlord.

Paying rent in the time of coronavirus and unemployment 

In the age of COVID-19, the State of California, the City of San Diego, and the County of San Diego have declared a moratorium on all evictions for the next few months.  Neighboring Cities like Imperial Beach and Chula Vista have also adopted similar protections.  It is important to check local laws, as they may differ with state law. 

The current material conditions are unlike anything we have ever experienced.  People are rightfully questioning why landlords are still demanding rent knowing that there are statewide and local orders for everyone to remain at home with the exception of “essential workers.”

The virus and subsequent economic shutdowns have already led to 3.2 million unemployment filings in the U.S.  This coming week, filings could go above 10 million and the expert economists are already declaring the U. S to be in an economic recession that may result in a 20-30 percent unemployment rate. 

With already hyper-inflated rents, and an economically displaced working class, landlords are going to be expecting to be “made whole” and be paid accumulated back rents within months after this pandemic is contained.

They get bailed out, we get left out 

Many landlords are already getting bailed out, and will be able to skip or delay mortgage payments for 3 to 12 months.  They can call their mortgage company and get a forbearance on their mortgage payments.  But what about tenants?  San Diego City Council expects tenants to pay their landlords all unpaid rent within six months from the date the ordinance is effective, or the date Governor Newsom’s executive order is withdrawn (whichever occurs soonest).

Most working class tenants live paycheck to paycheck.  Most cannot afford to pay rent if their earnings fall. We cannot depend on one-time checks from the federal government-if we get them at all-to necessarily cover even one full month’s rent (which can average over $2200 a month for a two-bedroom apartment in San Diego), much less beyond that. Even with unemployment, some families will earn less, having to decide which bills to pay in order to eat and cover other essential expenses.

Thus, millions of working class people are thrust into the difficult situation of not being able to work to provide for their families, yet still being obligated to pay the same rent with a dwindling amount of money for the duration of this crisis. 

Many workers may not even have a job to return to. They may face unemployment or underemployment or other factors that impact their income as effects of economic crisis persist beyond the pandemic. These conditions will likely force millions of tenants to withhold rent or organize a rent strike because there is no other option. 

Time to build the movement

Currently, courts are closed and an eviction moratorium is in place, making it difficult for landlords to force out those who withhold rent payment or cannot afford to pay. Nevertheless, landlords will be gearing up to collect in the future. Now, and through the crisis, it is important to build a movement of solidarity with striking tenants, to keep them in their homes, fight evictions, and to fight for rent relief—just like what the bailouts are doing for the rich. Even more importantly, we must continue this movement that fights for affordable housing as a human right.

The working class deserves better! We cannot continue to be the cash cows of the rich! It is now that we MUST STRIKE! If we strike, we demand that our neighbors who cannot afford the rent be protected from any eviction and we demand that the landlord class and the politicians that manage their affairs to suspend/cancel/freeze the rents until the disaster is over and the economy recovers. 

The San Diego Tenants Union is in the unique position to be able to provide access and information to carry a successful out rent strike campaign. We are planning for a campaign of supporting 100,000 rent strikers in San Diego.  If we show solidarity during one of the most tumultuous times of our lives, the working class can fight for and win major victories. 

The Wall Street vultures have gotten everything they wanted from Trump’s two-trillion dollar giveaway. With 100,000 rent strikers we can freeze the courts even after the virus is gone.  We can force capitalism to recognize housing rights for workers. 

This can also be the launching point for a campaign of universal rent control and “first right of refusal,” a practice where renters have priority to buy the home they are living in if the owner decide to sell. Tenants can use rent strike funds to purchase properties from landlords losing their buildings due to strikes. This current awakening must be leveraged to make gains for the working class.

To join, support, or get more information about the campaign, click on this link.

Rafael Bautista is a co-director of the San Diego Tenants Union (SDTU). The SDTU has been organizing tenant unions since 2015 and fighting against displacement since 2010. The SDTU has successfully organized multiple rent strikes throughout San Diego County, from complexes as small as 7 units to those as big as 176 units.