Tenant unions protesting dismal living conditions at two apartment complexes in Kansas City, Missouri, have voted to withhold rent on October 1 if their demands are not met — the opening salvo in what organizers say is the first coordinated rent strike aimed at pressuring federal regulators to cap rent increases and protect tenants from abusive corporate landlords.
The Tenant Union Federation, a national “union of unions,” announced on September 27 that tenants at the Quality Hill Towers and Independence Towers apartment buildings in Kansas City have voted to go on rent strike. In a statement, Kansas City tenant organizers said both properties suffer from bug infestations and have fallen into disrepair, leaving residents to live in “abysmal” conditions.
The Tenant Union Federation said tenants organizing in North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, South Carolina, Kentucky, Montana and Illinois are preparing to join the picket line and vote in the coming weeks on withholding rent from corporate landlords that similarly benefit from federally guaranteed financing.
“The tenants in the buildings that have authorized strikes live in appalling conditions and endure extreme and aggressive rent hikes,” Tara Raghuveer, director of the Tenant Union Federation, told Truthout in an email. “Their buildings were purchased with money backed by their tax dollars.”
Raghuveer said the coordinated rent strikes are the first in the United States to challenge both individual company landlords and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), where regulators oversee government-backed mortgage programs that finance many large housing complexes nationwide.
“Through hundreds of millions in federal financing, our government is in bed with greedy and negligent landlords like those at these properties,” Raghuveer said.
Along with much-needed repairs to the buildings in Kansas City, striking renters are also demanding FHFA introduce a nationwide 3 percent cap on annual rent increases at multifamily properties benefiting from federal financing. With the nation facing a severe shortage of housing as millions of people struggle to pay inflated rental prices, a groundswell of tenant activism has injected ideas such as rent control into the mainstream political conversation.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has pledged to “take on corporate landlords and cap unfair rent increases” if elected. In July, the White House called on Congress to pass legislation requiring landlords who own at least 50 units to cap rent increases at 5 percent for two years or risk losing lucrative federal tax breaks.
The Biden-Harris administration pitched the rent cap as a stopgap measure that would stabilize rental prices at 20 million units as more housing is built in response to the nation’s dual crises of housing insecurity and homelessness. However, the powerful real estate and corporate landlord lobby has dug in for a fight against the proposal, which critics see as an election year effort to excite voters that would be likely to fail in a deeply divided Congress.
Back in Kansas City, Independence Towers has been in the local news as residents speak out against poor living conditions, including water damage, sewage backups, loss of hot water and pest infestations. The former landlord, FTW Investments, recently agreed to hand the property over to a court-appointed manager after mortgage lender Fannie Mae filed a lawsuit claiming the company failed to provide a safe living environment and fell behind on payments.
Fannie May and Freddie Mac are known as “government sponsored enterprises.” They manage federally guaranteed mortgages under a program created by Congress and supervised by the FHFA. About 12 million rental units are in properties with federally backed mortgages, and it’s this funding mechanism that tenant activists say the government should use as leverage to rein in corporate landlords.
The original owner of Independence Towers owes Fannie May more than $5.5 million in loan payments and fees, while Quality Hill Towers received a $9 million federally backed loan, according to local reports. The tenant unions organizing in the buildings include hundreds of residents representing more than 60 percent of the occupied units across both apartment complexes, organizers say.
Eliot West has lived with her parents in Independence Towers since 2016. In a statement, West said her family was forced to relocate from their apartment after the top story of the building was locked down and condemned. The family has dealt with mold, cockroaches, and dysfunctional heating and cooling for years. The tenant union says Fannie Mae installed portable A/C units to address the problem, but the family’s electric bill quadrupled as a result. Fed up, West decided to organize with the union.
“We’ve experienced our walls and ceiling collapsing, infestations of roaches and bed bugs,” West said during a news conference in May.
Tenant organizers say the court-ordered manager that took over as landlord at Independence Towers has failed to communicate with residents and make necessary repairs. The building’s tenant union is withholding rent to demand that Fannie Mae provide a permanent fix to heating, plumbing and other problems, and refrain from evicting residents in the meantime.
At Quality Hill Towers, striking renters are demanding Fannie Mae foreclose on the current owner, Sentinel Real Estate, and require the new landlord to negotiate a lease agreement with the union. The tenant union also wants Sentinel or a replacement landlord to bargain a collective lease agreement with the Quality Hill Towers Tenant Union and refrain from evicting tenants without good cause.
In a statement, Sentinel Real Estate said it did not agree with the union’s claims and has been working in “good faith” with the union for more than a year. The company said it was has spent more than $8 million improving the property, including $1.4 million in the past year.
The Biden-Harris administration is eager to show voters that it takes the housing crisis seriously and has produced lengthy policy documents, including a 19-page a “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” released in January 2023. However, without legislation from Congress the administration is left with only its power over federal agencies.
The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit in August against realty software company RealPage over an alleged scheme allowing landlords to illegally coordinate rent hikes. On September 24, the Federal Trade Commission announced a $48 million dollar settlement with Invitation Homes, the nation’s largest single-family home landlord, for an “array of unlawful actions against consumers” such as charging junk fees and stealing security deposits.
After hearing from housing advocates, the FHFA announced in July new rules requiring landlords who own multifamily properties financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to provide tenants with a 30-day notice of a rent increase, a 30-day notice of a lease term’s expiration and five-day grace period for late rent payments. The rules go into effect in February 2025.
Striking tenants say these protections are the bare minimum. They are demanding that federal regulators to use their control of rental property financing to take decisive action and place firm conditions on federally backed mortgages, including the 3 percent rent increase cap and protections for tenants against harassment, no-fault eviction and poor living conditions.
Raghuveer said the tenants in Kansas City are only the first to authorize rent strikes as part of a coordinated campaign to hold corporate landlords and FHFA to account, and every first of the month provides another opportunity for tenants in other buildings to join them.
“Around the country, tenants are organizing unions in federally financed properties,” Raghuveer said. “They are prepared to escalate if FHFA fails to negotiate on our demands for national rent caps and tenant protections.”
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