Tenants in federally-assisted developments may organize against their landlords to improve security and other conditions, but both residents and owners have a stake in persuading Congress to maintain appropriations. Housing Organizing Organizing tenants in private housing is often more difficult than in subsidized developments. The targets are more elusive. Buildings are more likely to change hands. As local governments face deeper and deeper fiscal crises, it becomes even harder for tenant organizations to compel city agencies to enforce local health and safety laws.
Owners go bankrupt or abandon their buildings.
City governments that assume control often lack the resources, or will, to maintain the buildings or sell them to nonprofits or tenant groups. Organizing in private slum housing has also become more difficult, due to conditions such as the rise in homelessness, the deterioration of inner-cities, the drug epidemic, and the prevalence of gangs and violence. Nonetheless, much good organizing is still taking place in private housing around the country. But much more is needed to grapple with the problems facing private tenants. We need to reinvigorate the tenants movement with a new dose of grassroots organizing and a new generation of young activists.