Abolish Rent

Abolish Rent takes aim at one of the foremost engines of inequality and injustice.

Rent drives millions into debt, despair, and onto the streets. The social cost of rent is too damn high. Written for anyone fed up with the permanent housing crisis, complicit politicians, and real estate greed, Abolish Rent dissects our housing system from the perspective of those it immiserates. Through brisk, unequivocating analysis and
striking stories of resistance, it shows us how tenants can, through organizing and
collective action, finally rebalance the scales.

From two co-founders of the largest tenants' union in the country, this deeply reported account of the resurgent tenant movement centers poor and working-class people who are fighting back, staying put, and remaking the city in the process. Authors Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis take us to trilingual strategy meetings, raucous marches against gentrification, and daring eviction defenses where immigrants put their lives on the line. These are the seeds of the revolutionary movement we need to make our housing, our cities, and the world our home.

Tracy Rosenthal is a co-founder of the L.A. Tenants Union whose writing has been published in The New Republic, The Nation, LA Times, and other outlets. Rosenthal is now on rent strike in New York City.

Leonardo Vilchis has been organizing tenants in Boyle Heights for more than thirty years. Trained in liberation theology, he co-founded Union de Vecinos in 1996 and the L.A. Tenants Union in 2015. He lives in Los Angeles.

"A spectre is haunting landlords--the spectre of land seizures & rent strikes. Abolish Rent provides clear analysis and vivid stories of Los Angeles grassroots tenants, whose efforts offer a path towards abolishing commodification of land and housing. The authors situate tenant struggles as essential in today's worldwide movement to secure dignity, or as Isabel Garcia of Boyle Heights says in this book: 'We fight because we have to continue living.'" -- Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition Geography, and Craig Gilmore, co-founder of the California Prison Moratorium Project

• Publisher: Haymarket Books
  
• Publish Date: September 24, 2024
  
• Pages: 224
  
• Dimensions: 5.2 X 7.4 X 0.7 inches | 0.5 pounds
  
• Language: English
  
• Type: Paperback
  
• EAN/UPC: 9798888902523
  
• BISAC Categories: Activism & Social Justice, Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Development, Sociology - Urban, Poverty & Homelessness