Apartment tenants are forming unions in an effort to gain leverage in landlord negotiations, a response to record-high rents and the recent expiration of eviction bans enacted during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tenant unions, also known as associations, have been around for more than a century. They have been especially active in expensive cities with large renter populations such as San Francisco and New York. Now they are spreading in places like Akron, Ohio; Milwaukee, and the Maryland suburbs.