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Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis
Both a forceful polemic and a practical guide, Abolish Rent takes aim at one of the foremost engines of inequality and injustice.
Rent is a wealth transfer from the poorest to the richest, the most vulnerable to the least, a monthly tribute that drives millions to debt, despair, and into the streets. In the context of a permanent housing crisis and governments in the pocket of real estate interests, Abolish Rent reorients the politics of housing around tenants political actors who can, through organizing, direct action, and collective bargaining, bring about a housing system that meets their needs.
Abolish Rent is the first book-length engagement with the resurgent tenant movement. Authors Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis—cofounders of Los Angles’s many thousand member tenant union—offer a deeply-reported account centering poor and working class tenants who are fighting back, staying put, and remaking the city in the process. They take us to trilingual strategy meetings, raucous marches against gentrification, and daring eviction defenses where immigrants put their lives on the line.
If rent abolition is our aim, tenant power must be the means—built through everyday resistance in our buildings and on our blocks. This is the revolutionary project we need to make our housing, our cities, and the world our home.
Rent is a wealth transfer from the poorest to the richest, the most vulnerable to the least, a monthly tribute that drives millions to debt, despair, and into the streets. In the context of a permanent housing crisis and governments in the pocket of real estate interests, Abolish Rent reorients the politics of housing around tenants political actors who can, through organizing, direct action, and collective bargaining, bring about a housing system that meets their needs.
Abolish Rent is the first book-length engagement with the resurgent tenant movement. Authors Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis—cofounders of Los Angles’s many thousand member tenant union—offer a deeply-reported account centering poor and working class tenants who are fighting back, staying put, and remaking the city in the process. They take us to trilingual strategy meetings, raucous marches against gentrification, and daring eviction defenses where immigrants put their lives on the line.
If rent abolition is our aim, tenant power must be the means—built through everyday resistance in our buildings and on our blocks. This is the revolutionary project we need to make our housing, our cities, and the world our home.
200 pages, Paperback
Published September 24, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
November 26, 2024
[4.5 stars] An political and organizing overview of tenant organizing, told through the campaigns and experiences of L.A. Tenants Union formations. I found this book super useful, both as political education and as an organizing framework. It presented a strong anti-capitalist and autonomous model that equally lifted up the politics of anarchism and communism without denigrating the other (always a plus for me). I appreciated its emphasis on relationship-building and collective care as the foundations for grassroots organizing as well as how the various tenant associations adopted different tactics and strategies in different areas of the city. The section that highlighted organizing among unhoused people was excellent, and reflected conversations that I've had with unhoused folks in my own community and comrades supporting them through autonomous action. Highly recommended for organizers hungry for housing justice solutions that don't further enrich landlords and developers, those curious to see examples of mutual aid in action as a political theory and practice, and anyone who believes that housing is a human right full stop no exceptions.
Publication Info: Haymarket Books, September 2024
Goodreads Challenge 2024: 44/48
CN/ TW: mentions of racism, police violence, and murder
Publication Info: Haymarket Books, September 2024
Goodreads Challenge 2024: 44/48
CN/ TW: mentions of racism, police violence, and murder
November 7, 2024
This is a manifesto, but it’s a good manifesto. It’s also a guide, and it’s a good guide. I stress-read the second half of this book on November 6, 2024 to remind myself that the work continues and was well reminded that the work continues.
October 8, 2025
5 stars isn’t enough. this has to be one of my favorite reads of the year. while the book focuses on tenant militancy and advocacy in LA, it’s an absolute must read for tenants and tenant advocates everywhere. need to get a copy to take notes in because i know i’ll be revisiting it soon.
November 13, 2024
Wow, what a fantastic book. Incredibly sharp analysis that puts forward a framework that outlines the system of perpetual crisis that capitalism has constructed in the housing market. The argument to abolish rent is extremely effective and clear. It pushes against the hackneyed and reactionary policy solutions of just 'building more affordable housing' and instead explains government subsidies as essentially payoffs for landlords. It uses examples of militant tenant associations who have done the 'spadework' of making their cruel landlord's lives untenable while simultaneously prefiguring the world they want to live in. The Marxist analysis throughout the book is *chef's kiss* as it so beautifully puts the history of housing struggle within an understanding of class struggle - "Communist to me is community. Community working together. Common, you have everything in common. That's communism." I would recommend this book to anyone.
Redistribute, regulate, re-capture!
Redistribute, regulate, re-capture!
January 14, 2025
So fiery, rly makes housing feel like more than just an “issue,” like what it is - where we make our lives together. So many highlights from the first chapter about how rent is inherently exploitative, based both in theory and data on accumulations over the past few decades that make rent (paraphrasing) a tribute to those with generational wealth
I appreciated how they addressed the “contradiction” of “building power to solve our problems ourselves and demanding that the state serve our needs” (elsewhere, more specifically, “making demands of the state that produce budgetary and legitimacy crises”), basically saying we need to do both and providing concrete examples of both at LATU. I thought this was convincing, am curious about how to make decisions on which approach to try at which time but feel encouraged to try this out in practice!!!
I appreciated how they addressed the “contradiction” of “building power to solve our problems ourselves and demanding that the state serve our needs” (elsewhere, more specifically, “making demands of the state that produce budgetary and legitimacy crises”), basically saying we need to do both and providing concrete examples of both at LATU. I thought this was convincing, am curious about how to make decisions on which approach to try at which time but feel encouraged to try this out in practice!!!
December 19, 2024
Abolish Rent unapologetically advances its argument: the rent relation itself is an inherently extractive and exploitative mechanism that siphons wealth from bosses to landlords, funneling working people’s wages to sustain an unjust system. Rent, in this analysis, is more than a fee for shelter—it is a crisis in and of itself. It reflects a system that commodifies housing while denying its fundamental status as a human right. To overturn this reality, the authors argue, we must build organized social movements with the power to demand and realize transformative change.
Under contemporary capitalism, “real estate” does not signify the homes we build or the communities we foster. Instead, it represents the dominant speculative asset driving global economic growth. This book’s potency lies in its ability to dissect this epistemological divide: the oppressive reality of housing as a commodity versus its liberatory potential as a collective, shared resource. By firmly situating readers in the conflict-based power dynamics of our commodified housing system, Abolish Rent offers a trenchant, confrontational manual for dismantling the eviction-driven machine that defines landlord rule.
The authors open with an ideological polemic, reframing the terms of this struggle. They argue for abandoning the term “renter” in favor of “tenant,” and define rent as the crisis itself—a culmination of land enclosure, privatization, speculative trading, and debt financing. This structural analysis resists the narrow fixes offered by neoclassical economics, public policy reforms, or government interventions. Instead, the authors insist that “the housing crisis is not a problem to be solved, but a class struggle to be fought and won.”
The book transitions seamlessly into a concise yet sharp history of U.S. housing policy, from colonial land theft to the “can-do” Keynesianism that introduced both public housing and private homeownership incentives—both steeped in racism. It then lands squarely in the present: a landscape shaped by municipal austerity and the “real estate state,” where luxury development drives displacement and gentrification.
Once the reader is equipped with this historical and structural grounding, Abolish Rent turns to strategies and tactics tenants have used to fight back. It highlights tools such as tenant associations, demand letters, and rent strikes—practical mechanisms for challenging landlord power. These sections also critically examine the roles of other actors, such as movement lawyers, nonprofits, and police. While lawyers and nonprofits can play supportive roles, their participation must be evaluated strategically, on a case-by-case basis. Police, however, are unambiguously cast as the enforcers of private property, the baton-wielding guarantors of eviction and dispossession.
The authors write with the conviction of experienced tenant organizers, offering insights steeped in firsthand campaigns. But they recognize that readers will demand proof: real-world examples where lofty ideals have been realized. The book meets this challenge with two detailed case studies, each illustrating a different vision of an alternative housing future.
The first case study recounts the “Echo Park Rise Up,” a houseless-led occupation of a Los Angeles park. This prefigurative experiment in de-commodified land built DIY support networks, from food and medicine stations to community security systems, all sustained by solidarity from the wider public. Ultimately, this grassroots effort was violently dismantled by police, underscoring the state’s role in preserving private property. Yet, the story demonstrates the transformative potential of collective action to reclaim public space as a common good.
The second case study examines the Hillside Villa campaign, in which tenants first fought off eviction by a predatory landlord and then leveraged policy to push the city to purchase the building, converting it into a tenant-managed land trust. This example shows how sustained organizing can shift the struggle from defensive eviction prevention to proactive social housing creation, offering a tangible model of public recapture and de-commodified living.
Abolish Rent is more than a critique—it’s a manual for action. It demonstrates that a world where housing is a commons, not a commodity, is not only imaginable but achievable through organized struggle. For those who seek not just to critique but to confront the grim reality of mass eviction and housing precarity, this book is an invaluable resource.
Two quotes encapsulate its spirit:
“Just as the tree roots slowly break up the sidewalks that order the spaces where we live, we can cultivate our movement over time, through the patient, everyday work of organizing, which Ella Baker called spadework.”
“The struggle against rent is a struggle for collective control over territory and resources, such that all housing becomes social housing—a utopian vision where shelter is claimed as much as built, where self-organization flourishes, and where the world of our imaginings begins to take root in the one that exists now.”
Abolish rent!
Under contemporary capitalism, “real estate” does not signify the homes we build or the communities we foster. Instead, it represents the dominant speculative asset driving global economic growth. This book’s potency lies in its ability to dissect this epistemological divide: the oppressive reality of housing as a commodity versus its liberatory potential as a collective, shared resource. By firmly situating readers in the conflict-based power dynamics of our commodified housing system, Abolish Rent offers a trenchant, confrontational manual for dismantling the eviction-driven machine that defines landlord rule.
The authors open with an ideological polemic, reframing the terms of this struggle. They argue for abandoning the term “renter” in favor of “tenant,” and define rent as the crisis itself—a culmination of land enclosure, privatization, speculative trading, and debt financing. This structural analysis resists the narrow fixes offered by neoclassical economics, public policy reforms, or government interventions. Instead, the authors insist that “the housing crisis is not a problem to be solved, but a class struggle to be fought and won.”
The book transitions seamlessly into a concise yet sharp history of U.S. housing policy, from colonial land theft to the “can-do” Keynesianism that introduced both public housing and private homeownership incentives—both steeped in racism. It then lands squarely in the present: a landscape shaped by municipal austerity and the “real estate state,” where luxury development drives displacement and gentrification.
Once the reader is equipped with this historical and structural grounding, Abolish Rent turns to strategies and tactics tenants have used to fight back. It highlights tools such as tenant associations, demand letters, and rent strikes—practical mechanisms for challenging landlord power. These sections also critically examine the roles of other actors, such as movement lawyers, nonprofits, and police. While lawyers and nonprofits can play supportive roles, their participation must be evaluated strategically, on a case-by-case basis. Police, however, are unambiguously cast as the enforcers of private property, the baton-wielding guarantors of eviction and dispossession.
The authors write with the conviction of experienced tenant organizers, offering insights steeped in firsthand campaigns. But they recognize that readers will demand proof: real-world examples where lofty ideals have been realized. The book meets this challenge with two detailed case studies, each illustrating a different vision of an alternative housing future.
The first case study recounts the “Echo Park Rise Up,” a houseless-led occupation of a Los Angeles park. This prefigurative experiment in de-commodified land built DIY support networks, from food and medicine stations to community security systems, all sustained by solidarity from the wider public. Ultimately, this grassroots effort was violently dismantled by police, underscoring the state’s role in preserving private property. Yet, the story demonstrates the transformative potential of collective action to reclaim public space as a common good.
The second case study examines the Hillside Villa campaign, in which tenants first fought off eviction by a predatory landlord and then leveraged policy to push the city to purchase the building, converting it into a tenant-managed land trust. This example shows how sustained organizing can shift the struggle from defensive eviction prevention to proactive social housing creation, offering a tangible model of public recapture and de-commodified living.
Abolish Rent is more than a critique—it’s a manual for action. It demonstrates that a world where housing is a commons, not a commodity, is not only imaginable but achievable through organized struggle. For those who seek not just to critique but to confront the grim reality of mass eviction and housing precarity, this book is an invaluable resource.
Two quotes encapsulate its spirit:
“Just as the tree roots slowly break up the sidewalks that order the spaces where we live, we can cultivate our movement over time, through the patient, everyday work of organizing, which Ella Baker called spadework.”
“The struggle against rent is a struggle for collective control over territory and resources, such that all housing becomes social housing—a utopian vision where shelter is claimed as much as built, where self-organization flourishes, and where the world of our imaginings begins to take root in the one that exists now.”
Abolish rent!
December 29, 2024
My big takeaway from this book is that just because there’s no policy to protect you as a tenant doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do to fight.
Multiple occasions in my time renting in nyc I’ve felt so disenfranchised when seeking assistance from legal aid or 311 or other policy-based tenant information or assistance programs, and they say, “sorry, your landlord has the right to do whatever they want” and I’ve given up, either paying up or moving on, which I’m privileged to afford to do.
This book outlines experiences of tenants unions in LA that have kept fighting for their homes beyond what lawyers or policymakers or cops say, based on the belief that housing is a human right and, as renters, our apartments and shared spaces are our homes and not just capital for our landlords to glean money from.
I feel inspired by this book and its clear-headed approach.
Other general takeaways
- the government uses violent force (cops) to defend an owners right to make money over a tenants right to a home
- rent is a poor tax: wealthy landowners make money by taking it from less wealthy non-landowners. I remember when I was 16 I swore I’d never rent bc the money just disappears and yet here I am, a 7.5 year renter :)
- privately owned, publicly funded affordable housing is a bandaid on the housing crisis that keeps money going to landlords
- people who have no place to live are punished, either put in jail or in highly restricted or surveilled housing (shelters)
I liked the tenants union tactic of protesting in front of the landlords house. It’s personal for the tenant, so it should be personal for the landlord too! Maybe not super applicable in nyc where most landlords probably don’t live in houses, but it did make me think of chuck schumer Israel funding protests in grand army plaza bc he lives in one of those high rises on the park.
I really liked the part describing the tent community built in the park. It reminds me of how important rhetoric is. Hearing the book’s descriptions of communal living based in self government and mutual aid felt so validating when tbh I picture people living in tents in a park I DO have the impulse to think of it as dangerous, like NIMBYs do. There’s this deeply ingrained belief that poor or unhoused ppl are bad or deserve it, which is never true.
I watched wicked last week and I really connected this book with Elphaba’s lyrics in Defying Gravity:
I’m through accepting limits
Cause someone says they’re so
Some things I cannot change
But til I try I’ll never know
Too long I’ve been afraid of
Losing [housing security] I guess I’d lost
But if that’s [housing security], it comes at much too high a cost
It’s time to try
[Fighting my landlords use of my home as capital]
Gonna finally go to a MET council on housing meeting soon
Multiple occasions in my time renting in nyc I’ve felt so disenfranchised when seeking assistance from legal aid or 311 or other policy-based tenant information or assistance programs, and they say, “sorry, your landlord has the right to do whatever they want” and I’ve given up, either paying up or moving on, which I’m privileged to afford to do.
This book outlines experiences of tenants unions in LA that have kept fighting for their homes beyond what lawyers or policymakers or cops say, based on the belief that housing is a human right and, as renters, our apartments and shared spaces are our homes and not just capital for our landlords to glean money from.
I feel inspired by this book and its clear-headed approach.
Other general takeaways
- the government uses violent force (cops) to defend an owners right to make money over a tenants right to a home
- rent is a poor tax: wealthy landowners make money by taking it from less wealthy non-landowners. I remember when I was 16 I swore I’d never rent bc the money just disappears and yet here I am, a 7.5 year renter :)
- privately owned, publicly funded affordable housing is a bandaid on the housing crisis that keeps money going to landlords
- people who have no place to live are punished, either put in jail or in highly restricted or surveilled housing (shelters)
I liked the tenants union tactic of protesting in front of the landlords house. It’s personal for the tenant, so it should be personal for the landlord too! Maybe not super applicable in nyc where most landlords probably don’t live in houses, but it did make me think of chuck schumer Israel funding protests in grand army plaza bc he lives in one of those high rises on the park.
I really liked the part describing the tent community built in the park. It reminds me of how important rhetoric is. Hearing the book’s descriptions of communal living based in self government and mutual aid felt so validating when tbh I picture people living in tents in a park I DO have the impulse to think of it as dangerous, like NIMBYs do. There’s this deeply ingrained belief that poor or unhoused ppl are bad or deserve it, which is never true.
I watched wicked last week and I really connected this book with Elphaba’s lyrics in Defying Gravity:
I’m through accepting limits
Cause someone says they’re so
Some things I cannot change
But til I try I’ll never know
Too long I’ve been afraid of
Losing [housing security] I guess I’d lost
But if that’s [housing security], it comes at much too high a cost
It’s time to try
[Fighting my landlords use of my home as capital]
Gonna finally go to a MET council on housing meeting soon
May 1, 2025
a must read. so important + easy to follow. ALAB (all landlords are bastards)
October 15, 2024
"abolition is antagonistic and prefigurative, a creative and destructive process."
rosenthal & vilchis accomplish a lot in this small but mighty book. they unravel the power relations inherent in our casual language around "renting" and "tenancy," emphasizing that the "housing crisis" is not an aberration but a fundamental function of a capitalist system in which land is not meant to be lived on, but rather to be bought/sold as tokens of wealth extraction. what really animates this theory are the real learnings taken from multiple tenant movements across the city. almost more than being a book simply about housing, this is a book about the power of organizing and what is means to reclaim space. chapter 4, 'la lucha educa' is some of the clearest writing i've ever read.
rosenthal & vilchis accomplish a lot in this small but mighty book. they unravel the power relations inherent in our casual language around "renting" and "tenancy," emphasizing that the "housing crisis" is not an aberration but a fundamental function of a capitalist system in which land is not meant to be lived on, but rather to be bought/sold as tokens of wealth extraction. what really animates this theory are the real learnings taken from multiple tenant movements across the city. almost more than being a book simply about housing, this is a book about the power of organizing and what is means to reclaim space. chapter 4, 'la lucha educa' is some of the clearest writing i've ever read.
November 3, 2024
everyone should read this!
April 6, 2025
Who else in my building wants to talk about this and also stop paying rent
April 16, 2025
Abolishing Rent can be read as a manifesto for tenant organizing. The book drives home the stark reality of what it means to turn a basic human necessity into a trillion-dollar asset.
April 25, 2025
some quotes that go so hard, starting with a bit of analysis from my favorite quote:
“As study after study affirms, unhoused tenants are pushed out of housing not due to an individual failing or character defect, but because of the cost of rent. By 2023, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority would count 75,518 unhoused tenants, an increase of more than 50 percent in just 7 years. but rather than address the crisis with public housing, or prevent more tenants from losing their homes, city, state, and federal policy have funneled resources into sweeps and temporary shelter— to solve the problem of homelessness not with housing, but with banishment, criminalization, and warehousing. unhoused tenants bear the brunt of the city’s police force: though about one in ninety residents are unhoused, every one in six arrests and one in three reported police ‘uses of force’ is of or against an unhoused person.” (R&V, 132)
For the mariachi band members of the mariachi plaza in Boyle Heights, LA (from which local businesses benefited greatly), an 80% rent hike would be akin to being unhoused. Residents who had lived there for the entirety of the 30 year moratorium on rent increases, a lot of them for their whole lives, would be evicted due to the greed of their new landlord. What started as Alejandro Juarez asking his neighbors whether they had received the same rent increase led to conversations about one person's leaky sink causing another's moldy walls that the landlord refused to fix on both sides, leading to weekly community events where residents gathered in their shared courtyard discussing ways to organize against him. This eventually led to a rent strike, where they instead used their withheld rent to plant gardens in the common space to provide food for their neighbors, fix broken staircases, and remove fencing that blocked access to trash collection. In the process, they created a type of community that would make any landlord clutch their pearls: one where they learned how interconnected their struggles are given that they rely on the same place for access to the indoors.
this book does a great job showing how prefigurative organizations of a rent-free world such as tenant associations, unions, and rent strikes take measurable steps toward increasing tenant power. it opened my eyes to how antagonistic the goals of landlords and tenants really are: while landlords would like to extract the most amount of rent possible for the least amount of maintenance costs, tenants would like to affordably live in their homes for as long as possible and in the process improve them for habitation.
of course, their struggle was not linear nor without setbacks, almost all of their issues as a result of their cartoonishly evil landlord. from having to dig for his name due to his hiding behind an LLC to camping outside of his home on the public sidewalk and handing out flyers to his neighbors exposing his actions, they wielded the media for once to their advantage. whereas typically the media as a rule depicts unhoused people as morally repugnant rather than as victims of skyrocketing rent prices, many news outlets reported on the mariachis’ struggle favorably. if we funded housing with half of the funds we fund the police with, maybe we could have community gatherings instead of violent sweeps and disproportionate police brutality (even for america’s standards).
From About the Author: “Leonardo Vilchis has been organizing tenants in Boyle Heights for more than thirty years. Trained in liberation theology, Vilchis cofounded Union de Vecinos in 1996 to stop the demolition of the Pico Aliso public housing projects, winning the right of return for 250 families.”
“Despite a demographic majority in many cities, tenants make up a tiny minority of elected officials, representatives, and judges. in the california state legislature, out of 120 representatives, only 5 are tenants, and more than a fourth are landlords.” (Rosenthal and Vilchis, 83)
"Landlords don't own our homes because they are better than us, smarter than us, or more hardworking than us. our landlords own our homes because at some point in the past they-- or their parents, or their parents' parents-- had more money than us. rent is the price of being poorer than others, of our parents being poorer than the parents of others. it's no wonder that the descendants of enslaved and indigenous people, immigrants, and people of color are more likely to pay rent and to be unhoused. (over half of black households pay rent to secure housing; only a third of white households do.) As the feudal name "landlord" continues to suggest, rent is a monthly tribute to those with generational wealth, a hoard of resources built on stolen lives and stolen land." (Rosenthal and Vilchis, 15)
"Just for the privilege of paying rent, we pay application fees; subject ourselves to credit checks; jump over or squeeze into income requirements; swallow restrictions on pets, roommates, and family members; suffer source-of-income, racial, ethnic, and homophobic discrimination; fork over exorbitant broker fees and deposits; and expose our conviction and eviction history. we accept harsh leases, dilapidated living conditions, gouged rents. why? because behind each rent check is the threat of homelessness. landlords' control over our access to the indoors pushes us to accept degrading living conditions and degrading terms." (R&V, 19)
"Rent is the private capture of public investment. it's often said that only three things matter in real estate: location, location, location... it steals from the value the public creates. we know this intuitively: proximity to parks and recreation, to good schools, to transit stops make housing cost more." (R&V, 21)
"Exploitation through our housing has long ensured exploitation at our workplaces. (said one studio executive during the 2023 writers guild of america strike: 'The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments.')" (R&V, 31)
"'In a good economy,' LA's mayor Eric Garcetti would synthesize in 2020, 'homelessness goes up.'" (R&V, 51)
"The association responded to [their landlord's] silence by getting louder. they decorated their building with posters and collages, papering over the facade. '20 years living here 80% rent hike,' read one; '800 mas por mes es irrazonable' read another. one sign pictured a cartoon of a smiling, blond-haired Turner [their landlord] kicking three mariachi musicians to the curb. They hung the LATU banner across the parking lot: 'where will you go when you can't afford your neighborhood? why not fight to stay?' making the art helped build relationships for an afternoon; living with that art re-signified their homes as sites of political struggle. the art became 'part of where i live, and where i continue to live,' Ramirez said." (R&V, 66)
“During an attempt at mediation, the landlord told the city attorney’s office that he’d drop his tenants’ evictions provided they stop their events. he said the tenants association’s movie nights, chapter meetings, and food distribution were as threatening to him as eviction notices. those communal gatherings are not outwardly aggressive actions, but in a way, he is right: taking away his ability to turn their neighbors against them, building support for emergency response, those actions grow the power of tenants.” (R&V, 147)
“As study after study affirms, unhoused tenants are pushed out of housing not due to an individual failing or character defect, but because of the cost of rent. By 2023, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority would count 75,518 unhoused tenants, an increase of more than 50 percent in just 7 years. but rather than address the crisis with public housing, or prevent more tenants from losing their homes, city, state, and federal policy have funneled resources into sweeps and temporary shelter— to solve the problem of homelessness not with housing, but with banishment, criminalization, and warehousing. unhoused tenants bear the brunt of the city’s police force: though about one in ninety residents are unhoused, every one in six arrests and one in three reported police ‘uses of force’ is of or against an unhoused person.” (R&V, 132)
For the mariachi band members of the mariachi plaza in Boyle Heights, LA (from which local businesses benefited greatly), an 80% rent hike would be akin to being unhoused. Residents who had lived there for the entirety of the 30 year moratorium on rent increases, a lot of them for their whole lives, would be evicted due to the greed of their new landlord. What started as Alejandro Juarez asking his neighbors whether they had received the same rent increase led to conversations about one person's leaky sink causing another's moldy walls that the landlord refused to fix on both sides, leading to weekly community events where residents gathered in their shared courtyard discussing ways to organize against him. This eventually led to a rent strike, where they instead used their withheld rent to plant gardens in the common space to provide food for their neighbors, fix broken staircases, and remove fencing that blocked access to trash collection. In the process, they created a type of community that would make any landlord clutch their pearls: one where they learned how interconnected their struggles are given that they rely on the same place for access to the indoors.
this book does a great job showing how prefigurative organizations of a rent-free world such as tenant associations, unions, and rent strikes take measurable steps toward increasing tenant power. it opened my eyes to how antagonistic the goals of landlords and tenants really are: while landlords would like to extract the most amount of rent possible for the least amount of maintenance costs, tenants would like to affordably live in their homes for as long as possible and in the process improve them for habitation.
of course, their struggle was not linear nor without setbacks, almost all of their issues as a result of their cartoonishly evil landlord. from having to dig for his name due to his hiding behind an LLC to camping outside of his home on the public sidewalk and handing out flyers to his neighbors exposing his actions, they wielded the media for once to their advantage. whereas typically the media as a rule depicts unhoused people as morally repugnant rather than as victims of skyrocketing rent prices, many news outlets reported on the mariachis’ struggle favorably. if we funded housing with half of the funds we fund the police with, maybe we could have community gatherings instead of violent sweeps and disproportionate police brutality (even for america’s standards).
From About the Author: “Leonardo Vilchis has been organizing tenants in Boyle Heights for more than thirty years. Trained in liberation theology, Vilchis cofounded Union de Vecinos in 1996 to stop the demolition of the Pico Aliso public housing projects, winning the right of return for 250 families.”
“Despite a demographic majority in many cities, tenants make up a tiny minority of elected officials, representatives, and judges. in the california state legislature, out of 120 representatives, only 5 are tenants, and more than a fourth are landlords.” (Rosenthal and Vilchis, 83)
"Landlords don't own our homes because they are better than us, smarter than us, or more hardworking than us. our landlords own our homes because at some point in the past they-- or their parents, or their parents' parents-- had more money than us. rent is the price of being poorer than others, of our parents being poorer than the parents of others. it's no wonder that the descendants of enslaved and indigenous people, immigrants, and people of color are more likely to pay rent and to be unhoused. (over half of black households pay rent to secure housing; only a third of white households do.) As the feudal name "landlord" continues to suggest, rent is a monthly tribute to those with generational wealth, a hoard of resources built on stolen lives and stolen land." (Rosenthal and Vilchis, 15)
"Just for the privilege of paying rent, we pay application fees; subject ourselves to credit checks; jump over or squeeze into income requirements; swallow restrictions on pets, roommates, and family members; suffer source-of-income, racial, ethnic, and homophobic discrimination; fork over exorbitant broker fees and deposits; and expose our conviction and eviction history. we accept harsh leases, dilapidated living conditions, gouged rents. why? because behind each rent check is the threat of homelessness. landlords' control over our access to the indoors pushes us to accept degrading living conditions and degrading terms." (R&V, 19)
"Rent is the private capture of public investment. it's often said that only three things matter in real estate: location, location, location... it steals from the value the public creates. we know this intuitively: proximity to parks and recreation, to good schools, to transit stops make housing cost more." (R&V, 21)
"Exploitation through our housing has long ensured exploitation at our workplaces. (said one studio executive during the 2023 writers guild of america strike: 'The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments.')" (R&V, 31)
"'In a good economy,' LA's mayor Eric Garcetti would synthesize in 2020, 'homelessness goes up.'" (R&V, 51)
"The association responded to [their landlord's] silence by getting louder. they decorated their building with posters and collages, papering over the facade. '20 years living here 80% rent hike,' read one; '800 mas por mes es irrazonable' read another. one sign pictured a cartoon of a smiling, blond-haired Turner [their landlord] kicking three mariachi musicians to the curb. They hung the LATU banner across the parking lot: 'where will you go when you can't afford your neighborhood? why not fight to stay?' making the art helped build relationships for an afternoon; living with that art re-signified their homes as sites of political struggle. the art became 'part of where i live, and where i continue to live,' Ramirez said." (R&V, 66)
“During an attempt at mediation, the landlord told the city attorney’s office that he’d drop his tenants’ evictions provided they stop their events. he said the tenants association’s movie nights, chapter meetings, and food distribution were as threatening to him as eviction notices. those communal gatherings are not outwardly aggressive actions, but in a way, he is right: taking away his ability to turn their neighbors against them, building support for emergency response, those actions grow the power of tenants.” (R&V, 147)
November 20, 2025
As someone who works in homeless services, this book was very intriguing to me. I do agree with some of the reviews that say this book is more of a manifesto than a realistic plan, but I’m also fine with a manifesto. This book hit especially hard after learning this week that my work is losing 70% of their funding. My clients would not be losing their housing if they owned their units rather than rented them. The case studies of different rent strikes that have been successful were by far the most interesting part of this book. I also really loved that they pointed out how Section 8 (and rapid rehousing/permanent supportive housing) contribute to increased rent because it uses government funding to increase the wealth of private landlords, which in turn only drives rent prices higher as landlords know they have a certain guaranteed income each month from Section 8 tenants. It’s my biggest beef with vouchers.
They mention a few times how their goal is that one day there will be city-wide rent strikes. While I love the idea, it’s just so insanely unrealistic given the shit going down with HUD right now. I do hope that more cities form tenant unions though and if my city had one I would absolutely love to be involved. It’s also very LA focused which I understand given the authors’ positions but LA policy/advocacy does not always work the same in other areas of the country.
They mention a few times how their goal is that one day there will be city-wide rent strikes. While I love the idea, it’s just so insanely unrealistic given the shit going down with HUD right now. I do hope that more cities form tenant unions though and if my city had one I would absolutely love to be involved. It’s also very LA focused which I understand given the authors’ positions but LA policy/advocacy does not always work the same in other areas of the country.
December 22, 2025
Eh would say 3.5 stars. The real life examples were great but needed a bit more theory. The ideas were good but needed to be expounded upon I think.
Biggest issue is it felt like this was a “how to” book for dismantling the rent/landlord system and yet they did not give realistic ways to do that. Tenant unions are great in theory but don’t think that is a plausible solution for most people.
Still though, an interesting book and hearing about the community in the LA neighborhoods and between tenants was inspiring.
Biggest issue is it felt like this was a “how to” book for dismantling the rent/landlord system and yet they did not give realistic ways to do that. Tenant unions are great in theory but don’t think that is a plausible solution for most people.
Still though, an interesting book and hearing about the community in the LA neighborhoods and between tenants was inspiring.
January 27, 2025
So inspiring!! And sad that I’d never heard of these struggles until reading this book bc mainstream media of course doesn’t cover it. Would love to see tenants unions like the LA tenant union in every city and neighborhood! Abolish rent!!
December 24, 2024
This book will make you rethink what it means to pay rent every month and will inspire you to reject that which seems inevitable. Abolish Rent proves that claiming collective agency over the places we call home is not a dream, but a reality that can be replicated here and now.
November 22, 2024
This book has three parts. One, it’s a history of housing policy and public housing in the US and how we arrived at the current tenant crises. Second, it’s a book that lays the theoretical and political philosophy foundation for thinking about housing as a human right and as the title goes, what it might look like to move past a landlord-oriented rental system. Most importantly, it’s an account of the work of the LA Tenants Union in turning tenants into a mobilized and influential political category. Even if you’re not a leftist this is an important book for thinking about one of the defining problems in our society.
December 17, 2024
everyone should read this.
“By deepening relationships with our neighbors, we can resist displacement and build lasting institutions of tenant democracy. We fight dispossession not with possession but by cultivating new forms of belonging.”
“By deepening relationships with our neighbors, we can resist displacement and build lasting institutions of tenant democracy. We fight dispossession not with possession but by cultivating new forms of belonging.”
November 1, 2024
Short but powerful. Tracy is my comrade and I knew they would knock it outta the park!
November 4, 2024
should I… start a Sandy Hill Tenant’s Union????? I think I should
January 22, 2025
Abolish Rent is excellent on several fronts. First, it bravely tackles the job of completely frame shifting our whole entire understanding of housing as a commodity. That’s a big undertaking! No matter how progressive one might be, if you’ve been raised in our capitalist world then housing is most certainly an investment, a commodity, dirt and foremost, and no one is “entitled” to housing. This book challenges that basic assumption and does it consistently and adeptly, asserting instead that housing is a basic human necessity and therefore a basic human right. Not going to be a popular take among the landlords in the house, but truly a sensible take.
Second, the authors do a good job helping the reader to understand how that would look like and how it would work, and what it even means and entails, to “abolish rent.” With examples, they show how people can live collectively and retain their individuality and individual lives while yet sharing space, caring for one another, and caring for common spaces together. It’s a very hopeful book that way.
Third, the book is a great tutorial on honest, effective tools to address greed and cruelty, specifically the greed and cruelty of capital hoarders within capitalism. Rather than more exhortations to peaceful rallies, the book fleshes out the need to put faces and names to the violence of depriving people of stable housing for profit.
Abolish Rent is a clear, hopeful book filled with visions for a better more compassionate way of living.
Second, the authors do a good job helping the reader to understand how that would look like and how it would work, and what it even means and entails, to “abolish rent.” With examples, they show how people can live collectively and retain their individuality and individual lives while yet sharing space, caring for one another, and caring for common spaces together. It’s a very hopeful book that way.
Third, the book is a great tutorial on honest, effective tools to address greed and cruelty, specifically the greed and cruelty of capital hoarders within capitalism. Rather than more exhortations to peaceful rallies, the book fleshes out the need to put faces and names to the violence of depriving people of stable housing for profit.
Abolish Rent is a clear, hopeful book filled with visions for a better more compassionate way of living.
August 25, 2024
"Abolish Rent" by Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis offers a powerful and illuminating examination of the housing crisis, vividly illustrating how rent exploits the poor while enriching the wealthy. The authors, who founded a tenant union, passionately advocate for tenant organization and mobilization against a deeply unjust system. They make a compelling case that by coming together, tenants can transform their everyday struggles into a dynamic movement for meaningful change. The book also explores historical wrongs like redlining and the current issue of corporations buying up single-family homes, displacing countless individuals and families.
This book really opened my eyes. It shows how messy and unregulated the rent and housing situation is in the U.S., benefiting the wealthy while many others suffer. The big question now is: How do we fix this deep-rooted problem? This book is an important step in starting and advancing this crucial conversation, and I’m excited to see where the discussion goes from here.
A huge thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the authors for the opportunity to read this advance copy.
This book really opened my eyes. It shows how messy and unregulated the rent and housing situation is in the U.S., benefiting the wealthy while many others suffer. The big question now is: How do we fix this deep-rooted problem? This book is an important step in starting and advancing this crucial conversation, and I’m excited to see where the discussion goes from here.
A huge thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the authors for the opportunity to read this advance copy.
March 13, 2025
“A tenants union is a vehicle for class struggle. If the work of a tenants association is to coordinate the actions of individual tenants, a tenants union coordinates the actions of those associations and larger groups. The technology is the same. Alone, tenants suffer the whims of our landlords and real estate speculators, who have bent the housing market and the state to their will; together, we discover tools to tip the scales. Isolated, we are objects of a system that prioritizes the people who own our housing over those who live in it; organized, we become subjects of its transformation.
A tenants union treats tenants as experts in their own experience and as agents of the changes we need. Who builds a tenants union? We do. Who is it for? Us. A union allows tenants to claim collective control of our housing and our lives. By organizing ourselves and our neighbors, we change from clients or constituents to creators of our own futures. We don’t just gain more leverage within existing institutions; we gain the power to transform those institutions into ones that serve our needs. A union helps us take control over the processes and outcomes of our fights. It connects strategies and tactics across space and time such that our efforts can build in ambition and scale."
Essential reading. Join your local tenant union https://atun-rsia.org/
March 11, 2025
What I enjoyed most from this book: the statistics in the first chapter about homelessness and property ownership in the US + the stories of successful tenant organizing, which make me want to start a worldwide tenant strike and abolish passive income
What I didn’t like as much: the filler paragraphs rooted in an unclear mix of liberation theology, Marxism, abolition theory… if you’re going to half-ass theory, and reduce it to a couple of punch phrases, I’m not sure it’s worth including in the book. I would have much rather either had a clear theoretical grounding in a separate chapter, or more of the book’s strong points (stats and inspiring revolutionary storytelling)
And a bonus point for ending on my favorite chant: “like a tree, that’s standing by the water, we shall not be moved.”
What I didn’t like as much: the filler paragraphs rooted in an unclear mix of liberation theology, Marxism, abolition theory… if you’re going to half-ass theory, and reduce it to a couple of punch phrases, I’m not sure it’s worth including in the book. I would have much rather either had a clear theoretical grounding in a separate chapter, or more of the book’s strong points (stats and inspiring revolutionary storytelling)
And a bonus point for ending on my favorite chant: “like a tree, that’s standing by the water, we shall not be moved.”
September 30, 2025
This is a great introduction to tenant organizing and has convinced me that it is just as important as labor organizing for those wanting to achieve fundamental social change. The social analysis and organizational theory is thoroughly grounded in stories of people, families, and communities. This does a lot to inspire faith (necessary but too often absent among the politically engaged) in ordinary not-yet-organized people and also to develop a new dimension in our thinking about our work, namely that we are trying to actually build the world we want to live in rather than merely attain certain abstract goals.
April 11, 2025
the personal stories of the fight starting with one and blossoming into a community coalition warmed my heart; I needed this after The Color of Law.
May 23, 2025
I learned a lot!! Especially around organizing and tenants rights. I wish this had come out back when I lived in that shitty apartment in Milwaukee!
November 13, 2025
Interesting if you Life in the us, for everyone else it's a dystopian warning.
January 22, 2025
Agree with others, this should be required reading. The first two chapters are polemics in brilliance. I scanned them on our copying machine and sent them to my coworkers - we are a tenants' rights / tenant organizing organization. Exceptional book, so clear. Cheers to the tenant movement.
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