To Win 2024, Democrats Must Heed Voters' Calls For Housing Justice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Contact: Andrea Beaty, [email protected]

The Revolving Door Project released a report today examining the significant tenant protections renters organized around and won in 2022. This includes Kansas City, where the KC Tenants Union helped pass a historical $50 million bond with 75 percent voter support towards expanding access to affordable housing, with rents between $550-$750.

“Low income communities of color made countless sacrifices to keep the United States’s economy going during the pandemic, all while supporting their families and enduring sky-high rents,” said the author of the report, Research Intern Kalimah Muhammad. “These ballot measures mark the first step towards economic justice that the working class is owed, and the Democratic Party should pay attention to their success.” 

Other recent reports from People’s Action, Policy Link, and the National Low Income Housing Coalition show that voters are demanding elected leaders address housing insecurity and protect the communities that were hit the hardest by the pandemic and corporate rent gouging.

In response to the success of housing issues on ballots across the country, Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser released the following statement:

“If the Democratic Party wants to build an enduring majority that can hold Congress and stave off the MAGA movement, they will need to take a strong and clear position on housing justice and tenant power. The reason is self-evident: Housing is the largest expense for most households, and constitutes a large share of inflation. Forget homeownership: a full-time minimum wage worker cannot rent a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country.  Housing justice and tenant protection policies do well electorally and matter to millions of Americans. The Democrats, as an institution, need to capitalize on that reality, and they have less than two years to do it in a significant way.”

A link to RDP’s report is available here.

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PHOTO CREDIT: “West Farms Square IRT Station, West Farms, Bronx” by Tdorante10 is licensed under CC 4.0.