5Q: Daniel Denvir | Co-chair, Reclaim RI
1. Why is tenant organizing a good strategy? Today, landlords, real estate firms and financial institutions hold the vast majority of power. For these actors, homes are primarily sources of profit. For tenants, homes are places to live. As individuals, tenants have very little power. But if tenants are collectively organized in unions, they can wield immense power and win safe, dignified and affordable housing.
2. What are your thoughts on tax incentives to spur housing development Governments provide tax breaks to spur development because otherwise the private sector will fail to do so. I fully agree that Rhode Island must create homes and generate union construction jobs. But direct public development of housing is a better approach than tax breaks. If we are spending public money either way, those monies should be invested in a publicly owned asset that delivers returns to the people of Rhode Island.
3. Are enforcement agencies doing enough to combat law-breaking landlords? The system to enforce housing standards is broken. Tenants have constant problems with damaged windows, insufficient heat and buildingwide infestations. All are code violations, and yet slumlords often preside over such conditions with impunity. We need the state to overhaul and fully fund the code enforcement system. Code enforcement agencies are understaffed, and many repeat offender landlords don’t show up to court. Landlord retaliation in the form of rent increases or refusals to renew a lease is also rampant.
4. Are investments in housing beneficial to the economy? The public development model generates more production on top of conventional affordable housing developments at a time when new construction is depressed. One innovation in this model is that these projects generate subsidies on their own due to market-rate units “cross-subsidizing” affordable units in the same building. Public housing has substantial multiplier effects, particularly if built by high-wage union labor. These investments can be useful during a recession by operating as countercyclical stimulus.
5. What are the biggest challenges to organizing? Until we have powerful tenant unions, landlords hold too much power. We need local laws to impose rent control. At the state level, we need to pass the Tenant Bill of Rights, a suite of legislation that protects fundamental rights to safe, dignified and affordable housing. We also need “just cause” eviction protections to end arbitrary, discriminatory and retaliatory evictions.
