Red Emma’s

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.

“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

Tracy Rosenthal is a writer and co-founder of the L.A. Tenants Union. Their work has been published in The New Republic, The Nation _and The LA Times _among others. They serve on the advisory board of Housing the Third Reconstruction with UCLA’s Institute on Inequality and Democracy. They are now on rent strike in New York City.

Detrese Dowridge is the Executive Director of Baltimore Renters United. Detrese was born and raised in Baltimore City and has been working as a tenant advocate since May 2013 when she joined Right to Housing Alliance as a volunteer. In 2022 Right to Housing Alliance merged with and became Baltimore Renters United. In March 2014, Detrese, along with other tenants, filed a class action lawsuit against her landlord Sage Management. The lawsuit addressed the company’s use of “fee churning”, a process of charging many small fees that keeps renting families constantly guessing at what they owe in any given month, constantly falling farther 'behind' on the landlord's ledger and constantly facing eviction. The lawsuit was successful with tenants winning nearly a one million dollar settlement for past and current tenants. After her experience of being impacted by housing injustice and predatory rental practices herself, Detrese is passionate about educating and helping renters by giving them the power to thrive and stand up against housing injustice because she believe impacted voices should be leading and becoming leaders in their own right to build a tenant-led movement.

Lindsey Muniak is an organizer with the Debt Collective, where she leads national efforts to abolish medical debt and fight profit-driven health care.