Pitching In For Better Housing In Louisville, Kentucky

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staff
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night time shot of people participating in a rent strike
1st March University of Manchester Demonstration photo by UoM Rent Strike 2023 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Rising rents, evictions and poor housing conditions are pushing tenants to take collective action.

When you think about tenant organizing in Kentucky, you might visualize Black tenants calling out their housing authority for poor conditions. The article linked to this post tells a different story.

Black people and white people have joined up to form the Louisville Tenants Union (LTU). The landlords are private housing providers. The tenants have been through a lot, although the situation varies from one address to another. In one case, the landlord is a private school that has applied to tear down 35 low rent apartments and replace them with a parking lot. The LTU is working locally to keep people housed, keep the lid on rent increases and to make sure that routine maintenance gets done.

The Louisville Tenants Union is also putting effort into advocating for better living conditions for tenants across the country through the People’s Action Homes Guarantee campaign1.

Read more about the LTU and other tenant actions in Next City2: Louisville’s Multiracial Tenant Union Is At The Forefront Of A Growing National Movement

Footnotes

  1. For a bit about the Homes Guarantee that predates COVID, try: Social Housing In America: Past Time For A Full-Blooded Rebirth?
  2. Next City provides three free reads per month. For more free reads, you will need sign up with an email address.