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Housing Justice

A skyline view of residential buildings in Puerto Rico

The United States is facing an acute and growing housing crisis. Rooted in our history of racialized capitalism, safe, affordable, high-quality housing is not guaranteed.Instead, housing is treated as a good to be sold at a premium on the market. Those who benefit from the commodification of housing have immense wealth and political influence, while working class Americans are left paying exorbitant rents and often find themselves forced to live in conditions that jeopardize their health, safety and well-being. 

The Action Lab works to strengthen the housing movement, initiating campaigns and crafting policies. Our efforts extend nationwide, partnering with state and national entities to win social housing and tenant unions. Notably, we've facilitated two national funders briefings on Social Housing, engaging diverse partners like the Housing Justice for All Coalition, HouseUS, the Neighborhood Funders Group, and the Center for Popular Democracy. Currently, we're collaborating with public housing residents and experts to protect, improve and expand public housing.

We convene conversations that challenge our movement to think into the future. We provide support to create new housing formations to shift power. We partner with base-building organizations to educate tenants and build bold campaigns, and we work with elected officials to move policies that advance housing justice. 

In particular, we are working to move two policies that will shift the balance of power towards tenants and create more housing. First, we are working with partners at the local, state and national levels to build the political space and energy to win decommodified, democratically controlled, and deeply affordable social housing. Second, we are developing policy frameworks that support mass-based tenant unions, to winpower for democratic tenant organizations and away from the real estate and landlord lobbies.  Both policies have been in place for at least a century in other nations and both are garnering increasing support here in the U.S.

Housing Justice

Highlights

A graphic advertising a Winning Tenant Power convening showing protestors

Winning Tenant Power

The Action Lab recently organized the Winning Tenant Power Convening, bringing together a diverse group of housing organizers, academics, elected officials, and lawyers to explore transformative policy proposals to rebalance the power dynamics between landlords and tenants. We went deep - discussing social housing and legal frameworks to create mass based tenant unions This event was just one aspect of our housing work, which includes supporting paradigm-shifting campaigns like Livable New York, led by our anchor partner New York Communities for Change, and collaborating with housing advocates to develop a national effort centered around public housing residents.

Read more about our recent and upcoming work related to building tenant power.

Crisis To Horizon: Fighting for Social Housing

In March of 2023, The Action Lab co-hosted a conference on social housing, where panelists explored the limitations of our market-based housing models, what constitutes social housing, and efforts to win it. We were pleased to partner with the Initiative for Community Power, the Urban Democracy Lab, the Housing Justice for All Coalition, and the NYU Latinx Law Students Association for the event.

Read more about our Social Housing Conference here.

An illustration of a house advertising an event called From Crisis to Horizon
A delegation from the Action Lab posing for a photo in front of a large archway in Vienna

Learning Delegation to Vienna

In the fall of 2022 we co-led a learning delegation to Vienna, Austria, organized in collaboration with the Housing Justice for All Coalition. The delegation of housing organizers, tenants, academics, and policymakers learned directly from leaders of Vienna’s successful social housing model, where more than 60% of residents reside in social housing. The learnings and relationships from the delegation continue to guide and motivate our vision and strategy on this critical issue.

Read more about our Vienna Delegation from one of our delegates.

Check out the New York Times coverage of social housing in Vienna, and our learning delegation of organizers, electeds and tenants.

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Our Other Impact and Innovation Programming

Worker Justice

Promoting Justice for Immigrants

Thinking Big Gatherings

Art of Purpose

Learning Delegations