Tracy Rosenthal — Abolish Rent - with Stephanie Bastek & Rob Wohl

Watch author Tracy Rosenthal's book talk and reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.

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.

Tracy Rosenthal is a co-founder of the L.A. Tenants Union whose writing has been published in The New Republic, The Nation, LA Times, and other outlets. Rosenthal is now on rent strike in New York City.

Rosenthal is in conversation with Stephanie Bastek and Rob Wohl, core organizers with Stomp Out Slumlords, which since 2017 has supported dozens of rent strikes against slumlords, shady developers, and unjust rent hikes from Ward 1 to Ward 8 (and occasionally Maryland). Stephanie mentors nascent tenant unions across the country through the Housing Justice Commission of the Democratic Socialists of America; Rob is an organizer for UNITE HERE Local 25. Stomp Out Slumlords is an affiliate of the Autonomous Tenants Union Network.

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