Housing
Housing is an essential need. Across the country, localities are working to advance renter protections, increase affordable housing and ensure all community members have protected access to safe housing in complete and thriving neighborhoods.

Our Vision and Work

Housing is an essential need that provides the foundation for people to build their lives, find work, raise the next generation, and age in place.

Our access to housing and the community resources near our homes have been shaped by policies and practices that have harmed and excluded people of color. These inequities continue today while our communities across the country grapple with an affordable housing shortage, weak tenant protections, and increasing corporate consolidation that contribute to displacement and persistent poor housing quality.

Local governments have a critical role in protecting tenants, ensuring their policies and programs preserve and develop housing so that it is accessible for all residents, is resilient and responsive to our changing environment, and contributes to the well-being of our communities and residents throughout its design, construction, and maintenance.

Featured Resources

Stable Rents, Rooted Communities

Rent stabilization policies are essential, common sense solutions to help address the housing crisis and keep people in their homes. This toolkit, developed by Local Progress Impact Lab in partnership with Power Switch Action, breaks down the key components of a rent stabilization policy so you can build a policy that  best meets the needs of your community.

See the PDF here.

Visit the website here.

FROM HOUSE TO HOME

Local Progress’s new messaging guide provides a framework for how to discuss housing justice issues and rent stabilization based on polling, research, and messaging best practices from local electeds in our network. This introductory level guide provides sample messaging and talking points that can be used with constituents, media, and colleagues on renters rights and rent stabilization policies.

See the guide here.

Housing Steering committee

As a membership organization, we believe our work is most impactful when it is informed and guided by members. Bringing a diverse range of expertise and local experience, our Housing Steering Committee advises and shapes our work in this area:

JEREMIAH ELLISON

Minneapolis City Council Member, MN

Vanessa Fuentes' headshot

VANESSA FUENTES

Austin City Council Member, TX

JAMIE GAUTHIER

Philadelphia Councilmember , PA

JOBETH HAMON

Oklahoma City Council Member, OK

MICHELE HIRSCH

Kingston Alderwoman, NY

Mitra Jalali headshot

MITRA JALALI

St. Paul City Councilmember, MN

JAIME KINDER

Meadville Mayor, PA

ROBIN KNIECH

Former Denver City Councilmember, CO

TERESA MOSQUEDA

Seattle City Councilmember , WA

ODETTE RAMOS

Baltimore City Council Member, MD

KIM SMITH

Rochester City Councilmember, NY

Resources

Blogs And Featured News

How Corporate Landlords are Colluding to Hike up Rents – And How Localities Can Fight Back

Across the country, landlords are turning to a new tool to raise rents and further exacerbate the housing crisis: software algorithms. Third party service providers like RealPage offer recommendations to landlords that promise to boost their profits while driving up housing costs. Our new memo explains what rent-setting software algorithms are and how local electeds can take action to protect their communities.

Good Cause Workshop Recap

On Tuesday, August 20, Local Progress held a virtual Good Cause workshop with coalition partners Housing Justice for All and For The Many. We shared organizing tactics, lessons learned, and strategies on how to replicate these wins across the state. Fresh off their housing victories this summer, we heard from local leaders in Kingston and Albany on how they won Good Cause in their cities.

San Francisco Passes First-in-Nation Municipal Ban on Rent-Fixing Software

Today, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted the nation’s first local ordinance, sponsored by Board President Aaron Peskin, banning the sale or use of software which enables price collusion among large corporate landlords for the purpose of rent-gouging.
A graphic shows a large magnet pulling away money from a human's pockets (Getty Images | Retrieved from Minnesota Reformer)

Rigged: Corporate behemoths are using junk fees and technology to keep prices high

Algorithmic price fixing has played a significant role in double-digit rent increases across the country. These inflated rents are exacerbated by consolidation in local housing markets that leads to both higher rates of eviction and higher profits for landlords.