I hear you on rent increases. My first apartment in my new city tried to raise my rent by $200 on an admittedly already low-quality-but-high-price unit. So I had to move. After that, I was determined to never be in that situation again.
One thing you can do is negotiate your lease, demand a clause that only lets the landlord raise the price a certain percentage every year. I did this on my next apartment and the property managers didn't bat an eye over writing down how much the max increase would be the following year.
You can also organize with other tenants if that landlord owns multiple units. There's power in numbers. If you can essentially unionize the other tenants, you can make demands of the landlord at the the threat of withholding rent. If one tenant does this to them, they likely won't care. But if most of their units do? They'll care very much and make concessions, including likely coming down on a big rent hike. Organizing is very powerful.
Lastly, and I know you already do this, mutual aid! This is more about fighting the powers that be but removing yourself from corporations to help support, and be supported by, your community takes a lot of the power away from capitalism!
I LOVE all of these ideas, Kaitlin! Especially the max percentage rent increase clause in a lease... so smart. The fact that that isn't in place already in New York is wild to me. You either have rent-controlled apartments, the unicorns under market price, or you have bully landlords who will raise and raise with no regard for their tenants' situations. In this case, I did try to ask my neighbor what they paid to have a realistic ballpark range of going rates and they wouldn't tell me flat out! The general distrust amongst people handicapping the power of numbers is a whole different issue. We could go on for days....
I hear you on rent increases. My first apartment in my new city tried to raise my rent by $200 on an admittedly already low-quality-but-high-price unit. So I had to move. After that, I was determined to never be in that situation again.
One thing you can do is negotiate your lease, demand a clause that only lets the landlord raise the price a certain percentage every year. I did this on my next apartment and the property managers didn't bat an eye over writing down how much the max increase would be the following year.
You can also organize with other tenants if that landlord owns multiple units. There's power in numbers. If you can essentially unionize the other tenants, you can make demands of the landlord at the the threat of withholding rent. If one tenant does this to them, they likely won't care. But if most of their units do? They'll care very much and make concessions, including likely coming down on a big rent hike. Organizing is very powerful.
Lastly, and I know you already do this, mutual aid! This is more about fighting the powers that be but removing yourself from corporations to help support, and be supported by, your community takes a lot of the power away from capitalism!
I LOVE all of these ideas, Kaitlin! Especially the max percentage rent increase clause in a lease... so smart. The fact that that isn't in place already in New York is wild to me. You either have rent-controlled apartments, the unicorns under market price, or you have bully landlords who will raise and raise with no regard for their tenants' situations. In this case, I did try to ask my neighbor what they paid to have a realistic ballpark range of going rates and they wouldn't tell me flat out! The general distrust amongst people handicapping the power of numbers is a whole different issue. We could go on for days....