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Dispatches from the Threshold is an emergent archive of the burgeoning movement for housing justice in North America and beyond.
Housing insecurity turned catastrophic during the COVID-19 pandemic, exposing the cruelty of threadbare tenant protections and state hostility toward unhoused people made worse by mass unemployment, a public health crisis, and racist police violence. Since 2020, tenants have successfully fought back against evictions and encampment policing, pushed their governments to extend and fortify eviction moratoria, strengthened tenants’ rights and protections for unhoused people, and thought beyond strategies that primarily appease landlords and lenders. At the same time, the urgent work of stemming immediate eviction, displacement, and surveillance has sat in tension with long-haul movement work and cross-movement organizing.
This book brings together activists, scholars, and legal practitioners directly involved in tenant organizing to contextualize and catalogue the traction and tensions of the movement across seventeen cities in five countries. Contributors connect housing justice to struggles against criminalization, surveillance, and policing, and to debates about social reproduction, precarity, organized labour, abolitionist praxis, and political strategy. These dispatches are as much a chronicle of organizing in a moment of crisis as an invitation to build solidarities across movements to ensure enduring justice for all.
With contributions from Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Winnipeg, Detroit, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Newark, Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, Lexington, Belgrade, Melbourne, and Khori Gaon.
Rae Baker is a critical geographer, policy practitioner, and researcher focused on community-led inquiry and action. Their research and activism address housing inequality, land rights, and racial injustice and surveillance technology. They are an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati in the Research for Social Change and Education and Community Action Research graduate programs. They contribute community-drive research to Urban Praxis Workshop.
Alexander Ferrer is a PhD student and movement-based researcher in Los Angeles. He works with Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, the Debt Collective, and the UCLA Institute on Inequality and Democracy.
Samuel Stein is a geographer, urban planner, and housing policy analyst living and working in New York City. His writing on planning politics has been published by Jacobin, the Journal of Urban Affairs, the Guardian, and many other magazines, newspapers, and journals.
Introduction: Dispatches from the Threshold: Rae Baker
1. Tenant-Centred Public Health in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside : Aaron Bailey, Dani Aiello, Bryan Jacobs, and The Right to Remain research collective
2. The People’s Housing: The Stella Wright Rent Strike and Community Control of Public Housing: Ari McCaskill and Peter Blackmer
3. Rehabilitative Capitalism in Winnipeg’s Rental Market: Stefan Hodges
4. Squatters Unite! Leveraging Land and Housing Occupations in Philadelphia: Amanda Ricketts and Claire Herbert
5. No Place Like Home: A Reassessment of Housing and Home as Key Sites of Struggle: Nina Medvedeva
6. How Hotlines and Digital Information Networks Support the Movement for Tenant Power: Natalie McLaughlin, Dani Aiello and Karimah Dillard-Mickey, Housing Justice League
7. Contradictions in Infra-Commoning Networks in Serbia: Ana Vilenica, Vladimir Mentus
8. Detroit Renter City: Rae Baker
9. Against Landlord Technology in San Francisco : Erin McElroy, Matthew Martignoni, and Jeantelle Laberinto
10. Eviction Court Watch: Monitoring the Evictors: Colleen Carroll, Graphics by Saiyare Refaei
11. Considering the Lawyer’s Role in the Housing Justice Movement : Greg Bonett, Faizah Malik, Katie McKeon, and Doug Smith
12. Confrontations in Kentucky: Housing Justice in the Bluegrass State: Lukas Bullock
13. Envisioning Collective Bargaining Rights for Renters: Pierce Nettling, Rebecca Kantwerg, Anna Gabriela Doebeli, Ben Ger, Ryan Hong, Alex J. Kiczales, and Alex McLean
14. Organized Precarity: The Emergence of a Political Renter Class in So-Called Australia: David Kelly, Prashanti Mayfield, Eirene Tsolidis Noyce, Traça DeBarra, Zachary Doney, and Jordan Adams
15. Banished: Mapping Conviction-Based Housing Restrictions in Chicago: Celia Magnone
16. Organizing During Forced Eviction in Khori Gaon: Ishita Chatterjee
17. Improvising Spatial Solidarities: The Public Park as a Commons: Anna Kramer and Jesse Upton Crowe
18. Bulldozers and Barricades: Encampment Evictions in Washington DC : Aaron Howe and Shannon Clark, Remora House
19. Nothing About Us Without Us: Unhoused Tenants and the Struggle for Housing Liberation: Annie Powers and Ashley Bennett
20. Housing Should Not Be a Luxury: Marena Skinner
Afterword: Alexander Ferrer
Introduction: Dispatches from the Threshold: Rae Baker
1. Tenant-Centred Public Health in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside : Aaron Bailey, Dani Aiello, Bryan Jacobs, and The Right to Remain research collective
2. The People’s Housing: The Stella Wright Rent Strike and Community Control of Public Housing: Ari McCaskill and Peter Blackmer
3. Rehabilitative Capitalism in Winnipeg’s Rental Market: Stefan Hodges
4. Squatters Unite! Leveraging Land and Housing Occupations in Philadelphia: Amanda Ricketts and Claire Herbert
5. No Place Like Home: A Reassessment of Housing and Home as Key Sites of Struggle: Nina Medvedeva
6. How Hotlines and Digital Information Networks Support the Movement for Tenant Power: Natalie McLaughlin, Dani Aiello and Karimah Dillard-Mickey, Housing Justice League
7. Contradictions in Infra-Commoning Networks in Serbia: Ana Vilenica, Vladimir Mentus
8. Detroit Renter City: Rae Baker
9. Against Landlord Technology in San Francisco : Erin McElroy, Matthew Martignoni, and Jeantelle Laberinto
10. Eviction Court Watch: Monitoring the Evictors: Colleen Carroll, Graphics by Saiyare Refaei
11. Considering the Lawyer’s Role in the Housing Justice Movement : Greg Bonett, Faizah Malik, Katie McKeon, and Doug Smith
12. Confrontations in Kentucky: Housing Justice in the Bluegrass State: Lukas Bullock
13. Envisioning Collective Bargaining Rights for Renters: Pierce Nettling, Rebecca Kantwerg, Anna Gabriela Doebeli, Ben Ger, Ryan Hong, Alex J. Kiczales, and Alex McLean
14. Organized Precarity: The Emergence of a Political Renter Class in So-Called Australia: David Kelly, Prashanti Mayfield, Eirene Tsolidis Noyce, Traça DeBarra, Zachary Doney, and Jordan Adams
15. Banished: Mapping Conviction-Based Housing Restrictions in Chicago: Celia Magnone
16. Organizing During Forced Eviction in Khori Gaon: Ishita Chatterjee
17. Improvising Spatial Solidarities: The Public Park as a Commons: Anna Kramer and Jesse Upton Crowe
18. Bulldozers and Barricades: Encampment Evictions in Washington DC : Aaron Howe and Shannon Clark, Remora House
19. Nothing About Us Without Us: Unhoused Tenants and the Struggle for Housing Liberation: Annie Powers and Ashley Bennett
20. Housing Should Not Be a Luxury: Marena Skinner
Afterword: Alexander Ferrer
Introduction: Dispatches from the Threshold: Rae Baker
1. Tenant-Centred Public Health in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside : Aaron Bailey, Dani Aiello, Bryan Jacobs, and The Right to Remain research collective
2. The People’s Housing: The Stella Wright Rent Strike and Community Control of Public Housing: Ari McCaskill and Peter Blackmer
3. Rehabilitative Capitalism in Winnipeg’s Rental Market: Stefan Hodges
4. Squatters Unite! Leveraging Land and Housing Occupations in Philadelphia: Amanda Ricketts and Claire Herbert
5. No Place Like Home: A Reassessment of Housing and Home as Key Sites of Struggle: Nina Medvedeva
6. How Hotlines and Digital Information Networks Support the Movement for Tenant Power: Natalie McLaughlin, Dani Aiello and Karimah Dillard-Mickey, Housing Justice League
7. Contradictions in Infra-Commoning Networks in Serbia: Ana Vilenica, Vladimir Mentus
8. Detroit Renter City: Rae Baker
9. Against Landlord Technology in San Francisco : Erin McElroy, Matthew Martignoni, and Jeantelle Laberinto
10. Eviction Court Watch: Monitoring the Evictors: Colleen Carroll, Graphics by Saiyare Refaei
11. Considering the Lawyer’s Role in the Housing Justice Movement : Greg Bonett, Faizah Malik, Katie McKeon, and Doug Smith
12. Confrontations in Kentucky: Housing Justice in the Bluegrass State: Lukas Bullock
13. Envisioning Collective Bargaining Rights for Renters: Pierce Nettling, Rebecca Kantwerg, Anna Gabriela Doebeli, Ben Ger, Ryan Hong, Alex J. Kiczales, and Alex McLean
14. Organized Precarity: The Emergence of a Political Renter Class in So-Called Australia: David Kelly, Prashanti Mayfield, Eirene Tsolidis Noyce, Traça DeBarra, Zachary Doney, and Jordan Adams
15. Banished: Mapping Conviction-Based Housing Restrictions in Chicago: Celia Magnone
16. Organizing During Forced Eviction in Khori Gaon: Ishita Chatterjee
17. Improvising Spatial Solidarities: The Public Park as a Commons: Anna Kramer and Jesse Upton Crowe
18. Bulldozers and Barricades: Encampment Evictions in Washington DC : Aaron Howe and Shannon Clark, Remora House
19. Nothing About Us Without Us: Unhoused Tenants and the Struggle for Housing Liberation: Annie Powers and Ashley Bennett
20. Housing Should Not Be a Luxury: Marena Skinner
Afterword: Alexander Ferrer
Introduction: Dispatches from the Threshold: Rae Baker
1. Tenant-Centred Public Health in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside : Aaron Bailey, Dani Aiello, Bryan Jacobs, and The Right to Remain research collective
2. The People’s Housing: The Stella Wright Rent Strike and Community Control of Public Housing: Ari McCaskill and Peter Blackmer
3. Rehabilitative Capitalism in Winnipeg’s Rental Market: Stefan Hodges
4. Squatters Unite! Leveraging Land and Housing Occupations in Philadelphia: Amanda Ricketts and Claire Herbert
5. No Place Like Home: A Reassessment of Housing and Home as Key Sites of Struggle: Nina Medvedeva
6. How Hotlines and Digital Information Networks Support the Movement for Tenant Power: Natalie McLaughlin, Dani Aiello and Karimah Dillard-Mickey, Housing Justice League
7. Contradictions in Infra-Commoning Networks in Serbia: Ana Vilenica, Vladimir Mentus
8. Detroit Renter City: Rae Baker
9. Against Landlord Technology in San Francisco : Erin McElroy, Matthew Martignoni, and Jeantelle Laberinto
10. Eviction Court Watch: Monitoring the Evictors: Colleen Carroll, Graphics by Saiyare Refaei
11. Considering the Lawyer’s Role in the Housing Justice Movement : Greg Bonett, Faizah Malik, Katie McKeon, and Doug Smith
12. Confrontations in Kentucky: Housing Justice in the Bluegrass State: Lukas Bullock
13. Envisioning Collective Bargaining Rights for Renters: Pierce Nettling, Rebecca Kantwerg, Anna Gabriela Doebeli, Ben Ger, Ryan Hong, Alex J. Kiczales, and Alex McLean
14. Organized Precarity: The Emergence of a Political Renter Class in So-Called Australia: David Kelly, Prashanti Mayfield, Eirene Tsolidis Noyce, Traça DeBarra, Zachary Doney, and Jordan Adams
15. Banished: Mapping Conviction-Based Housing Restrictions in Chicago: Celia Magnone
16. Organizing During Forced Eviction in Khori Gaon: Ishita Chatterjee
17. Improvising Spatial Solidarities: The Public Park as a Commons: Anna Kramer and Jesse Upton Crowe
18. Bulldozers and Barricades: Encampment Evictions in Washington DC : Aaron Howe and Shannon Clark, Remora House
19. Nothing About Us Without Us: Unhoused Tenants and the Struggle for Housing Liberation: Annie Powers and Ashley Bennett
20. Housing Should Not Be a Luxury: Marena Skinner
Afterword: Alexander Ferrer
Introduction: Dispatches from the Threshold: Rae Baker
1. Tenant-Centred Public Health in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside : Aaron Bailey, Dani Aiello, Bryan Jacobs, and The Right to Remain research collective
2. The People’s Housing: The Stella Wright Rent Strike and Community Control of Public Housing: Ari McCaskill and Peter Blackmer
3. Rehabilitative Capitalism in Winnipeg’s Rental Market: Stefan Hodges
4. Squatters Unite! Leveraging Land and Housing Occupations in Philadelphia: Amanda Ricketts and Claire Herbert
5. No Place Like Home: A Reassessment of Housing and Home as Key Sites of Struggle: Nina Medvedeva
6. How Hotlines and Digital Information Networks Support the Movement for Tenant Power: Natalie McLaughlin, Dani Aiello and Karimah Dillard-Mickey, Housing Justice League
7. Contradictions in Infra-Commoning Networks in Serbia: Ana Vilenica, Vladimir Mentus
8. Detroit Renter City: Rae Baker
9. Against Landlord Technology in San Francisco : Erin McElroy, Matthew Martignoni, and Jeantelle Laberinto
10. Eviction Court Watch: Monitoring the Evictors: Colleen Carroll, Graphics by Saiyare Refaei
11. Considering the Lawyer’s Role in the Housing Justice Movement : Greg Bonett, Faizah Malik, Katie McKeon, and Doug Smith
12. Confrontations in Kentucky: Housing Justice in the Bluegrass State: Lukas Bullock
13. Envisioning Collective Bargaining Rights for Renters: Pierce Nettling, Rebecca Kantwerg, Anna Gabriela Doebeli, Ben Ger, Ryan Hong, Alex J. Kiczales, and Alex McLean
14. Organized Precarity: The Emergence of a Political Renter Class in So-Called Australia: David Kelly, Prashanti Mayfield, Eirene Tsolidis Noyce, Traça DeBarra, Zachary Doney, and Jordan Adams
15. Banished: Mapping Conviction-Based Housing Restrictions in Chicago: Celia Magnone
16. Organizing During Forced Eviction in Khori Gaon: Ishita Chatterjee
17. Improvising Spatial Solidarities: The Public Park as a Commons: Anna Kramer and Jesse Upton Crowe
18. Bulldozers and Barricades: Encampment Evictions in Washington DC : Aaron Howe and Shannon Clark, Remora House
19. Nothing About Us Without Us: Unhoused Tenants and the Struggle for Housing Liberation: Annie Powers and Ashley Bennett
20. Housing Should Not Be a Luxury: Marena Skinner
Afterword: Alexander Ferrer
Introduction: Dispatches from the Threshold: Rae Baker
1. Tenant-Centred Public Health in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside : Aaron Bailey, Dani Aiello, Bryan Jacobs, and The Right to Remain research collective
2. The People’s Housing: The Stella Wright Rent Strike and Community Control of Public Housing: Ari McCaskill and Peter Blackmer
3. Rehabilitative Capitalism in Winnipeg’s Rental Market: Stefan Hodges
4. Squatters Unite! Leveraging Land and Housing Occupations in Philadelphia: Amanda Ricketts and Claire Herbert
5. No Place Like Home: A Reassessment of Housing and Home as Key Sites of Struggle: Nina Medvedeva
6. How Hotlines and Digital Information Networks Support the Movement for Tenant Power: Natalie McLaughlin, Dani Aiello and Karimah Dillard-Mickey, Housing Justice League
7. Contradictions in Infra-Commoning Networks in Serbia: Ana Vilenica, Vladimir Mentus
8. Detroit Renter City: Rae Baker
9. Against Landlord Technology in San Francisco : Erin McElroy, Matthew Martignoni, and Jeantelle Laberinto
10. Eviction Court Watch: Monitoring the Evictors: Colleen Carroll, Graphics by Saiyare Refaei
11. Considering the Lawyer’s Role in the Housing Justice Movement : Greg Bonett, Faizah Malik, Katie McKeon, and Doug Smith
12. Confrontations in Kentucky: Housing Justice in the Bluegrass State: Lukas Bullock
13. Envisioning Collective Bargaining Rights for Renters: Pierce Nettling, Rebecca Kantwerg, Anna Gabriela Doebeli, Ben Ger, Ryan Hong, Alex J. Kiczales, and Alex McLean
14. Organized Precarity: The Emergence of a Political Renter Class in So-Called Australia: David Kelly, Prashanti Mayfield, Eirene Tsolidis Noyce, Traça DeBarra, Zachary Doney, and Jordan Adams
15. Banished: Mapping Conviction-Based Housing Restrictions in Chicago: Celia Magnone
16. Organizing During Forced Eviction in Khori Gaon: Ishita Chatterjee
17. Improvising Spatial Solidarities: The Public Park as a Commons: Anna Kramer and Jesse Upton Crowe
18. Bulldozers and Barricades: Encampment Evictions in Washington DC : Aaron Howe and Shannon Clark, Remora House
19. Nothing About Us Without Us: Unhoused Tenants and the Struggle for Housing Liberation: Annie Powers and Ashley Bennett
20. Housing Should Not Be a Luxury: Marena Skinner
Afterword: Alexander Ferrer
Introduction: Dispatches from the Threshold: Rae Baker
1. Tenant-Centred Public Health in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside : Aaron Bailey, Dani Aiello, Bryan Jacobs, and The Right to Remain research collective
2. The People’s Housing: The Stella Wright Rent Strike and Community Control of Public Housing: Ari McCaskill and Peter Blackmer
3. Rehabilitative Capitalism in Winnipeg’s Rental Market: Stefan Hodges
4. Squatters Unite! Leveraging Land and Housing Occupations in Philadelphia: Amanda Ricketts and Claire Herbert
5. No Place Like Home: A Reassessment of Housing and Home as Key Sites of Struggle: Nina Medvedeva
6. How Hotlines and Digital Information Networks Support the Movement for Tenant Power: Natalie McLaughlin, Dani Aiello and Karimah Dillard-Mickey, Housing Justice League
7. Contradictions in Infra-Commoning Networks in Serbia: Ana Vilenica, Vladimir Mentus
8. Detroit Renter City: Rae Baker
9. Against Landlord Technology in San Francisco : Erin McElroy, Matthew Martignoni, and Jeantelle Laberinto
10. Eviction Court Watch: Monitoring the Evictors: Colleen Carroll, Graphics by Saiyare Refaei
11. Considering the Lawyer’s Role in the Housing Justice Movement : Greg Bonett, Faizah Malik, Katie McKeon, and Doug Smith
12. Confrontations in Kentucky: Housing Justice in the Bluegrass State: Lukas Bullock
13. Envisioning Collective Bargaining Rights for Renters: Pierce Nettling, Rebecca Kantwerg, Anna Gabriela Doebeli, Ben Ger, Ryan Hong, Alex J. Kiczales, and Alex McLean
14. Organized Precarity: The Emergence of a Political Renter Class in So-Called Australia: David Kelly, Prashanti Mayfield, Eirene Tsolidis Noyce, Traça DeBarra, Zachary Doney, and Jordan Adams
15. Banished: Mapping Conviction-Based Housing Restrictions in Chicago: Celia Magnone
16. Organizing During Forced Eviction in Khori Gaon: Ishita Chatterjee
17. Improvising Spatial Solidarities: The Public Park as a Commons: Anna Kramer and Jesse Upton Crowe
18. Bulldozers and Barricades: Encampment Evictions in Washington DC : Aaron Howe and Shannon Clark, Remora House
19. Nothing About Us Without Us: Unhoused Tenants and the Struggle for Housing Liberation: Annie Powers and Ashley Bennett
20. Housing Should Not Be a Luxury: Marena Skinner
Afterword: Alexander Ferrer