In some ways, our experiences have been worlds apart. While Ubah grew up in the midst of a civil war in Somalia, Katherine was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But when we met in 2022, we saw immediately how our lives intersect. Now, as both friends and colleagues, we organize renters across race and ethnicity, language and income, bridging multicultural relationships that make our communities stronger.
But that strength and solidarity is threatened by outdated state laws that allow landlords and developers to undermine organizing efforts, unjustly evict tenants and discriminate against Minnesotans because of where they come from or how they pay their rent.
Thanks to tenants raising our voices, housing is a top priority at the state Legislature again this year. But while there’s broad consensus around more housing production, we can’t solve the ongoing crisis without more rights for renters. We can’t let supply overshadow the urgent need to balance the scales between landlords and renters so we have the fundamental right to choose where we live, stay where we are and come together as neighbors to make sure our housing is safe, dignified and reliable.
In recent years, residential leases have become longer and more complex, shifting more and more rights and protections to the landlords who profit rather than the tenants who pay. In fact, analysis by HOME Line of a standard 52-page lease found that fully 52% of the clauses are in the interests of landlords while only 6% are in the interests of tenants.
It’s time to rebalance the scales and bring Minnesota in line with the rest of the nation by ensuring that key measures like right to organize, just cause eviction protections and reforms to tenant-landlord law get passed this session.
We both know what it’s like to be renters in a market where landlords and developers — even those with government subsidies — continue to push rents far beyond what our families can afford. We know what it’s like to have a Section 8 voucher that, in theory, provides much-needed rental assistance but, in practice, is nearly useless because no landlords will accept it. And we know what it’s like to worry we will be unjustly penalized or even evicted from our homes because we want to make our living spaces better for all our neighbors.
Over the past two years, we’ve worked together organizing with tenants across the metro, particularly in properties owned by developers who benefit from tax credits intended to keep rents affordable. While their leases have ballooned to more than 70 pages, the tenants we work with are being squeezed by rent increases, endangered by lack of timely maintenance repairs and exploited by massive overcharges on utility bill collections.
Too often, when renters raise issues individually they are rebuffed — or worse — by property managers and, understandably, feel isolated and demoralized. By connecting across language and culture, we’ve cultivated a sense of hope and community among English and Somali speakers, forming the Minnesota Tenants’ Coalition, which includes residents from 17 different buildings across the state. But the corporation that owns these properties has responded with increased restrictions on our freedoms.
In multiple buildings, where we and fellow tenants posted flyers and knocked on the doors of our neighbors to let them know about meetings, our tenant associations flourished, with as many as 70 people attending monthly meetings. Together, we identified shared concerns and approached management with a sense of collective power. But the management immediately cracked down, restricting promotion of the meetings to a single flyer in the corner of the mail room — and penalizing tenant leaders with “strikes” on their record that could lead to eviction with a single additional act of unsanctioned outreach.
That type of intimidation is why we need a statewide right to organize policy that would ensure renters don’t have to fear retaliation from their landlords for connecting with their neighbors and elevating common concerns.
Minnesota lawmakers should be proud of the progress they made last year, making sweeping changes to tenant-landlord law. But it isn’t enough. Now is the time to pass policies that rebalance the scales of power for renters like us — and the tenants we organize with every day.
Katherine Banbury and Ubah Shire are renters in the Twin Cities and organizers with HOME Line, which is a member of the Equity in Place coalition.
