Tenants across five states are attempting to break new ground in the U.S. rental market with a coordinated unionization campaign aimed at Capital Realty Group, one of the country’s largest owners of affordable housing. The effort, first reported by Bloomberg, represents the first attempt to unite renters across multiple states under a single organizing drive.
Traditionally, tenant unions have formed within individual buildings, often as a way for neighbors to collectively pressure landlords over repairs, rent increases or living conditions, according to the Tenant Union Federation. More recently, unions have grown larger, expanding across neighborhoods or even cities. The Capital Realty effort, however, marks the first attempt to move across state lines, presenting a broader challenge for landlords with national holdings.
Capital Realty Group owns 172 multifamily projects totaling nearly 22,000 units. More than 1,000 tenants from its buildings in several states have already joined the campaign, which organizers say allows renters to apply pressure at multiple properties simultaneously. Their demands include improvements to maintenance, repairs and conditions related to mold and pests.
“We’re charting new ground,” Tara Raghuveer, director of the Tenant Union Federation and founder of KC Tenants, told Bloomberg. “This type of bargaining across state lines with a shared landlord is not something we’ve seen before.”
Advocates note that the campaign offers both potential strengths and limitations. A union spanning several states forces a landlord to contend with coordinated demands across a wide footprint, heightening the complexities of managing disputes. At the same time, such efforts may only be viable when tenants are facing landlords with similarly broad national portfolios, limiting the model’s application.
Earlier this month, residents in three Capital Realty properties in Kansas City, Missouri, announced majority unions representing hundreds of renters. Their grievances included broken appliances, zip-tied fire extinguishers and structural problems such as cracks and ceiling leaks. Bloomberg also reported that properties in New Haven, Detroit and Louisville formed unions earlier this year but encountered stalled negotiations after initial talks with the company.
Organizers say their goal remains to secure collective bargaining agreements across multiple properties—pacts that could provide stronger tenant protections in jurisdictions where state-level laws are weak.
“We did take their offer to meet with regional asset managers,” Raghuveer said. “But we’re not taking our eyes off the prize. Ultimately, what we want is a signed collective bargaining agreement.”
A successful campaign could lay the groundwork for tenants of other large multifamily landlords to follow suit, expanding unions into the realm of interstate bargaining in the U.S. rental market.
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