The problem with our housing system isn't only that the rent is too damn high. It's also the power imbalance between the corporate class and the tenant class. The rich own real estate and build wealth from rent, while tenants bleed money every month just to stay housed. We need to stabilize and lower rents, but we also need to address the class power at the heart of the housing system. That's why we're fighting to build social housing in Rhode Island.

Social housing means publicly or collectively owned housing, like tenant-owned cooperatives, public housing, and community land trusts. The bottom line is that social housing is for people, not for profit. It is collectively controlled by the people who live in it, not by a landlord or corporation who just cares about their profits. 

We're accustomed to thinking about wealth in terms of private assets, but social housing asks us to think about wealth as a collective asset. What if tenants launch cooperatives to co-own their buildings, instead of paying rent to a landlord? What if we cooperatively build wealth by investing in collectively owned homes, instead of competing on the private market?

Join us to help develop a policy agenda to make social housing part of RI's future!