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Civic win · Housing as a human rightKansas City · 2025

"247 Days on Strike — and They Won" Independence Towers, Kansas City, Missouri | 2025

What happened: Tenants at Independence Towers, an 11-story building with a troubled history, launched what would become the longest rent strike in Kansas City history — 247 days. At the end of it, residents won a contract with their landlord that stabilizes rents and imposes binding deadlines to complete plumbing and major repairs. Shelterforce The new one-year agreement holds rents steady and offers lease renewals that keep future increases under 5 percent. They did it without a single law requiring the landlord to negotiate — purely through organized people power. Shelterforce

The playbook
  1. Build the union before the fight. A team of "floor captains" knocked doors near-daily, asking neighbors to sign cards committing to withhold rent and bargain collectively. Some res
  2. Get to a majority before you move. On October 1, with a majority of residents on board and pledges of support from elected officials, the union launched the strike — ensuring no on
  3. Elect your own bargaining committee. To reach the deal, tenants ultimately negotiated through an elected bargaining committee, giving the process democratic legitimacy and making t
  4. Connect to a national network. Kansas City Tenants, the citywide group that backed the campaign, is a founding member of the Tenant Union Federation — a national organization that
  5. The win is also the next threat. "Now that we've built a strike-ready union," said federation director Tara Raghuveer, "we have a credible threat of strike at any point." The agree
SourceShelterforce.org
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