In early 2022, MRNJ launched a Housing Justice campaign after members identified the issue as the priority in our membership assembly. Since then, MRNJ has launched multiple tenant unions and won municipal level laws to protect tenants’ rights. We are also working to build and retrofit housing to be healthy and environmentally sustainable.
Our work has focused initially on the three cities where we have built a strong base Elizabeth, Passaic and Perth Amboy. MRNJ has taken a multi-pronged approach to address the housing crisis: building tenant power through community organizing and leadership development, the provision of legal and support services to aid tenants to stay in their homes, and campaigns to strengthen local rent control laws in our municipalities and to address a growing crisis of habitability.
In 2022-2023, MRNJ successfully strengthened Perth Amboy’s rent control law, reducing the amount that landlords are able to increase the rent, and defended Elizabeth, NJ’s rent control ordinance.
We are taking on the largest, worst corporate landlords in each of our cities to build tenant power by organizing tenant unions that can create demands and build pressure to ensure landlords make repairs, do not increase the rent and respond to tenant needs. We organize tenants to directly negotiate with their landlords to shift the balance of power between the real estate industry and tenants.
