Immersed Zine

Housing Union Creates a Space for Renters to Lean on One Another in the Worst Housing Crisis America Has Faced

By C. era & LC

Thomas Temoney was 78 when he and his partner, Carinorlenda, were evicted from their home in the Northside of Wilmington. Temoney grew up in the Northside. He and Carinorlenda lived on a rental property for five years in a house with a broken backdoor, installed backwards. 

Despite multiple calls over those five years, the landlord, Kisha Jordan, had “no interest in replacing it,” according to Thomas. When he decided to call code enforcement who deemed the property unsafe, he was met with a 60-day notice to vacate the property.  

The New Hanover County Tenants’ Union shared Thomas’s story on Instagram, urging their followers to call and sign a petition demanding the landlord to stop the retaliatory eviction. Even with 130 signatures and many phone calls, NC laws favored the landlord. 

“The system is just not set up for the poor renters that are trying to survive and live the best they can,” Thomas expressed. “It seems there is no justice out there.” 

“All of this is legal,” said the union. “But none of it is just. The system is set up for landlords to win and for tenants to fail. The laws are written against us. The politicians are against us. The landlords are against us. The people only have themselves. Only together will we make a change.” 

After these final efforts, the union worked together to help Thomas move his belongings into a storage unit and find a new place to rent. 

Thomas’s story is a glimpse of the injustices renters feel across the city, trying to exist in a system that continually punishes them.

For anyone who isn’t a landlord in Wilmington, North Carolina, the housing crisis* is indeed, a period of intense difficulty, insecurity, and danger. The realities of historically high rent, dismal living conditions, and the most landlord-centered legislation of any modern American state, have left many in our community without hope.

Wilmington is home to generations of stolen wealth and historical injustice, yet to be repaired.  The ongoing gentrification of Wilmington’s historically Black neighborhoods—now branded as “arts district(s)”—the unwarranted colonization of Gullah Geeche land, and the 1898 massacre are the historical basis of the city’s housing crisis. Today, $2,000 luxury apartments, ballooning interest rates, and predatory real estate practices displace families living in the city for decades. 

Even with a 14% vacancy rate in housing units, the majority of which are market-rate, Wilmington’s unhoused population has increased from 347 to 558 in the past year—failing to account for the residents who may not be captured in this data. Median collected rent has increased 53% in the past two years, while the average hourly rate for the working class ($10-$11/hour) remains well below the “livable” wage ($16-$17/hour).

Public official campaigns of Wilmington are often funded by subsidiaries of BlackRock, the largest investment company in the world, and council members and county commissioners are often real estate agents and developers, a not-so-hidden conspiracy. 

Reinforced by our national infrastructure, federal law states that we cannot have more public or government-subsidized housing than we already do. The Faircloth Amendment of 1998, named after a former North Carolina senator, states that the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) “cannot fund the construction or operation of new public housing units with capital or operating funds” if it results in a net increase of units owned by public housing authorities. Public housing units that have been demolished are not replaced with new public housing, but for-profit developments. 

Per the Faircloth Amendment, the construction of the luxury South Front Apartments, described as a “vibrant and edgy neighborhood… [with a] deep-rooted appreciation for city history” effectively displaced previous affordable housing. According to the South Front website, the “timeworn” public housing block underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation. Owned by Tribute Companies, these apartments start at $1,396/month for a one-bed, one-bath, and up to $3,284/month for a two-bed, two-bath. Residents would need to earn nearly $30/hour to afford an apartment in “one of the best apartments in Wilmington N.C.” 

Our community is inevitability left with an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.

But we have more power against these systems of power than we think we do. 

An alternative definition of crisis: “a state of affairs in which a decisive change for better or worse is imminent; a turning point.”

In 2021, Wilmington residents drawn together by housing displacement decided to make a decisive change for the better in the face of the housing crisis: they decided to create a tenant union. 

If renters have any rights, according to Strike, a member of the New Hanover County Tenants’ Union, “it’s the right to organize.” Even though North Carolina is one of the most landlord-friendly states, locally reinforced by the blurs between our political leaders and for-profit housing developers, renters still have rights. 

According to NC General Statues, landlords cannot evict renters for organizing, joining, or becoming “otherwise involved with, any organization promoting or enforcing tenants’ rights” and “It is the public policy of the State of North Carolina to protect tenants and other persons…who seek to exercise their rights to decent, safe, and sanitary housing.”

Leveraging these federal protections, the New Hanover County Tenants’ Union formed upon the core principle that there is power in tenants. Still in its early stages, the union is composed of 15-20 people and follows strict democratic principles: each member shares the essential duties of the union. Cooper, a founding union member, says that the union is guided by the belief that “housing is a human right… we don’t think anyone should be unhoused.” 

While the union hosts regular, in-person meetings, they are locally recognized for their coded memes and online engagement on their Instagram account, @nhc_tenant.union. With a following of 575, the account allows organizers and tenants to “speak for themselves,” amplifying the urgency of the housing crisis and the injustice renters face. 

The organizers draw inspiration from unions across the nation, including the Kansas City Tenants’ Union, consisting of more than 10,000 renters and  “led by a multigenerational, multiracial, anti-racist base of poor and working-class tenants.” The Kansas City Tenants’ Union has proven how powerful organizing can be: they have won a Tenants Bill of Rights and Tenants’ Right to Counsel. Union members run for office and who the KC Union endorses often makes or breaks an election. 

The New Hanover County Tenants’ Union has also received considerable mentorship on a state level from Housing Justice Now in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, an organization fighting against “evictions, slumlords, and gentrification.”

While the union has proven models to follow, its work plan throughout the past year has been, simply, to exist. Like the average renter in Wilmington, most union members are working-class residents maintaining full-time jobs to pay the rent. And organizing a tenant union in Wilmington can be dangerous. Yet, their small but mighty team continues gaining traction online and in the community. Until they build their capacity, their strategy centers on education, fighting with renters and providing as much support as possible. 

The New Hanover County Tenants’ Union fully recognizes the risk of a tenant going against a landlord, but if someone decides to fight, the union will fight with them. “Don’t give landlords power that they don’t have,” countered Strike. “A lot of their positions are weaker than they think… There is protection around retaliation.” 

So, what can you do if you’re a renter?

Union members encourage renters, especially those in large developments, to meet their neighbors and initiate pressure campaigns if repairs are not being made or if they believe their landlords infringe upon their rights. “A good faith complaint or request for repairs to the landlord” is protected under state law. 

The union also tells renters to come to them first before sending a threatening email to their landlord. Although limited in capacity in its beginning stages, the union can still provide support and do the research necessary to fight with you. 

As Gloria Anzaldúa writes of creating a new reality amidst oppression in This Bridge Called My Back, “The firing has bequeathed us el conocimiento (insight) that human and the universe are in a symbiotic relationship, that we live in a state of deep interconnectedness en un mundo zurdo (a left-handed world). We are not alone in our struggles and never have been. Somos almas afines and this interconnectedness is an unvoiced category of identity.”

No fight against an entangled system of power is won alone. To create a future that sees the basic human right of equitable housing met without discrimination, we must fight, unified, to create a reality that furnishes every person with the unalienable, tenable right of affordable, safe, and sanitary housing. 

Understanding the lived experiences of this community, the stories that bind us together, and the hope that drives us forward is integral to a mission of fighting injustice. We are el mundo zurdo, a left-handed world bridged together, towards freedom. 

You can follow the NHC tenant union on Instagram at @nhc_tenant.union 

“When power is unequal, relationships are conflicted–it’s difficult for dialogue to occur among individuals of unequal power….For the past twenty years, identity politics have been extremely useful, but they too are constraining. We need new strategies, new conceptions of community.”