Renting in Richmond Sucks!
“The property management company continually put off fixing building wide issues. Once the whole building lost hot water for 3 weeks. So I had to shower quickly in the cold or drive to a friend’s apartment.”
“Our house had almost no insulation so in the winter you could see your breath. Our utilities bill was consistently over $200-$400 due to disrepair. There was a huge hold in the house behind this door where animals would go in and out. Our landlord turned his phone off a couple weeks into our lease. We had no other contact information for him. The only time he came to our house was when we contacted him through another landlord he was associated with after our home had been broken into using debris he left in the yard.”
Why do we need a tenants union in Richmond?
There is a housing crisis in our city. At 11%, Richmond has one of the highest eviction rates in the nation, and in certain neighborhoods it is well above 50%. On average, 17 Richmonders are evicted by police every day, primarily in communities of color. Slumlords use eviction filings as a tool to both extract fees from tenants and to threaten tenants when they demand repairs. Developers use evictions to clear out whole buildings to make way for gentrifying condominiums aimed at a wealthy imported clientele. Public housing in Richmond faces a more existential threat as a coalition of property developers and city government seek to privatize all public housing projects. It is imperative that we as tenants organize against the devastating changes that billion dollar “redevelopment” will bring to our neighborhoods.