How About a Rent Strike in Reno in 2026?
We’ve gotten repeated messages in recent months about terrible conditions in local apartments, abysmal customer service from property management companies and sudden unmanageable rent hikes.
What about the possibility of a rent strike in Reno in 2026?
Kansas City and Independence, Missouri, set the tone from October 2024 to June this year with the Kansas City Tenants Union organizing a rent strike in both those cities after failed negotiations with landlords.
Tenants of two apartment complexes, one owned by Sentinel Real Estate and another by TriGild, had previously complained about poor living conditions, before deciding to stop paying their rent.
The strike ended with nearly $300,000 in withheld rent written off as part of negotiated concessions, which also included a commitment to repair HVAC units, a reduction in rent until these were fixed, and a three-week grace period for future evictions.
KC Tenants now has a zine which has a toolkit on different organizational tactics including rent strikes. “Rent strikes are highly organized escalation tactics, involving mass withholding of rent, that you take with your neighbors and roommates when a landlord doesn’t meet your demands. A strike means collectively withholding rent even when people have the means in order to meet a demand. Rent strikes are serious and need to be executed strategically to be effective. The most successful rent strikes are part of a broader strategic campaign that includes rallies, pickets, media, petitions, rent reductions, and other tactics to win your goals from a specific target,” it indicates.
Similar tenant unions have started in Bozeman, Louisville and Connecticut. Short of strikes, policy changes are being sought through these types of organizations or at least intense pre-strike pressure.
“Our community is in a housing crisis, the rent is too damn high, and most poor and working-class Bozemanites are one financial emergency away from eviction. Eviction is the leading cause of homelessness, and threat of eviction traps tenants in unsafe living situations, unfair leases, and higher and higher rents. Landlords and Property Management companies know that in Bozeman eviction court, renters have access to lawyers just 7% of the time, while landlords have lawyers 79% of the time. That’s not a fair trial. That ain’t right,” the Bozeman Tenants United group writes.
The website makes a plea for rent control in Montana and a so-called “federal homes guarantee.” “Our campaign is targeting the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) which oversees buildings receiving federal loans to enforce 1) rent control, 2) good cause eviction, 3) fair leases, 4) enforcement of discrimination laws, 5) safe, quality housing standards, and more!” it writes.
In New Haven, the Connecticut Tenants Union collected signatures from more than 160 residents facing persistent mold at the Sunset Ridge apartments there. “We demand safe and stable housing for all,” it writes on its website. “Whether we’re at the legislature or in the streets, we’re here to fight for the just and sustainable future that we deserve. We all need a place to call home, a place where we can flourish and build community. And that’s exactly what we’re building.”
“Despite our differences, we share a common self-interest: the guarantee of safe, secure, healthy, and permanently-affordable housing for all,” the Louisville Tenants Union established in 2022 writes. “The only way we will achieve this is by organizing across the lines that are used to divide us.”
That group has been helping residents of the American Village owned by Capital Realty, which also owns the Sunset Ridge Apartments, deal with broken AC units, collapsing ceilings, broken elevators, mold, pests and more.
Reno has a group called Reno Sparks Tenants Union which has regular meetings but we haven’t seen them break through the local news cycle or get that much attention yet.
Could it change in 2026? Could one local apartment complex organize its own successful rent strike?
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