Housing Rights Initiative: making homes affordable for New Yorkers 

David Chen shares a one-bedroom apartment with his wife and children in the Bronx, New York City. They have been living in the apartment for more than a decade, and, at one point, David was paying nearly USD 1,700 per month in rent. Legally, the rent should have been regulated, but David’s landlord was cheating his tenants out of the discounted rent that they should have been paying. “The rents were being raised continually”, says David.  

In New York, many apartment buildings are subject to rent controls, but are being illegally let at high market rates by landlords, and there’s little enforcement of rent control regulations. Housing Rights Initiative is a not-for-profit organisation that seeks to ensure that people pay a fair rent. In 2021, thanks to the Housing Rights Initiative, David and around 40 other tenants in his building won a shared USD 1 million settlement from their landlord, to compensate for years of paying too much in rent. “Things are in a much better place now, both in terms of the rent that we’re paying with the new lease and also how the building is managed,” he says. 

Housing Rights Initiative works across the United States for fair housing for all. It does this by informing and advising tenants about their housing rights, and by supporting tenants who have been defrauded or discriminated against by the real estate industry. In the latter case, Housing Rights Initiative launches investigations and legal action against corrupt landlords, rental brokers and property managers, and holds them accountable. 

Housing Rights Initiative works by identifying a tenant in a block who is willing to make a legal challenge against their landlord. The initiative has a panel of lawyers who are prepared to act on a no-win, no-fee basis. When the case is won – any many, like David’s case, are – all tenants in the block receive compensation and a reduction on future rent.  The model is simple but powerful, and it has already won millions in pay-outs for tenants. 

David says that he and many other fellow tenants, “would never have known” what was going on in their building if it wasn’t for the work of Housing Rights Initiative. Now, not only will David and the other tenants receive compensation, but their leases will revert to regulated rent, meaning that their housing will stay affordable. 

Oak supports the work of the Housing Rights Initiative through our Housing and Homelessness Programme. We believe that genuinely affordable and suitable housing must be within reach for everyone and that this is key in building a fairer society. Read more about David’s story here.