
Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis
A compelling call for tenant-led collective action to dismantle the exploitative capitalist housing system and abolish rent.
The average landlord spends less than 4 hours a month maintaining a property but collects over $25,000 monthly in revenue.
Section 1
7 Sections
Imagine waking up every first of the month knowing that a significant share of your hard-earned wages must be handed over to someone who owns the roof above your head — not because they built it with their own labor, but because of a system designed to make you pay tribute.
Consider that the average landlord spends less than four hours each month maintaining their properties, yet collects over $25,000 in rent per unit.
Moreover, the value of housing is not created in isolation. It is deeply tied to public investments — from the pipes delivering water to the sidewalks connecting neighborhoods, from transit stops to schools. Tenants themselves produce the culture and safety that make neighborhoods desirable. Yet landlords capture this communal labor as private profit, extracting wealth from the very communities they displace.
These dynamics trap tenants in a cycle of precarity, forced to choose between food, medicine, and shelter.
8 more insights available in app
Unlock all 7 sections, 9 insights, full audio, and interactive mind map in the SnapBooks app.