Rent stabilization campaign compromise splits local tenant organizers

A statewide campaign pushing rent stabilization in Massachusetts has begun negotiating a compromise that would weaken tenant protections, leaving some local organizers feeling excluded and betrayed.

The compromise emerged from weeks of talks between major housing developers and a subset of leaders within Homes for All Massachusetts, the coalition backing the ballot question. The revised proposal would allow cities and towns to opt into rent caps of 5% plus inflation, with a 10% ceiling, rather than the original ballot measure's stricter statewide limit of 5% or the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. If the Legislature passes the compromise language before July 1, the campaign has said it would abandon the ballot question entirely.

Members of the Easthampton Tenants Union met Thursday and voted unanimously to reject the compromise, citing both the weaker protections and a lack of transparency in negotiations that had been underway since January. "I'm sick of compromising, period," one member said at the gathering. Mona Shadi, a founding member of the union, called it "disheartening" to discover a deal could be reached without input from the groups that had spent months collecting signatures and organizing community support.

Andrew Farnitano, a spokesperson for the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign, said the compromise effort aims to deliver "real relief for tenants who are facing massive rent hikes" and avoids a costly ballot fight. "We know that the national real estate investors are prepared to spend millions of dollars on this campaign because of their ideological opposition to any limits on how much they can raise rents," he said.

But John Rivera, a renter in Holyoke who previously organized with the now-defunct Tenants Union of Western Massachusetts, expressed concern that a municipal opt-in system would make it easier for real estate interests to lobby against the policy at the local level. "Just like the lobbyists could lobby the state, they could much more cheaply lobby municipalities," he said. The change would also require tenant organizers to fight separate battles in each community.

Tenant organizers across western Massachusetts have been central to the campaign's efforts. The Easthampton Tenants Union, the first citywide tenant group in the region, participated in both signature-collection rounds alongside the Northampton Tenants Union. Northampton, Greenfield, Amherst, and Springfield have all passed city council resolutions supporting rent stabilization legislation. Organizers in Greenfield are beginning to establish their own tenant union.

The original ballot question gathered more than 124,000 signatures, exceeding the 75,754 required to force the Legislature to review the measure. After lawmakers took no action, organizers began collecting an additional 12,429 signatures needed to bypass the Legislature and let voters decide whether to restore rent stabilization, which Massachusetts voters banned in 1994.