What’s at Stake?

Beginning on April 1st, 2020, many Americans will be unable to pay their rent, mortgage, loans, or utility bills in the context of the pandemic and global recession. The president has so far spent $2.5 trillion in bailing out the stock market and large corporations, and nothing to bail out the working class. 

Without a massive stimulus package, freeze on rent, utilities, and mortgage collection, millions of people will lose their jobs and homes. Unemployment could reach 30% according to some projections. We have to start organizing right now, turn our collective desperation to collective power, and force our government to enact a bailout for regular people, not Wall Street.

Our Demands

Rent Strike 2020 started when a simple petition to freeze rent, utilities and mortgage payments has collected over 2 million signatures within 48 hours. The creators of the petition (Joshua Collins, and Rose Caucus) realized that this is a revolutionary moment and immediately passed it off to organizers who could build this into a movement that will be able to deliver a win for regular people.

We have put together a comprehensive set of immediate demands that we are calling the People’s Bailout. Our goal is to win these demands for the working class by building a mass movement. We hope to partner with local tenants unions, labor unions, immigrant groups, prison reform and abolition groups, and left and socialist elected officials who share our movement strategy and vision. Following are our initial set of of demands:

  • Freeze all rent, mortgage, utility payments or we will carry out a rent strike!

  • Freeze all student, medical, car and consumer debt and interest during the ongoing pandemic and recession. Cancel student debt!

  • Tax big business and the rich, not regular people, to pay for the crisis.

  • House all unsheltered people to protect their health and safety, and public health at-large.

  • Suspend all Farm Service Agency payments to ensure that we have an uninterrupted food supply.

  • Provide free mass testing and treatment! Authorize the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services to cover all out of pocket expenses so people can get tested and treated without worrying about going bankrupt.

  • Medicare for All! Immediately nationalize pharma, healthcare, medical instruments and all providers for an emergency response like Spain did to swiftly respond to the health crisis.

  • Give democratic powers to Committees of workers and scientists over the response to the crisis in essential industries – including healthcare, transportation, logistics, grocery.

  • Nationalize any industry threatening layoffs that hasn't been bailed out under democratic workers' control.

  • End the mass incarceration system & immediately release all immigrants from detention centers to stop the spread of COVID-19 between prisoners and guards.


Show your support for this campaign by endorsing it and sharing why!

  • endorsed

    “Our landlord knowing we got laid off due to covid-19 has been threatening to kick us out since April 15th and on top of that he is adding late fees.”

  • endorsed

    “Endorsed. It's not our fault we lost income, so we should have to be in debt or worry about losing our homes because of it.”

  • endorsed

    “I endorse Rent Strike because the government chose to shutdown my way to make money. They took my lovely hood out from underneath me. Kids are at home now requiring my time here and there is no relief in sight. I still need to make money and I cannot in my field at all.”

  • endorsed

    “I endorse rent strike because rent has gone up, yet we still don’t have certain amenities in our lease agreement provided for us. Why are we paying more for management to do less? We need to build savings for medical emergencies and other big life expenses”

  • endorsed

    “Some of our businesses are in our home”

  • endorsed

    “Endorsed. We all need help”

  • endorsed

    “Housing is a right! We should not have to choose between food or filling our landlords pockets.”

  • endorsed

    “it is unethical to collect rent when most of the workforce has lost part or all income OR are working on the front lines as an essential worker. Dear landlords, investment properties are not guaranteed income, they're come with risks, and this is one no one saw coming. thanks!”

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Show your support for this campaign by endorsing it and sharing why!