How to evict your landlord

Yes, the title is hyperbolic, and it’s meant to be! While GIMA continues our efforts to bring Indiana tenant protections into the 21st century, we also realize it’s a painfully slow process that requires systemic culture changes. In the meantime, evictions and homelessness continue to rise. There is no “new shiny thing” that will fix either and we as a city must take a multi-pronged approach to ending housing instability. The best way to address evictions and homelessness, is still, keeping people in their existing homes.

One of those prevention strategies is empowering tenants even if our state and city won’t. Tenant organizing and tenant unions have seen success in other cities like Kansas City and Louisville, and now Milwaukee. Check out this 3-part NPR series from Milwaukee entitle “How to evict your landlord” for a glimpse of what organizing can do! When organized, grassroots initiatives have power to make change. When organized!

Erin Bagatta/WUWM

GIMA is committed to helping communities find the resources they need to get organized. In March of this year, we held our first Know Your Rights: Indy Tenant Workshop with Indiana Legal Services, Richmond Housing & Health Rights Coalition, and the Tenant Union Federation. Our second workshop is just a few weeks away, July 7th at 1p at Light of the World Christian Church. This time we’ve invited the organizing experts from LiveFree Indiana to do their Community Organizing 101 training and folks will have the time to start the work before leaving. We encourage anyone who is experiencing habitability issues or knows others who are in such a situation. We also encourage congregations to send representatives to become organizing hubs for their neighbors. We can’t do this work for you but can offer access to the resources to do the work!