Tenants created informal groups they called "tenants unions" and started "rent strikes," refusing to pay increases. They distributed leaflets encouraging others not to rent from "bad" landlords. By the winter of 1907-08 widespread rent strikes hit Manhattan and Brooklyn, and tenants from New Jersey were looking to New York as a model. There were few long-lasting effects of these early movements and no regulatory response, however.

World War I caused the next serious housing crisis in New York City as war efforts had a monopoly on building materials and severely limited the building of new housing and the improvement of existing housing. Tenants continued to live under the threat of huge rent increases and eviction

How does rent control work? Well, there are almost as many answers to that question as there are cities with rent control. There are, however, two major types of rent control in the U.S.: "true" rent control, and some form of vacancy decontrol. We will deal with the more restrictive "true" rent control on this page and address vacancy decontrol on page 4.

It is easy to see how a tenant lucky enough to find a rent controlled apartment can greatly benefit over the years. The initial rent she pays for the unit is often well under market level, and as she stays in the same unit, the rent she is paying becomes less and less relative both to her income and to the market value of the unit.

Since it was first implemented, rent control has never really left New York City as tenant, civil rights, and labor organizations have used the power of a large voting population to affect local and statewide elections and local policies. In recent years, rent control laws, which were slated to expire in the City, were renewed once again due to extreme political pressure from a population still benefiting from them.

There are many groups who argue that rent control no longer serves the purpose for which it was originally instituted (if it ever did) and, in fact, has a negative effect on housing for lower income tenants. No longer are these arguments limited to landlord organizations, however. Civil rights groups, social service agencies, and others have joined the fight to do away with or greatly reform rent control. See the articles under "Elsewhere on the Web" above for more on this.

Once a tenant has signed a lease on a rent controlled unit, she is protected in two ways: 1) rent control laws greatly restrict the circumstances under which she can be evicted (often she must commit a crime or not pay rent for many months before the landlord can take action); and 2) the landlord is limited by the law in how much he can increase the rent annually. As with vacancy decontrol, acceptable annual rent increases are limited to a certain percentage of the previous rent or a certain percenta

Some common words found in the essay are:
York City, CPI Rental, Valley Tenant, Elsewhere Web, rent control, War II, LaGuardia York, Manhattan Brooklyn, AFL CIO, World War, Connecticut California, rent control laws, control laws, rent controlled, vacancy decontrol, rent increases, york city, rent strikes, housing crisis, cities rent, tenants unions, cities rent control, rent increases eviction, lucky rent controlled, landlords rent control,
Approximate Word count = 1403
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)