The Unrepentant Tenant
Boiling frogs
Editor’s note: Welcome to the first installment of The Unrepentant Tenant, a biweekly column diving into the history, mythology and impact of rent control...
The bigger picture of rent control
A recent letter to the editor about my column (see The unrepentant tenant, “Rent control: Why or why not?” March 24, 2022) raised some points...
The worst thing that can happen to a tenant
One of the worst housing crises — if not life crises — a tenant can face is eviction. The U.S. is in the throes...
The hidden history of tenant activism in Boulder, part 1
I'm now going to switch focus from rent control to the broader issue of tenant issues. Tenant protection receives relatively little media coverage, even...
The fantasy of inflation increasing rents
It seems that locally and nationally, housing prices may have peaked, in that there are fewer bidding wars over units for sale, and houses/condos...
Resources for Boulder renters
'Tis the season for Boulder’s population to significantly increase, mostly with student renters. Given that migration, dance with me as I pivot from rent...
The downward mobility of owning a mobile home
A couple of weeks ago, a ground-breaking Colorado bill, HB 1287, passed out of committee, bringing forward an extension of badly needed protections for Colorado...
Do tenants have a right to a habitable home? Yes, but…
The most common problem for tenants by far is not getting their deposit back—but that subject will have to wait for another column.
Probably the...
Is your lease fair, and what’s the alternative?
In my June 30 column (The Unrepentant Tenant, “Interest on deposits and repairs for tenants”), I was skipping through the issues the Boulder Tenants...
What rent control could have looked like in Boulder
Since the beginning of this column in March, I’ve focused on rent control—then I pivoted, uncovering the broader history of tenant activism in Boulder....
A bright spot for Boulder renters on repairs
In my last column (Unrepentant Tenant, “Do tenants have a right to a habitable home?”, Sept. 8, 2022), I wrote about the history of...
Rent relief in St. Paul and the Polis betrayal
Two very different stories have big implications for renters.
