Western Mass tenants are getting organized
Source: The Shoestring | By Sarah Robertson | Published October 3, 2025
New efforts have taken aim at specific local landlords, like Smith College, and at state law itself.
NORTHAMPTON – On one of the first days of the new semester, dozens of people gathered outside the gates of one of the wealthiest landlords in Northampton: Smith College.
“We demand that Smith roll back these egregious rent increases and return to the rent cap agreement,” Rahel Teka, an undergraduate at Smith, shouted through a megaphone. “We deride the college’s attempt to market itself as a progressive institution and claim that it has a symbiotic relationship with Northampton. Housing is a human right!”
Smith College owns about 100 rental units in the Northampton area, Smith’s student newspaper, The Sophian, reported in May. In response to recent rent increases of over 20% for some households this year, Smith College’s tenants in the West Street neighborhood have been meeting regularly to learn more about their rights and how they could fight back.
And they’re not alone: across western Massachusetts, tenants are getting organized. The West Street neighborhood is one of at least five tenant groups that have formed recently to organize for cheaper rents in the region. Others include tenants at Pleasant View Apartments in Easthampton, who are facing rent hikes after the complex’s purchase by Connecticut-based investors, and homeowners at the West Street Village Mobile Home Park in Ludlow, where the new owner, Gold Rush Properties 1, decided to more than double their lot rent.
“This isn’t about landlords raising rents because their expenses are higher,” Ilene Roizman, an Easthampton tenant, said in a statement ahead of a “renters rally” in front of City Hall this summer. “These are private equity firms buying properties as investments solely to extract profit, with no concern for the needs of tenants or the condition of buildings. Their excessive rent increases are driving up the cost of housing for everyone.”
The new organizing comes at a time when a housing crisis continues to fester across the region. A report that the UMass Donahue Institute released this summer found that despite the economy recovering from the 2020 pandemic-related recession, there remains a limited supply of housing. The region has built fewer housing units per capita than the rest of the state and nation, the report found, and residents are increasingly competing with investors looking to profit from rental properties.
“The housing crisis has continued and families and individuals across the region are struggling to make rent or find affordable homeownership opportunities,” the researchers wrote. “This leaves vulnerable populations experiencing housing instability and at risk of homelessness. Furthermore, racial inequity persists across the region as Black and Hispanic households are more likely to be cost-burdened and less likely to be homeowners than their white counterparts.”
But tenants are fighting back. On Sunday, Oct. 5, the housing justice organization Springfield No One Leaves is hosting a “Know Your Rights” clinic for West Street Village residents, with help from Joel Feldman, a Springfield-based housing attorney,
“It’s a movement that’s growing, and they’re all supporting each other now,” Feldman said. “Most people just don’t have any sense of what their rights are about rent increases, what their rights are in the eviction process, what their rights are to organize, what the rights are not to get retaliated against.”
Katie Talbot, the organizing director for Springfield No One Leaves, said the organization has been teaming up with tenants and homeowners across western Massachusetts to help them with these kinds of training, organizing, legislative advocacy, and direct action.
“Rent is too goddamn high,” Talbot shouted outside the Smith College gates. “If you are interested in organizing a tenant union at your building, holler at me.”
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