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By: Kelly Regan
BOSTON, MA – “Uprooting members of a community degrades the public sphere,” observed Ben Greer, a Boston DSA member in multi-family residential architecture who works on affordable housing projects, decades after the fall of rent control in Massachusetts.
Displacement steals people – and thus, the public.
Statewide rent control made Boston a more affordable city for low- and moderate-income earners throughout the 1970s. This returned the city to rent control after landlords began chipping away at wartime stabilization, as tenants led by an Allston-Brighton tenant named Anita Bromberg pressured City Hall in a tenant alliance that included middle-class renters, student tenants, low-income senior citizens, and allied organizers.
Tenants won rent control before staving off landlord greed for a few decades through the base-building that built collective organizational power: tenant organizing, eviction blocking, high-profile rallies, agitational publications, even an attempted citywide rent strike.
After the landlords finally pushed through tenant defenses to win the 1994 ballot referendum, raising 90% of their funds for the campaign from big corporations, rents in cities like Boston skyrocketed. The rent increases had nothing to do with popular will; Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge all voted against the initiative, only for the City of Cambridge to see rents double in just four years. Meanwhile, Cambridge voters routinely elected wide majorities to their city council in favor of rent control.
The landlords of the Small Property Owners’ Association (SPOA) led the ballot initiative even though units had been “decontrolled” since 1975. Landlords could snatch back rent-stabilized units to inflate the prices after they had been stabilized for tenants. Brookline had decontrolled most of its units before the 1994 law. Landlords kept eating away, one decontrol after another.
By the time of the ballot initiative, 60,000 units were decontrolled versus only 20,000 controlled.
The Role of Struggle
While much of the story of the fall of rent control ccurred in the Legislature, the fall of tenant organizations played a key role. One at the center of the fight to keep rent control was the Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee (CTOC). When tenants fought against a plan to turn working class Cambridge into “the brain center of the military-industrial complex,” they built a committee of tenants and built an organization out of member dues. Ultimately, CTOC disbanded as both internal dysfunction and changing political climate led CTOC to disorganize.
Cultural hubs throughout Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and other Massachusetts cities died out as artists and eccentrics were forced to relocate to more suburban and rural areas. The end of rent control also changed the bourgeois business landscape, with many small enterprises closing or relocating. This decimated the local economies of entire neighborhoods and closed them off, except for the students and the rich who could afford the upscale chains that survived in places like Harvard Square. The businesses that have been able to stay open have struggled to attract and retain workers due to the state’s high cost.
As housing costs in Massachusetts continue to rise, many renters find themselves severely cost-burdened. This increase is felt not just by low-income earners, but also by middle-income earners, who are increasingly cost-burdened by rent.
Since there are currently no restrictions on rent increases, some Massachusetts residents see increases of hundreds of dollars when renewing their leases. Residents who can’t afford the steep hike in rent must find a new home. Worcester has seen an exodus of residents who can no longer afford the city’s cost of living. Tenants from Boston are displaced to the suburbs are displaced to Worcester are displaced out; every single one leaves a void, a home lost.
Rent Control in 2026
Thirty two years after rent control was banned in Massachusetts, housing justice advocates want to bring it back. Last summer, Homes for All Mass filed an initiative petition with Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office as the first step in a lengthy process to get the rent control ballot measure in front of Massachusetts voters.
Greer said:
All people deserve stability. Rent control allows Massachusetts tenants to be able to settle within their neighborhoods, raise families, and contribute to the community without having to fear displacement.
The 2026 ballot measure would limit rent increases to the cost of living increase with a 5% cap with exemptions for owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units and new builds within the first ten years.
The next phase, which is collecting 74,574 certified signatures, began on September 5, 2025. For a signature to count, it has to be verified by the city clerk as coming from a registered voter. This is to ensure that signatures come from Massachusetts residents. Illegible signatures or signatures from residents outside of Massachusetts are not counted.
Boston DSA members voted to endorse Homes for All Massachusetts ballot question campaign to pass rent control in September 2025. The Homes For All coalition included organizations like City Life/Vida Urbana, Community Action Agency of Somerville, and the Chinese Progressive Association. Members in Boston DSA helped collect 1,298 of the 124,000 total signatures collected across multiple counties surrounding the Boston area.
Dominic Salvucci, a Boston DSA member living in Lawrence, Massachusetts, organized over 14 canvasses in his area. Salvucci noted that the campaign allowed him to have interesting conversations with his neighbors and bring in new organizers to Boston DSA.
According to Salvucci, the method “was also helpful in bringing in new membership and expanding the idea of class consciousness to inactive but sympathetic socialists in the region.”
Submitting at least 74,574 signatures means the Legislature has until June 2026 to vote on adopting the rent control legislation. If the Legislature votes against, 12,429 more certified signatures must be collected for rent control to be on the 2026 ballot.
While Governor Healy has spoken against rent control, other politicians have spoken in support. Boston Mayor Wu made rent control part of her platform. The executive has previously endorsed rent control and stated:
We know that other cities across the country who have implemented rent stabilization and rent control are seeing it working.
The Mayor is joined also by some legislators. Massachusetts State Representative and Boston DSA member Erika Uyterhoeven also supported the signature collection campaign for rent control. Uyterhoeven said:
Every time I’ve asked someone to collect signatures, it’s an enthusiastic yes to volunteering and joining the Homes for All coalition. I also believe this is vital work for DSA to deepen our coalition and build our power by building up our membership’s capacity for the fight ahead.
However, the bulwark of support — much like last time, in defense of rent control — has been found at the municipal level. Cities throughout Massachusetts have expressed support for rent control regulation. The Boston City Council passed a resolution in support of the rent control bill on January 30th. The cities of Easthampton and Northampton have passed similar resolutions in support of this rent control legislation. City councils signing on in support of rent control legislation doesn’t guarantee that the House or Senate will pass a rent control bill. It does show that rent control is popular among residents of those cities, which could sway some legislators.
The Landlords’ Legislature
It is unlikely that the Legislature will act on the rent control bill, even if some legislators may be exceptions in supporting rent control. The Boston Globe found that more than one in four Massachusetts legislators own multiple homes or properties. This is unsurprising in a country where the vast majority of legislators are not tenants in any state. The Globe also reported that, in 2023, at least 36 legislators own commercial, residential, or short-term rental properties. With so many landlords in the Massachusetts legislature, it’s no surprise that the fight for rent control has been an uphill battle.
And some of the same opponents remain as stalwart interest groups influencing legislative decision-making. The president of the same Small Property Owners’ Association (SPOA) that led the successful campaign to vanquish Massachusetts rent control last time has threatened his own personal capital strike. As the landlord leader lamented to the Wall Street Journal:
He later took ownership of that property, but said he sold it last year for fear rent control would return. He said he still owns five units in Beverly and Rockport, two communities northeast of Boston, but that he would consider leaving the business and even the state if the ballot measure passes.
Some Massachusetts residents are initially wary of rent control precisely because much of the conversation around rent control has been dominated by landlords.
While collecting signatures, Salvucci talked with one Massachusetts resident about how capitalist policies have led to a sharp increase in living expenses while stagnating wages. Decades have made the crisis starkly clear. The resident signed the petition for rent control and told Salvucci:
[Rent control] makes more sense when you look at it from the shoes of people who are just trying to make their way now.
When rent control was first won, tenants built the power needed block by block – apartment by apartment, spadework by spadework. The story of the Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee (CTOC) also promises a road forward. As tenants organize across the region at new complexes in the greatest wave of tenant organizing since the 1970s that won rent control originally, the fight for rent stabilization follows.
The question is who will win this phase of the struggle: landlords, or tenants?
Kelly Regan is the co-chair of Boston DSA’s Housing Working Group.
The post The Fall and Rise of Massachusetts Rent Control appeared first on Working Mass.
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