What problems can a petition solve? Consumer and tenant issues

According to Harvard’s most recent U.S. rental housing report, 49% of all renters in America are cost-burdened — meaning they spend over 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Out of those, over half are severely cost-burdened, spending more than 50% of their income on housing. 

Part of the problem is that rent increases are far outpacing renters’ incomes. From 2019 to 2024, median rent increased 12% and incomes only rose 4%. As a result, families have little left over to spend on basic needs, particularly for lower income families. But notably, it’s not just the lowest earners who are affected. Nearly half of middle income families are cost-burdened, making this a widespread problem.

Beyond the affordability issue, unsafe and hazardous living conditions are a rampant problem, disproportionately impacting lower-income families and people of color. A leading factor is that current available rental housing is the oldest on record, requiring more maintenance and repairs. Eight percent of all renters live in moderately or severely inadequate homes. This leads to many dangerous physical and mental health outcomes.

Often, renters face these struggles privately, or when able, they can be fought through tenant unions and legal action. But, there’s another accessible solution. Tenants have used petitions to force real responses from landlords and local governments on exactly these issues, often by fighting all three at once.

Example: McKinley Tenants Association, Washtenaw County, MI

In 2023, tenants across 16 apartment complexes owned by McKinley Inc. — which controls roughly 60% of workforce housing in Washtenaw County, Michigan — organized as the McKinley Tenants Association. They started a petition after facing rent increases of up to $270 a month, alongside mold, mice, and unreliable water in their units, on top of a long list of fees.

The petition reached nearly 500 signatures, and there's no single "victory" moment to point to, but it still led to meaningful progress. The campaign resulted in: 

• Tenant testimony and demonstrations at three different city council and township meetings 

• A formal council resolution introduced by Ypsilanti Councilperson Desirae Simmons formally urging State Senator Jeff Irwin to sponsor legislation repealing Michigan's statewide ban on local rent control 

• Two councilmembers actively drafting new fee legislation. Both confirmed on record to a reporter that they were working with city legal staff on an ordinance addressing nonrefundable and waitlist fees specifically, directly responsive to the fees tenants organized around.

• Independent local news coverage that got the landlord's CEO on the record 

• Real repairs to the organizers’ buildings 

Sustained public pressure on a specific set of problems like this often happens incrementally and with gradual outcomes on the way to bigger, sweeping changes.

Rising rent costs

When one landlord controls a large share of the housing in an area, simply moving somewhere cheaper isn’t an option, because it doesn’t exist where they live. That's exactly when a petition's ability to show organized, collective numbers matters most. A single renter asking a landlord to halt rent increases has little leverage, but hundreds of renters across a dozen properties, backed by local reporting, is a different conversation.

What the McKinley campaign did:

• Documented the scale of the problem precisely: rent increases up to $270/month, tenants like Eimo Kaku facing a 15% jump in a single year, and tenants reporting they now spend up to 60% of gross income on rent.

• Connected an individual landlord dispute to a larger policy initiative: rather than only asking McKinley to hold off on increases, the group organized alongside the University of Michigan's Graduate Employees' Organization housing caucus to push Michigan cities to formally ask the state to repeal its ban on local rent control.

• Showed up in person, repeatedly: speak-outs at both the Ann Arbor City Council and the Ypsilanti City Council each timed to a specific meeting with public comment, organized through petition updates.

What it produced: the Ypsilanti City Council took up a resolution urging the state to repeal the rent control ban. Ann Arbor council members publicly acknowledged the housing crisis and stated they were in active talks with state lawmakers. Neither is a rent decrease — but both are exactly the kind of on-record institutional movement a private complaint never produces on its own.

For the specific playbook on getting a city council to act on an ongoing, non-vote issue like this, see the local civic action guide.

Unhealthy living conditions

Landlords may neglect mold, pests, structural problems, and unreliable utilities until enough tenants describe the same conditions in public, on the record, at the same time.

What the McKinley campaign did:

• Named the conditions specifically and repeatedly across multiple properties: mold and mildew, mice, flooded basements and laundry rooms, and unreliable hot water — not as one tenant's complaint, but a pattern across the same landlord's buildings.

• Used individual, credible testimony alongside the petition. One tenant described her complex going through five property managers in a single year, with a light-switch repair request going unanswered for months and a laundry room she described as consistently covered in mold with standing water.

• Kept the pressure public and specific. The petition and the council speak-outs described the same conditions in the same language, so the story couldn't be dismissed as an isolated complaint.

What it produced: organizers reported in their own updates that previous speak-outs had already motivated McKinley to make real repairs to their buildings. This signaled the public pressure was working before the campaign's larger asks were resolved.

Billing and fees

Many extra charges make a lease more expensive or more confusing than the advertised rent. These include administrative fees, late fees, deposit and storage fees, pet fees, and the newer category of app-based billing systems that come with their own hidden costs.

What the McKinley campaign did:

• Itemized every fee by name in the petition's list of demands: removal of storage fees, dismissal of pet fees, no increase to late fees, and a 10-day grace period for rent payment — turning a vague sense of "too many fees" into a specific, votable list.

• Surfaced a fee most renters never think to organize around: a roughly $350 non-refundable waitlist fee charged by competing properties in the area. One tenant described this as the reason she couldn't leave a bad living situation even when she wanted to.

• Flagged a hidden costs: McKinley's laundry system switched from coin-operated machines to an app, and that app's privacy policy allowed it to collect and sell tenants' personal data, including demographics, location, employment, and contact information. This data has real resale value to the company, without tenants’ knowledge or any compensation for it.

What it produced: two Ann Arbor council members confirmed publicly that they were working with city legal staff on an ordinance specifically targeting nonrefundable and waitlist fees. 

What made this campaign work

The McKinley Tenants Association earned attention and action because of several important elements and tactics. 

The organizers did their research and communicated the scale of the problem. "McKinley owns 60% of workforce housing here" is a more powerful opening than "our landlord is bad." This concrete figure explains why tenants aren’t left with realistic alternatives and why the problem is institutional, not personal.

Organizers formed a coalition beyond the tenants themselves. Partnering with an existing organized group (the graduate employees' housing caucus) added people and credibility to the tenants association.

Independent media coverage mattered. Getting a local newspaper to cover the story including a statement from the landlord’s CEO made the dispute a matter of public record that the landlord had to answer to, not just an internal complaint.

The petition functioned as the coordination hub, not just a document to sign. Organizers used petition updates to turn a one-time signature into repeated, specific action. Updates communicated exactly which meetings to attend, how to sign up for public comment, and provided Zoom links to attend virtually. This approach guided tenants across 16 separate properties towards organized, clear actions.

A partial victory is still a win

The McKinley residents’ rent increases weren't reversed and the fee ordinance hadn't passed as of these updates. However, real, verifiable change happened: repairs, a resolution, and an ordinance in progress. A campaign doesn't have to fully win each demand to be successful and significant.

Frequently asked questions

Can a petition actually get a landlord to lower or freeze rent increases? It rarely produces an immediate rent rollback on its own, especially against a large landlord. What it can do is create enough public, documented pressure — especially combined with local officials and media. A petition can shift the larger policy environment (like a city pushing for rent control authority) even when the original ask isn't met outright.

Can a petition fix unsafe or unhealthy living conditions in an apartment? Yes, and this is one of the more responsive categories. Landlords are pressured to act on maintenance issues once enough tenants document the same conditions publicly, even without a formal victory. Naming specific, repeated problems (not general complaints) tends to work fastest.

What kinds of fees can tenants realistically push back on with a petition? Fees that are specific, named, and shared across many tenants — administrative fees, late fees, deposit or storage fees, waitlist fees — are easier to organize around. Local officials can realistically address these fees through ordinance rather than dictate a landlord's core rent-setting decisions.