These OPINIONS are offered as a new way to look at life as a tenant/renter. Click on the Follow us on Facebook and post your opinion.
HOUSE POOR or Tenant Powerful? 

They would look down their noses and say, “The Henderson’s are house poor!”   It was a way of distinguishing those who could own and enjoy a house and all of life’s pleasures from those who owned a house, but could not afford to go out to dinner, buy a new car or even take a vacation away from the house that burdened them!

However, apartment dwellers were not “house poor.” As long as they could pull together the rent, they could go out to dinner, buy a new car and take a vacation. They did not have to spend their weekends at the giant hardware store buying paint for the deck, or a new hot water-heater. Apartment dwellers just picked up the phone and called the landlord. Let the maintenance be handled by the landlord’s maintenance crew!

Why Owning Land was So Important:  It used to be that owning land gave your family higher status in Society. In the 1600s, Europeans came to the America’s in search of land for farming. Never mind that this land was populated by native people! The Kings of Europe doled out segments of America to their supporters. For instance, in New Jersey, Sir George Carteret became co-owner of the estate called New Jersey in 1664.(1) When immigrants came to this place called New Jersey, they were looked on as serfs to work the farms and factories that eventually made New Jersey one of the industrial centers of the rising country, the United States.

Up until 1856, only a small percentage of white male landowners were allowed to vote in the United States, which claimed to be a democracy. In 1787 the U.S. Constitution gave the states the right to regulate voting. In 1790, the Naturalization Act gave “free white immigrants” the right to become “naturalized” citizens. By 1792, New Hampshire removed the property ownership requirement. In 1828, Maryland removed religious barriers to voting. Finally, by 1856 North Carolina was the last state to drop land ownership as a requirement for voting. (2) In spite of this move toward greater democracy, women did not get the right to vote until August, 1920 with the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (3)

For decades afterward and up to the present, owning land, even if it was almost completely covered by a big house, gave a citizen the sense of superiority in a class society that exploited the poor immigrant tenant worker.

Zooming forward to the Present: Every banker knows that owning a home is the goal of the middle and working class. But proving your worth by home ownership is a tricky goal. With a 30-year mortgage on the average house, the “owner” will pay sometimes three times the actual price of the home! In practice, the home “owner” is renting the house from the bankers. If you miss a payment, just like with renters (tenants), you can lose your home. 

As of 11/11/2025, President Trump suggested that home buyers be given 50 years to pay off a new home. As in the television program The 11th Hour, 11/10/2025 MS NBC, Stephanie Ruhle explained that this will put home buyers deep into debt due to interest costs and the home will likely never be paid for! (4) (Does your family usually live to age 90?) Just consider how buying a home under these conditions could greatly reduce the possibility of handing the family home down to the next generation. Won’t it be likely that houses will always be under the control of the banking industry? 

Why It’s Better to Rent instead of Buying a Home!

We may have given the answer away in this article when we mentioned that apartment dwellers are not “house poor.” Yes, when things break down, you just call the landlord and let the landlord deal with it. No need to cover the repairs or maintenance, it’s all part of doing business if you’re a landlord. All we tenants have to do is pay the rent on time. We can go out and live it up, making our careers or hobbies the center of our lives.
 
Instead, home owners are always complaining about taxes and insurance premiums going up. The neighbors are noisy, throwing trash everywhere, raising chickens in the backyard, not maintaining their pool to prevent mosquitos, allowing the kids to play basket ball until 10pm. Kabonk, kabonk! It’s a challenging life for the home owner—and the weeds that grow even in the driveway! Lawn maintenance is a constant time-consumer!

But what if you can’t pay the rent? It’s the same kind of problem as not being able to pay the mortgage, but perhaps less embarrassing. One benefit of being a tenant/renter is that you are not alone in your dilemma. You have neighbors in the same situation. If rents have been driven up too high, others like you are facing the same issue. This gives all of us the chance to link up and push back. 

 First, we need to educate ourselves on whatever tenant or renter’s rights are available in our state or city. Then we need to form an official group. Next, contact any state or city council reps assigned to you. Reach out to organizations that offer help to tenants/renters. Eventually some folks in your official group will rise to the position of being spokesperson. These people can do interviews with the news media. Make a big stink about the outrageous cost of renting an apartment! The landlords are gouging us!

But what if the landlord doesn’t make repairs?  One activist sent out a form to all the renters in an apartment complex and asked them to fill out the form indicating what problems they were struggling with in their apartments. Some items on that list could be: dripping faucets, toilets that don’t work properly, broken windows, no heat, not hot water, cracks in ceilings or walls that look like they could collapse. And even outdoors problems: cracks in sidewalks, stairs that are unsafe, holes in parking lots. Have the tenants keep a copy for themselves, send a copy to your official organization and send a copy to the landlord. 

When the landlord gets these forms, which may be referred to as “work orders” it will be difficult to deny that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. If repairs are not made, there’s always the news media to which you can complain.

Be honest! Don’t exaggerate the problems—though some may accuse you of exaggerating. Document with photos and possibly videos of the damage. Social media can be useful, but put the landlord on notice first! It’s only fair to give the landlord the heads up. In legal jargon, it’s called “Giving Notice.” After all, what you want are REPAIRS. Humiliating the landlord on social media will increase hostilities. We don’t want confrontation if we can avoid it. We want REPAIRS. 

Be mild in manner, but bold in action! It won’t be long before you will get the attention of many. You want to present yourselves as honest, justice seeking good people who are being treated unfairly by the big, bad, rich folks who own the property. They do have a social obligation to the people who pay them the rent. 

Here are links to our research:​
(1)World Book Encyclopedia, 1962  
(2)Expansion of Voting Rights, https://theamericanleader.org/timeline-era/expanding-white-mens-right-to-vote-1787-1856/
(3)Biography https://www.biography.com/activists/19th-amendment-famous-suffragists?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=mgu_ga_bio_md_pmx_hybd_mix_us_20739831539&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20743513357&gbraid=0AAAAApTwOX1htxQVzHtkSpdfiJRgoQI6T&gclid=CjwKCAiA2svIBhB-EiwARWDPjjOahGXdWZtklI_khHSpszyufBnNKh2IH2jV97lVzsOxAyuIhSp3FRoCH5QQAvD_BwE
(4)11th Hour, by Stephanie Ruhle, MSNBC, https://www.instagram.com/11thhourmsnbc/reel/DQ52vUHkeQO/