Tenants gathered at the top floor of Easthampton City Hall on Thursday evening last week, prepared to talk about their efforts to win codified protections for renters in the city and across the state. Instead, there was an air of frustration and confusion in the conference room where they regularly meet, as tenants discussed the latest twist in their long-fought battle for rent stabilization.
“I’m sick of compromising, period,” one member of the Easthampton Tenants Union declared to the group. Members took turns sharing grievances, asking questions, and coming to terms with what many felt was a betrayal.
Tenant organizers in Easthampton are among some of the local renters left reeling after leaders of the campaign to pass a statewide rent-stabilization ballot question in Massachusetts put forward a compromise that would offer fewer restrictions on annual rent increases. The proposal is a revised version of the ballot question, which organizers have been backing since last year.
Members of the Easthampton Tenants Union voted unanimously on Thursday to dissent from the compromise proposal, citing discontent with settling for weaker tenant protections and a lack of agency in the negotiations that led to the compromise. One member of the union called the compromise a “slap in the face” — a sentiment that drew approval from others in the packed meeting room.
Homes for All Massachusetts, the coalition of tenant groups that launched the “yes” campaign for rent stabilization and has been campaigning for the ballot question since last year, announced the compromise proposal earlier this month as an alternative to the upcoming November ballot-question vote. The deal followed weeks of negotiations between major housing developers in the state and a subset of organizers from Homes for All Massachusetts.
It’s an effort that Andrew Farnitano, a spokesperson for the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign, says is about “delivering real relief for tenants who are facing massive rent hikes.” If the question goes to the ballot, he said the “yes” campaign is prepared to win there. But they will face million-dollar ad campaigns funded by real estate groups and their business allies — an expensive fight for the coalition to counter. Farnitanto said the campaign’s preference has always been to work with legislators, and that they have always intended to win either at the ballot or through a bill.
“For us, this has never been about scoring political points,” he said. “We know that the national real estate investors are prepared to spend millions of dollars on this campaign because of their ideological opposition to any limits on how much they can raise rents.”
But given the popular support the rent-stabilization ballot question appears to have, according to recent polling, some local organizers are questioning why they should compromise on their goals for rent stabilization.
“The [Easthampton Tenants Union] membership voted to not support the bill compromise because we believe it’s a bad deal for tenants,” organizers wrote in a press release Sunday. “In addition, the negotiation process that led to the compromise was not inclusive or transparent. Those involved in the process may have presumed our consent, but they don’t have it.”
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The original ballot question, if passed, would implement one of the strictest forms of rent stabilization policy in the nation by establishing a statewide blanket limit on annual rent increases: 5% or the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. But under the bill’s compromised language, rent stabilization wouldn’t be mandated. Rather, cities and towns could opt into the policy, which would cap annual rent increases at 5% plus inflation, with an upper limit of 10%.
If the Legislature passes the revised language before July 1 — the deadline for submitting the required signatures to send the original measure to the ballot in November — the Keep Massachusetts Home rent stabilization campaign, led by Homes for All Massachusetts, has said it would abandon the ballot question entirely.
Whether this represents a win for tenants is contentious among organizers in western Massachusetts, who have been supporting a different offensive for months.
“I think it’s really disappointing,” said John Rivera, a renter in Holyoke who previously worked to organize tenants in the city with the now-defunct Tenants Union of Western Massachusetts.
Rivera said that organizers have been united behind the ballot question. If the compromise replaces that ballot question and municipalities then have to vote to opt into the compromise rent-stabilization bill, Rivera said that makes it easier for powerful interests to lobby against those efforts.
“Just like the lobbyists could lobby the state, they could much more cheaply lobby municipalities,” he said. That would also mean more work for already busy tenant organizers who would then have to fight a separate battle at the local level, he added.
In the fall, the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign blew past the required number of statewide signatures — 124,000 to the required 75,754 — needed to force the state Legislature to review the campaign’s rent stabilization measure, per the state’s initiative petition process. But after legislators took no action on adopting the petition as written, organizers have been working to collect an additional 12,429 signatures, which would bypass legislators and secure the chance for residents to vote on whether to bring rent stabilization back to Massachusetts since voters banned the policy in 1994.
Organizers in western Massachusetts, including the Easthampton Tenants Union, have been an integral part of efforts to garner support for the ballot initiative in the region. Easthampton organizers were part of both the first and second rounds of signature collection and spent months tabling at local businesses, soliciting endorsements from local organizations, doing social media outreach, and working with local legislators.
Last year, the union supported the Easthampton City Council’s resolution in support of a 2025 state bill that would lift the ban on rent stabilization and allow municipalities the same opt-in option outlined in the compromise proposal. Northampton, Greenfield, and just this week, Amherst and Springfield, have all passed similar resolutions in support of the same legislation.
The community group Springfield No One Leaves, a member of Homes for All Massachusetts, has been collecting signatures across Hampden and Hampshire counties and helped draft the ballot question. Katie Talbot, the group’s organizing director, declined to comment for this article.
Various tenant groups in Northampton have been organizing for cheaper rents since last year, and the Northampton Tenants Union has done similar outreach and advocacy in support of rent stabilization.
Easthampton Tenants Union members described feeling “blindsided” when they learned that negotiations over a compromise had been underway since January.
Mona Shadi, a founding member of the union, called it “disheartening.”
“To find out that a deal could be reached without our input or perspective, as near as the end of this month, just flies in the face of the organizing and the labor and the work and the sweat that we’ve been putting in,” Shadi told The Shoestring.
The Easthampton Tenants Union was the first citywide tenant union to pop up in western Massachusetts, alongside the Northampton Tenants Union. And tenant organizers in Greenfield are starting to build their own union, too.
Kat Miller, an organizer with the recently formed Greenfield Tenants Union, echoed Rivera’s sentiments, adding that a municipal opt-in would continue to disenfranchise tenants who don’t have the time and resources to get out and support the cause.
Miller also denounced the compromise as an impartial solution. “We need equity, not inequity between towns,” she said. “I appreciate the fact that a compromise is happening, but I think a statewide rent cap is going to be the way to go.”
By and large, tenant unions are a rarity in the state, which Shadi said speaks to their dire need.
“As people who are on the ground, talking to our neighbors who are crying and terrified, we are the ones who see the people that this is affecting,” Shadi said. “We wanted to say we don’t agree, and we don’t think this is the way forward.”
Involving local tenant unions, Shadi said, would have allowed those directly impacted by the policy to have a say in concessions made during negotiations — many of which tenants view as non-negotiable.
Shadi described the increase in the rent-hike cap to 10% as “disastrous for most working people in the state,” and that the stakes are high for many of her neighbors facing homelessness due to soaring rent prices. According to a 2020 study by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, rent increases of $100 a month are associated with a 9% increase in homelessness in the United States.
Beyond the higher cap on annual rent increases, the compromise also allows landlords of rent-stabilized properties to raise rents to market value if a tenant vacates. Enabling this policy, known as vacancy decontrol, would incentivize landlords to push out low-paying tenants, Shadi said.
According to Farnitano, the spokesperson for the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign, although letting up on vacancy decontrol is a significant concession, it’s balanced by a guaranteed ban on no-fault evictions — evictions that occur without a tenant having violated the terms of their lease.
Exemptions to the rent stabilization policy laid out in the ballot question will also continue in the revised bill, including exemptions for owner-occupied properties with four units or fewer and for newly constructed housing. The latter was altered from a 10-year exemption from the date of occupancy to 15 years.
The exemption, Farnitano said, would address any concerns about negative impacts on new housing development. Shadi, though, said that conversations about rent stabilization should happen in tandem with conversations about developing new, affordable housing.
“New homes that are being built are half a million dollar homes and condos and luxury apartments,” Shadi said. “And so we do want new homes built, but some of those new homes have to be for working-class people who make working-class money.”
One member of the Easthampton Tenants Union, Ben Taylor, said the worst part of the compromise is the option for municipalities to choose whether to opt into the rent stabilization policy, calling it a “patchwork solution.”
“If the bill passes, we would have 351 separate fights statewide,” Taylor said. “That would definitely mean that some cities and towns will be left out.”
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Support for a ballot initiative that would implement a uniform statewide rent stabilization policy is there, according to local organizers, who see no reason to compromise when the opposition appears to be on its back foot. A poll last month from Polity Research Consulting found that 69% of respondents would definitely vote “yes” on the rent control ballot measure.
Three days after putting forth the compromise, Homes for All Massachusetts announced that the campaign had collected the signatures needed to secure the rent stabilization question for a ballot vote in November. According to Farnitano, the campaign is now at more than 30,000 signatures, far exceeding the 12,429 requirement.
Given the overwhelming support, some local organizers would rather push for the ballot than settle for any compromise on tenant protections. “Why not just jump in the trenches with us and let’s go full throttle for the ballot?” Shadi said.
But supporters of the compromise see it as a way to secure tenant protections while avoiding a costly back-and-forth at the ballot box, especially up against wealthy opponents in the real estate industry.
Since the start of the campaign, rent stabilization advocates have faced opposition from real estate developers and local officials seeking to kill the effort. Leaders of the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign expect real estate executives to spend up to $30 million against the rent stabilization proposal. Local officials, including Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia, have publicly denounced rent control as risky and likely to decrease property values and city revenue.
Garcia did not respond to multiple interview requests for this article.
Some opponents of the ballot question are delighted by the prospect of a compromise. At Monday’s Springfield City Council meeting, Councilor Michael Fenton, who has spoken out previously against the ballot question and its “one-size-fits-all” parameters, threw his support behind a policy that would center on a local opt-in measure, calling it a “wonderful compromise.”
“Giving the city of Springfield and all the 350+ cities and towns an opportunity to craft local rent control on our terms, for what makes sense for our city, is something that we should all get behind,” Fenton said.
Housing developers have campaigned on the idea that rent control would effectively pause housing development in the state, recalling a longer history of rent control in Massachusetts before its statewide ban in 1994.
During World War II, the state Legislature allowed municipalities the choice to implement rent control as an emergency wartime measure, and the policy continued into the 1970s in major cities like Boston and Cambridge. But by the ’80s and ’90s, landlords and residents began blaming the ongoing housing shortage on rent control, arguing that developers were intentionally avoiding controlled cities. This culminated in a 1994 ballot question, when 51% of Massachusetts voters said “yes” to banning rent control in all municipalities.
Three decades later, tenant groups are hoping to reverse the decision. But they’re facing opposition from landlords and real estate groups who have already raised big money to defeat the measure.
It was those opponents who first approached the rent stabilization campaign to open negotiations on a compromise this winter, not the other way around, according to Farnitano. Those negotiations proceeded quietly and in parallel with signature gathering, he said, with the steering committee for Keep Massachusetts Home — a group of organizers from the Homes for All Massachusetts coalition and other housing advocacy groups who Farnitano declined to name — eventually voting in favor of the revised measure and pledging to drop the ballot question if legislators accept a revised bill by July.
Multiple high-profile real estate developers, including WinnCompanies, the HYM Investment Group, and The Builder Coalition, were involved in the negotiations, alongside a subset of the Homes for All Massachusetts coalition and other housing owners and providers, according to Farnitano.
Housing for Massachusetts, the opposition campaign consisting of a coalition of small property owners, affordable housing developers, and family-owned real estate companies, was not involved in the initial talks, Farnitano said. As of the end of 2025, the campaign had already raised nearly half a million dollars from real estate investors and landlord groups, including the Massachusetts nonprofit MassLandlords and the Commercial Real Estate Development Association.
“There is no agreement at this point,” Conor Yunits, the Housing for Massachusetts chair, said in a statement to The Shoestring. “There are a number of sections that remain problematic, but we are reaching out to the proponents and look forward to a productive discussion.”
Local organizers, including the Easthampton Tenants Union, are also welcoming conversations with advocates of the compromise.
“This statement signifies our dissent, and hopefully that is cause for coming to the table and having a really deep discussion about the situation,” Shadi said. Beyond a discussion with Homes for All Massachusetts, union members felt the situation was largely out of their hands at this point, with the deal already having been proposed to legislators.
Homes for All Massachusetts shared the news about the revised bill in a letter to state legislators on June 2: “We hope you will support this carefully redrafted bill that we believe will help you address the pressing affordability concerns your constituents face while encouraging continued housing production in your cities and towns.”
State lawmakers have been notoriously slow to move on rent stabilization, but pressure from a November referendum could be enough to prompt them to settle on a compromise.
On Monday night, the Springfield City Council and Amherst Town Council both voted to pass a resolution in support of a year-old rent stabilization bill, joining other local municipalities — including Easthampton, Northampton, and Greenfield — that have already passed similar resolutions.
The bill is nearly identical in language to Homes for All Massachusetts’ compromise proposal, but exempts new construction for just five years rather than 15. Since its introduction in 2025, the legislation has largely gone nowhere, which is what initially prompted Homes for All Massachusetts to launch a more expansive ballot initiative that would bypass lawmakers on Beacon Hill.
In front of the Amherst Town Council, state Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst, a co-sponsor of the bill, was invited to answer questions, including one about the status of discussions regarding a compromise on rent stabilization in the Legislature.
“I think the Legislature right now is kind of saying, ‘Well, there’s some negotiation going on, so let’s see what happens,’” Domb said. “If there’s a negotiation and these two very polar sides can come to an agreement that a bill is the way to go forward, I don’t see us standing in the way.”
On Tuesday, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, one of the largest real estate groups in the state, pitched its own compromise proposal, for which Farnitano said negotiations are currently ongoing.
Domb told Amherst councilors that, while they would be voting to support the bill as written, the specifics of the policy that could ultimately pass may be different as negotiations continue. Nevertheless, replacing a blanket rent stabilization policy with a local opt-in measure would likely be the main concession of any compromise, Farnitano said.
State Sen. Adam Gómez, D-Springfield, who originally filed the legislation in the Senate in 2025, encouraged Springfield councilors on Monday to pass the resolution as a step towards finding a compromise on rent stabilization. Councilors present at the meeting voted unanimously to pass the resolution.
“What you guys are doing right now is putting a good foot forward to show that western Massachusetts is ready to get a compromise,” Gómez said.
Gómez also mentioned Gov. Maura Healey, who said over the weekend that she would support a compromise on rent stabilization if it meant avoiding the ballot question, but didn’t offer any specific details on what that compromise should look like.
“What I feel and what I’ve heard from the governor today is that this is going to be the path moving forward,” he said.
With two weeks left before the July 1 deadline to send the ballot question to a referendum, Farnitano said that Homes for All Massachusetts will continue its efforts to reach voters about the ballot question, with signatures currently pending certification by municipalities.
“We’re not pausing our advocacy. We’re proceeding full force toward the ballot unless a compromise is passed,” he said.
For others, though, now isn’t the time to compromise. Miller, the Greenfield tenant organizer, said that for renters, there’s a big difference between a 5% and 10% rent increase.
“Being a landlord is an option,” Miller said. “For some people, renting is not optional; it’s the only way for people to have roofs over their heads.”
Dylan Vrins is a summer 2026 intern at The Shoestring with support from the Nonprofit Newsroom Internship Program created by The Scripps Howard Fund and the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Dylan Vrins
Dylan Vrins is an independent reporter pursuing a degree in environmental studies and sciences at Amherst College. Reach him at dylanvrins@gmail.com or on Instagram @dylan.vrins
