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Unrepentant Tenant: Hidden history of tenant activism
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May 19, 2022
Volume XXIX, Number 37
Cover photo, Nate Larsen
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welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@ boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website. I’m now going to switch focus from rent control to the broader issue of tenant issues. Tenant protection receives relatively little media coverage, even though more than half of the city of Boulder’s population rents. So, it’s no surprise that tenants know neither their history, nor their rights. My rst column (see e Unrepentant Tenant, “Boiling frogs,” March 10, 2022) went into a history of Boulder rent control. Let’s expand on the broader tenant history. ere’s always been concern over high rental prices and poor conditions in Boulder. At least as far back as 1922, CU President George Norlin “lashed out at pro teering landlords, sensing students were being raked over
The hidden history of tenant activism in Boulder, part 1 by Mark Fearer the coals,” according to the Daily Camera. Boulder had rent control at least from 1947-1953 and there have always been housing shortages and complaints about housing conditions. In 1968, Boulder was the fourth Colorado city to adopt a housing code for all housing, but it wasn’t well enforced for rental housing. Organized tenant activism didn’t arrive in Boulder until the following year, in the midst of nationwide student activism on a variety of issues (women’s liberation, gay rights, civil rights, anti-war movement, student empowerment, environmentalism, cultural expectations, etc.). e rst call for action to the newly formed Boulder Tenants Union (BTU) in the fall of 1969 was a city-wide rent strike against unfair landlords—more than 1,000 student renters voted for it at a meeting at CU. A few weeks later, BTU focused on one apartment building on the Hill
