Hi Comrade, I'm Max. I'm a proud member of our DSA branch, and I'm eager to see us grow our power fighting alongside working-class residents of our county.

In a hurry? I'm asking you to click here and send an email to our county council to protect renters. Or read on to learn more.

A key area of struggle in our region, where it is so expensive just to live, is to win stronger protections for renters. Tenants in our county have very little ability to fight rent increases and evictions -- and even when housing is stable, conditions are often poor. One appalling example: in our county, it is legal for landlords to refuse to provide air conditioning to tenants.

Maybe you have personal experience surviving a Maryland summer without A/C. But even if you don't, I bet you understand how unacceptable it is that thousands of our neighbors must pay exorbitant rents, go to work, and raise families through months of 100-degree days, with no relief.

Luckily, we have an immediate opportunity to change the law. Our county council is considering Bill 24-19, which would force landlords to meet this basic human need. But you guessed it -- some members of council are trying to undermine the bill by adding an "opt-out" addendum, which would essentially nullify the law.

We can't allow councilmembers to keep yielding to landlord interests by hurting tenants. We need to turn up the heat on council - not renters!

I'm asking you to take two minutes out of your day to contact the council and let them know you're watching them on this. We've done all the work for you -- just click here, copy and paste the text into a new email, and paste the addresses into the "To" line.

This kind of resident engagement at the county level can have a huge impact, since most folks don't pay a ton of attention to council business. But if we don't speak up, that means council members only hear from landlords, who are always happy to protect their profits.

Thank you for sticking up for renters and helping us build our power.

Max Socol

P.S. We are in the early stages of launching a longer term strategic campaign to protect and expand renters' rights in the county. If this email got your fired up, please reply and let us know so that we can keep you informed about future opportunities!



Upcoming DSA events:

Wednesday, January 22 at 7 pm: Rent Control meeting in DTSS
Our Rent Control working group needs to discuss some BREAKING NEWS, so we will meet to plan the next steps of our campaign. Send us an email to get the location if you can attend! (If you can't attend but would like to get involved, email us and let us know!)