Anti-Eviction

Introduction

A galvanizing story of how everyday people built a powerful anti-eviction movement in gentrified San Francisco.

Context

In the early 2010s, San Francisco experienced a tech boom that created both great wealth and great inequality. The city became known for runaway gentrification, a major housing crisis, and an eviction epidemic of long-term tenants.

Movement and Impact

Yet these changes also drove an inspiring housing justice movement that exposed gentrification as far from inevitable. In Anti-Eviction, anthropologist and scholar-activist Manissa Maharawal tells the story of how residents built a powerful anti-eviction movement and how they fought—and sometimes won—a right to their homes and their city.

Strategies and Lessons

Focusing on the stories of tenants facing eviction, Maharawal describes the different strategies for resistance that emerged as well as lessons for the broader national housing crisis, beyond California.

Significance

This illuminating book offers not only actionable models for activism and resisting gentrification, but also a powerful study of how ordinary people came together to organize for housing justice and change their city.