By a 69 to 31 percent margin, Duluth voters have approved a groundbreaking ballot measure called “Right to Repair” which will enable tenants to carry out simple repairs and deduct the cost from their monthly rent, rather than wait for landlords to follow through.
The vote, which the Minnesota Star Tribune called a “landslide victory,” is a big win for Duluth Tenants, a tenants union which has organized with support from People’s Action member group Take Action Minnesota over the past 18 months.
“This is a simple, common-sense way to get the repairs we need made when they were not getting done before,” said Chloe Holloway, a member of Duluth Tenants. The group collected 6,000 signatures to bring the referendum to a vote, and more than 150 volunteers knocked on more than 22,000 doors. Holloway herself knocked on more than 3,000 doors, she told the Duluth News Tribune.
Momentum to support the measure grew to include multiple local unions, including SEIU, USW Local 9460, AFSCME Council 5 and the Minnesota Nurses Association, and Democratic lawmakers.
Four out of every ten Duluth residents are renters, and the city’s housing stock is some of the oldest in Minnesota, mostly built before World War II.