03/18/2025
In the lead-up to our joint 10-year anniversary fundraiser on May 1, we will be sharing stories about key moments in our organizing history.
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In 2017, 33rd Ward Working Families (33WF) mobilized to get a referendum on rent control in the 33rd Ward. The experience helped grow the organization and till the political soil.
There had been several years of discussion among various left-wing organizations about the need for both rent control in Chicago and a state legislative campaign that could make it a reality. 33rd Ward Working Families encountered the issue of rising rents firsthand through our support work with the Autonomous Tenants Union (ATU). Various tenants throughout the ward had been dealing with rising rents, especially in older buildings that were being converted into luxury rentals. Before becoming 33rd Ward Alderwoman, Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez herself had been priced out of housing in 2015 while she was pregnant! So the need for this was clear.
Groups like Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) started to push for a few waves of referenda across the March 2018 primary and November 2018 general elections. The goal would be to get a referendum to “lift the ban on rent control” in as many wards as possible. The goal of the referenda would be to educate people about rent control while also building / demonstrating support for it.
Based on capacity, 33WF agreed to be part of the first wave that would begin collecting signatures in 2017, aiming to get it on the ballot in six of our precincts: 1, 8, 13, 15, 20, and 23.
In late 2017, 33WF already had its eyes on the 2019 aldermanic election. The hope was that this referenda mobilization would help us train more members on organizing canvasses, talking to neighbors at the doors, and even testing out an early version of the precinct captain program. We would designate certain members to regularly hit the doors in their precinct, get to know their neighbors, and hit weekly signature goals to get the referendum on the ballot. This was before 33WF had its own office, so our Saturday canvasses happened out of the Christ Lutheran Church. Thanks to Rebecca Burns and Chris Poulos, who attended a Chicago DSA meeting to spread the word, we were often assisted by DSA members as well!
The conversations on the doors were an easy sell. While rents hadn’t reached the level of acceleration we would see during the pandemic, they were rising across the city and the cost of rent was on everyone’s mind. For many 33WF members, this was their first time going door-to-door for signature collection and learning how much effort it took, both to get a referendum on the ballot and then mobilize the “get out the vote” to make sure it passes.
On election day, the referendum was a resounding success!
33rd ward referendum results by precinct for March 2018:
- Pct 1: 73.82%
- Pct 8: 65.07%
- Pct 13: 75.30%
- Pct 15: 73.50%
- Pct 20: 72.20%
- Pct 23: 68.81%
The mobilization had been an important morale booster during the anger and demoralization of Trump’s first presidential term. The referendum helped till the soil with left-wing ideas, it recruited several new members to 33WF (many of whom are still with the organization as of this writing), trained more members on the power of canvassing, and helped lay the foundations for the 2019 aldermanic campaign. But it also demonstrated the limits of non-binding referenda, because the fact is that it is now 2025 and we still do not have rent control. But with a larger and more experienced political ecosystem of left-wing organizations and politicians, hopefully our chances of winning this reform are better than ever.
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We hope you'll join us on Thursday, May 1, 6-10pm, at Rockwell On The River (3057 N Rockwell St) for our 10 Year Anniversary fundraiser with United Neighbors of the 35th Ward!
Tickets: https://bit.ly/peoplepower10
