If you live in Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky, you’ve certainly heard of—and likely been impacted by—the damage to the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge (also known as the “Big Mac Bridge”) caused by a fire that occurred in the early morning hours on November 1st. It is very telling that the knee-jerk reaction from local government agencies, without any specific evidence supporting their claim, was to imply that unhoused people—who are just looking for a place to sleep that is even slightly out of the elements—were responsible for the damage to the Big Mac Bridge.

As Cincinnati’s housing crisis intensifies and landlords rake in cash, more and more people are being thrown into the streets. As real estate prices continue to rise and housing ownership is further concentrated into the hands of corporate real estate developers, working class people’s only options are to rent or find themselves unhoused. To combat this, we, as renters and working class people, need to build powerful organizations of our own to combat the power that landlords hold over us.