“At a time when discussions of the housing crisis are dominated by the state, non-​profits, and legal decision-makers, Renoviction and Resistance in the Capitalist City rejects reformist efforts as a failed experiment and urges tenants to count on themselves. Clear-eyed and unsparing, Webber and Zigman expose the systems that protect landlord profit and make clear that organized resistance, and not bureaucracy, is the way forward to defend against displacement. An important and timely intervention in one of the defining struggles of our time.”– Kevin Laforest, community legal clinic lawyer

“Renoviction and Resistance in the Capitalist City offers an alternative and critical understanding of the increasingly violent practice of renoviction based on tenants’ real life and experiences. It reminds us of how Canadian policy facilitates state-sanctioned displacement, serves private interests, and aims to increase landlords’ profit.”– Collectif de Recherche de d’Action sur l’Habitat (CRACH), Montréal

“A crucial guide to the class struggle that exists in the home, not just the workplace. Renoviction and Resistance in the Capitalist City is an accessible and indispensable handbook on the strength of autonomous tenant organizing and the weakness of relying on legalistic and non-profit approaches.”– Mike Gouldhawke, contributor to Briarpatch and the Yellowhead Institute

“During unprecedented displacement driven by the hyper-commodification of housing, Renoviction and Resistance in the Capitalist City is an urgent and timely book grounded in the authors’ experience as tenant organizers. Webber and Zigman meticulously lay bare the landlords’ strategic playbook for expulsion and rent extraction, unequivocally demonstrating that renoviction is not actually about renovations or improving tenants’ quality of life. They document powerful examples of effective tenant resistance, proving that while renovictions have proliferated, they are not a foregone conclusion. Tenants can organize, fight back, and ultimately change their landlords’ eviction plans.”– Andrew Crosby, Carleton University, author of Resisting Eviction

“Webber and Zigman challenge prevailing narrow definitions of renoviction and illustrate how landlords use renovictions as a profit-generating strategy to close rent gaps in ‘undermanaged’ buildings with low rents. Their incisive book highlights the social impacts of renovictions and the extralegal tactics landlords have employed to displace tenants. Importantly, they also detail strategies and actions tenants have deployed to successfully resist renoviction and remain in their homes.”– Julie Mah, Eviction Research Lab, New Housing Alternatives Partnership, University of Toronto

“Renoviction and Resistance in the Capitalist City is essential reading for people who care about radical housing justice. Webber and Zigman offer us a rigorous study of renoviction deeply rooted in organizing wisdom and experience, which exposes mainstream myths about our housing system, and offers an energizing guide for tenants who want to fight displacement and build community power.”– Martine August, associate professor, School of Planning, University of Waterloo

“Renoviction and Resistance in the Capitalist City unravels the cover offered to landlords by a legal system and real estate industry that profits from the displacement of tenants from their homes. It lays bare how evictions, both legal and illegal, are about property values and investment income. Policy tweaks masked as ‘tenant rights’ further entrench evictions as a legitimate tool of property owners. This book clearly explains what motivates renovictions and offers up its best antidote: organized working-class people collectively fighting the concerted efforts to evict them. Its mission is compelling and required reading for tenants and their advocates.”– Samuel Mason, tenant lawyer, Parkdale Community Legal Services

The authors will be speaking at a TPL event on July 7.