In the face of such inaction, some individuals, like Fofanah, have begun organizing with other tenants in their building to demand some form of rent relief from their landlord—and plan a rent strike if they don’t get it. Many of them are new to community organizing, but say they’re happy to learn that experience is not a prerequisite for coordinating a rent strike.

“We’re demanding a rent freeze,” said Fofanah, who, along with the other tenants in her building, send a demand letter to their landlord this past week. “We don’t want to pay rent in May. A lot of us can’t pay rent in May and were lucky to be able to pay in April.”

The task of organizing an apartment building’s worth of tenants might seem daunting on its face, especially for someone who has never done any sort of community organizing or advocacy work. Talking to strangers can be intimidating, and trying to get those strangers on board with something as potentially divisive as a rent strike can seem even more so, especially when you might need to rely on your neighbors’ goodwill during future stages of the pandemic. Demanding anything from a landlord might be the most intimidating part in all this, given the risk of eviction or some other form of retaliation. But, while the landlords haven’t been so amenable, the individuals who spoke with VICE said that the vast majority of their neighbors, even those whose income hasn’t been affected, have received their efforts warmly.