A couple of tenant unions in the greater Kansas City area have started a rent strike over housing costs for alleged poor living conditions at two properties owned by different landlords. It's the largest rent strike in the region since 1980, according to the Kansas City Star. Union members of Independence Towers and Quality Hill Towers told the newspaper that they are withholding a total of $60,000 for October.

These rent strikes are supposedly the first to directly and intentionally target the Federal Housing Finance Authority, which oversees Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Tenants pay the loan guarantors. However, their rent payments allow the owners to pay the property mortgages, and the tenants are looking to push the agency into action.

Rents are high having grown faster than the Consumer Price Index even with the heavy increase in inflation during the pandemic, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Inflation of all costs but shelter between August 2019 and August 2024 was 20.7%. The inflation of shelter alone was 26.3%.