Tech Tools for Justice, launched in 2024, develops mapping and data tools that help tenants combat housing injustice and hold unscrupulous landlords accountable. Watchdog group Accountable.US reports that many powerful property owners, despite reaping huge profits, are rolling out unfair rent increases, charging excessive fees, and using “abusive” tactics to evict renters. Some landlords neglect their buildings, harming the planet and tenants alike. They fail to fix energy leaks, leading to greater carbon emissions, or even gas leaks, creating a safety hazard. Renter Dylan Pederson founded Tech Tools for Justice after facing repression from his landlord while attempting to form a multi-building tenant union. Prospective renters must share all manner of personal information with landlords. Meanwhile, landlords aren’t always as transparent. Some engage in “ownership obscurity,” using complex webs of trusts and shell companies to keep their personal identities and property holdings secret. This leaves tenants feeling helpless in the face of negligence or outright abuse. It also makes it challenging for local officials to identify the most powerful landlords in their cities. Tech Tools for Justice is leveling the playing field by creating the first national database of landlords, Landlord Mapper, offering people easy access to landlord information at no cost.
Tech Tools for Justice, based in Chicago, has two volunteer staff, one a tenant himself. The organization is committed to revealing how various landlords treat tenants and maintain their buildings—all in one convenient place. Its searchable database lists which properties a landlord owns (including the values of those properties), as well as complaints, code violations, and evictions. The organization’s mapping and data tools also shed light on corporate landlord networks, exposing patterns of eviction and gentrification in our cities and communities. Their free tool benefits renters, researchers, activists, and policymakers alike. Upcoming is an interactive web map to help raise public awareness about corporate landlordism and its impact on communities in Chicago and beyond. Tech Tools for Justice aims to provide tenants nationwide with crucial information about a landlord—or a trust, shell company, property management company, or investment firm involved in landlordism—with just a few keystrokes.
