Purpose

The Richmond Rent Fund provides direct financial assistance to tenants facing housing instability. Existing taxpayer-funded programs carry a breadth of barriers and a timeline that’s wholly insufficient for marginalized households, vulnerable communities, and tenants building collective power. By operating as a solidarity-based mutual aid fund, this collective resource is sustained by neighbors and allied partners, while remaining accountable to tenants in crisis, tenant organizers, and the broader community.

Mission

We are a community-accountable resource that keeps tenants housed. The fund provides direct financial support to neighbors facing eviction, displacement, and housing instability–funded entirely by community solidarity, governed by those it serves, and rooted in the understanding that housing insecurity is not individual failure but structural violence.

Vision

We envision communities-

where housing is understood to be a human right- not a commodity;
where neighbors can collectively sustain each other through crisis;
where the relationship between those who access and those who support is solely mutual and free of charity;
and where the ability to keep a neighbor stably housed builds power against the systems that extracts wealth from tenants and transfers it to landlords, investors, and financial institutions