Listen Now: Rent Too High? Join a Tenant Union.

V Interesting with V Spehar

Lemonada Media

News

4.9 • 882 Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The rent is too damn high, housing quality standards are far too low, and Tara Raghuveer is doing something about it. Tara is director of Kansas City Tenants, a tenant union which organizes to ensure that everyone in KC has a safe, accessible, and truly affordable home. In this powerful conversation with host Gloria Riviera, Tara explains how the union of more than 10,000 members is fighting against our country’s dysfunctional housing market and standing up for what they truly deserve. This episode is presented by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. MCF supports leaders who work to shift the balance of power in their communities toward working people and families, and who have the vision and capacity for building a truly representative economy. Learn more at caseygrants.org or visit on social media @caseygrants. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's me, Steve Burns, and I'm so glad you're here because you and I go way back, right?
0:06.6	Yeah. And look at us now. Like, we're all grown up. We've got this new podcast where we talk about all this grown-up stuff.
0:12.5	And there's special guests like Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Nye, but for the most part, it's about you.
0:19.9	I mean, it's always been about you.
0:21.9	From Lemonada Media, alive with Steve Burns is coming September 17th,
0:25.6	wherever you get your podcasts,
0:27.1	or you can watch every episode on YouTube.
0:33.2	Lemonada.
0:33.7	Yeah. Manada. Hello and welcome to Good Things.
0:56.4	I'm your host, Gloria Riviera.
1:01.0	Over the years, it's become more and more expensive to rent.
1:05.2	In fact, unaffordable rent recently hit an all-time high.
1:13.1	Half of all renters are rent-burdened, and more than a quarter are spending upwards of 50% of their paycheck on housing. Scenarios in which people are trying to decide, do I pay my rent this month or do I feed my
1:19.8	family, happen all the time. But higher rent prices don't necessarily reflect housing quality.
1:26.6	In some places, rents continue to rise as conditions get worse.
1:31.2	Our guest today, Tara Raghavir, pours all her energy into fighting against our dysfunctional housing market
1:37.1	and the people in housing who abuse power. Tara is the director of Casey Tenants in Kansas City,
1:44.0	which organizes to ensure that everyone in Kansas City has a safe, accessible, and truly affordable home.
1:51.8	Tara, welcome to Good Things. Thank you so much for joining us.
1:55.7	Thanks so much for having me.
1:58.0	Before we get into the work that you do, the wins that you've worked so hard to achieve,
2:03.7	I really want to hear about the emotional space or place that so many tenants are coming from
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Lemonada Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Lemonada Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.