If you look up at the balcony on Henry Granville-Widener's third-floor apartment,

you'll probably notice the signs.

One says rent strike.

The others in Spanish.

It translates as, divided we beg.

United, we bargain.

I called Henry up in his lunch break the other day to talk about why he hung these signs up.

The tape's a little rough here, but you'll get the idea.

How long have they been there?

Since the wrench track started in April, April 1st.

Did you ever have any second thoughts about putting them out there?

I get calls, you know, pretty frequent. I've gotten calls and emails about it from the leasing office.

You know, and it does scare me. Last time I had a conversation with the office about it. And I was, you know, shaking, very scared about, you know, confronting this reality that they don't like this.

How many times have they asked you to take it down?

Oh, probably four or five.

If they're paying attention to that sign,

it means that we're going to be hurt.

So it's going to stay up until we get what we want.

What Henry and his neighbors want is a promise that even though some of them might be short on rent, they won't get evicted.

During COVID, more and more people here at this complex just outside Washington, D.C., started having trouble making ends meet.

One day, Henry went out front and saw a neighbor's dresser and bed sitting right on the curb. That's when he started organizing. When a petition

with 50 signatures got ignored by their management company, Henry started withholding rent. He convinced more than a dozen other tenants to

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