Who we are
Neighbors, not bystanders.
Flint Hills Tenants United is a tenant-led union of renters in Manhattan and across the Flint Hills of Kansas. We organize so that every person has a safe, affordable, and dignified place to call home — and so that the people who live in our homes have real power over them.
Our story
We started with a conversation
We began the way most tenant unions do: a handful of neighbors comparing notes and realizing their problems weren’t personal failures but shared conditions. What one renter faces alone, a building can face together — and what a building wins, a whole town can learn from. We’re growing block by block, and there’s a place in this for you.
What we stand for
The principles behind the work
Tenant-led
Decisions are made by renters, not for them. The people closest to the problem set the direction.
Solidarity, not charity
We don’t hand out favors. We build mutual support so no neighbor stands alone against a landlord.
Democratic and independent
We answer to our members — not to landlords, developers, or political patrons.
Housing justice
A different housing future is possible
Winning better repairs and fairer leases matters — and so does imagining beyond the landlord-tenant relationship itself. Around the world and around the country, communities are proving that housing can be organized for people instead of profit.
Social housing
Permanently affordable, publicly or collectively owned homes that are taken off the speculative market for good.
Community land trusts
Land held in common by the community so that homes stay affordable for one generation after the next.
Tenant cooperatives
Buildings owned and run by the people who live in them, turning renters into decision-makers.
Build it with us
Whether you want to organize your building, learn your rights, or help imagine what comes next, there’s a role for you in this union.