Landlord Retaliated Against Prominent Tenant Leader in Lease Nonrenewal, Says Philadelphia Fair Housing Commission

Alden Park ruling is city’s first known case of a tenant organizer successfully proving that eviction was due to participation in a tenant association.

May 13, 2026  – Yesterday, in a victory for the city’s growing tenant organizing movement, the Philadelphia Fair Housing Commission issued a first-of-its-kind ruling, finding that the owners of Alden Park Apartments engaged in unlawful retaliation when they attempted to evict prominent tenant leader Kadi Ashby as part of a retaliatory scheme to oust the “2-3 ringleaders” of the building’s tenant association.

“I joined the Alden Park Tenant Association to fight for safer living conditions for myself and my neighbors, but instead of addressing the serious problems in our building, my landlord tried to push me out,” said Kadi Ashby. “This ruling makes clear that tenants have the right to organize and speak up for safe housing without fear of retaliation, no matter what a landlord says or does.”

Last year, Ashby and her neighbors formed the Alden Park Tenants Association in response to growing concerns about landlord neglect and mismanagement at the massive, historic East Falls apartment complex, which has been repeatedly cited by the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections over the past year for falling concrete and crumbling balconies.

Ms. Ashby has always paid her rent on time and in full. Yet in September 2025, her landlord issued an eviction notice to her, claiming that she violated her lease when she posted a public Zillow link in a tenant association group chat regarding the “multi-million dollar houses” occupied by the companies that own and manage Alden Park – a conglomeration of LLCs connected to out-of-state corporate real estate and private equity firms RAM Partners and L3C Capital.

After receiving the eviction notice, Ashby filed a complaint with the Fair Housing Commission, the city agency tasked with enforcing the city’s unfair rental practices ordinances. Represented by the Public Interest Law Center, she presented evidence that the lease termination notice was sent one day after the president of the landlord company instructed his lawyer to evict the “2-3 ringleaders” of the association. She argued that this was blatant retaliation, and that the notices were invalid and unenforceable under the city’s anti-retaliation ordinance that protects a tenant’s right to organize.

The commission agreed, relying on internal emails between property management team and their lawyer as “clear evidence of retaliation” and ruling that the landlord companies’ “primary reason” for seeking to evict Ms. Ashby was because they were “unhappy with Tenant’s role in the Tenant Association” and that the WhatsApp post was a “convenient excuse to terminate Tenant without seeming to target Tenant as a member of the Tenant Association.”

“Tenants like Kadi make us all safer when they speak up about the unsafe living conditions at their apartment complexes. But they can only do that when the city’s protections work as intended,” said Madison Gray, staff attorney at Public Interest Law Center. “What this decision shows is straightforward: Out-of-state corporate landlords cannot bully Philadelphia renters into silence about the conditions of their homes.”

The commission’s final order is available here.

“This ruling reaffirms that tenants in Philadelphia have the right to report unsafe conditions and assert their rights without fear of retaliation,” said Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke. “The Fair Housing Commission’s decision in Kadi Ashby’s case makes clear that retaliatory actions by landlords will not be tolerated, and our city will continue to improve our protection of tenants who speak out about unsafe housing conditions.”

Ashby testified about her experience multiple times before the Philadelphia City Council in support of the Safe Healthy Homes Act, which the Public Interest Law Center drafted alongside One PA Renters United Philadelphia and Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke. When it is implemented in November, the new law will strengthen tenant protections, including the right to organize.