Jane Benedict, a tenant leader for 50 years and a founder of Met Council on Housing, the city’s preeminent tenant advocacy group, died at the age of 93 on June 19 in Oakland, Cal., where she had been living since 1999.
Her work on housing and tenant issues began in the early 1950s when she was living in Yorkville with her family and helped organize Yorkville Save Our Homes. As a member of the American Labor Party she had been active in the fight against urban renewal plans of Robert Moses, which threatened to demolish sound housing stock. In 1958 she joined other tenants to form the citywide Metropolitan Council on Housing in response to the threatened repeal of rent control.
She organized rent strikes to force slum landlords to maintain buildings and coordinated sit-ins to prod state and city officials to enforce rent and housing codes. She led Met Council through the 1960s and 1970s, and then served on its executive board through the 1980s and 1990s. She was also prominent in antiwar and anti-apartheid demonstrations.
A son, Jim Hawley, of Oakland, and daughter, Ellen Hawley, of Minneapolis, survive.
