How can struggles for housing justice act as a lens to expand housingresearchers’ understanding of the rental crisis and of the systems thatunderpin this crisis? By presenting papers from Sweden, Spain,Greece, the UK, and Australia this special issue contributes withknowledge on how housing struggles can inform new theoreticaland methodological approaches within the field of housing studies.In turn, the SI presents three tenets that together form a frameworkfor housing scholars: institutionalization as politics, tenants as poli-tical actors, and learning housing justice. We argue that it is crucialfor housing scholars to recenter on struggles for housing justice intheir readings of contemporary housing systems.