On May 30, 1995, New York’s mayor Rudy Giuliani sent an armored tank down East 13th Street to evict a community of squatters and arrest dozens of protestors. SURVIVAL WITHOUT RENT follows a vibrant community as they illegally take over abandoned buildings in the 1980s and form a haven for artists and activists. Told with rare archival footage and oral histories, the film provides a glimpse into this anticapitalist world on New York’s old Lower East Side.